“There may be a time in the future when all the bugs have been fixed, the third-party app support has arrived, and some very smart engineers in Redmond have ironed out the physical kinks in this type of product which prevent it from being all that it can be. But that time isn’t right now – and unfortunately for Microsoft, the clock is ticking.” The Verge’s review is not so positive, because they focus on what Surface is now.
I think that’s my issue with The Verge review. The knock on the ecosystem is really unfair.
The Windows Store is growing at a rate of 2,000 apps a week. It is at over 7,000 now. It is nonsensical to suggest that Windows 8 will have an app problem when the addressable installed base will reach over a hundred million in a year.
The ecosystem will grow, and it will grow really fast. By comparison the Windows Phone Marketplace launched with only 700 apps. Yes, 700. Today? 125,000 and growing.
If you take that, and then look at the fact that Windows 8 will launch with something like 8,000 apps the situation looks a lot less dire.
By the Holiday Season, when most of the PC sales are probably going to be made.. I can see easily over 20,000 apps in the Store.
It do not matter for customers buying NOW.
Come one if you do review you do it to help others decide, what to do NOW. It would be unfair for Verge to do otherwise.
And as usual pre-release app market grow IS PURE PR.
Entity control ALL FACTORS that could cause for such growth. Eg. they could on purpose add apps to shop just before launch to create “high” rate just before launch.
Give me stats from 6 months and we will talk
PS Know 3 people from my Technical University who submitted GARBAGE APPS (their words! not main) just because there where Lumias to win for 5 submitted apps. I’m FAR from saying that it means that all apps for WinP7 where garbage-like quality*, but it prove that shop owners can influence number of apps in a way that do not benefit customers.
* I always LMAO at those ignorants who claimed that lower number meant that THEIR shop is full of quality apps while other bigger are full of crap. Whether they where iOS users (yes not always iOS had biggest app store out there ;P), Android users, WinP users, etc. That is all psychological bulshit.
Learn2EN (dunno, pay more attention during EN classes at your uni or smth), you’re embarrassing PL (generally, there’s more about EN than substituting – in sentences written with a grammar “intermediate” between the two languages – PL words for English ones that are suggested by auto-correct…)
Edited 2012-11-01 00:12 UTC
Unfair, by focusing on the state of the RT ecosystem as is and not on some fanciful wishful thinking on how it might look in 6 months, a year…hmm, presumably RT potential buyers might care to know the pig-in-poke they might be spending real money on. Thanks, but if they want a locked down pad with lots of apps, which actually work and costs an arm and a leg there’s one already available, the iPad.
Not that I’m recommending that either, but if you really want to throw money at someone don’t be a complete fool, get something worth having in return.
It goes way beyond Apps. Check out this very well done interactive web page that shows the comparative global positions of the various competing ecosystems. You can click on each OS and see how it does globally with music, films, apps, etc.
http://www.macstories.net/stories/mapping-the-entertainment-ecosyst…
“The Verge’s review is not so positive, because they focus on what Surface is now”
And what will it be in the future? Someone will probably hack it to run Cyanogenmod and/or NetBSD.
Not possible.
MS tortured Secure Boot, and now you can not switch it off (as UEFI standard MANDATE) and instead turned it permanently on.
No other software will run on it. Just because hw will refuse other software, unless someone will be able to steal MS master keys, but that would be disaster to all Secure Boot owners…
i’d say that sounds like a great thing, not like a disaster
This statement has me curious too. By stealing Microsoft’s keys, would that mean things would be a “disaster” like… before Secure Boot existed? (IOW not that disastrous)
If it can’t run Solid Works and compile a kernel it is just a stylish new toy that locks you down with a high price tag.
Almost forgot, Someone I know in retail in Hong Kong has one and decided to bring it over the border to China, the largest market on earth, guess what? With China actively blocking Facebook, Twitter and nearly every other social network, it barely does anything.
Excluding that market is suicide since they outspend Americans on these toys.
Edited 2012-10-25 07:24 UTC
Who said it couldn’t compile a kernel?
Windows RT has a browser that runs JavaScript.
JavaScript is Turing complete
Hence:
http://bellard.org/jslinux/
Should be able to compile a kernel in less than a month or two…
I wouldn’t be surprised if Windows RT got a real native compiler at some point, but until then its still possible.
Hm, so it could also run virtually any arbitrary emulator inside of it…
I think I know what I’ll be wasting CPU cycles on
(well, maybe in a decade or two)
Because so many people care about Solid Works or compiling kernels (hell, by now the kernel-compiling thing is never done by a vast majority of desktop Linux users, I’m sure), on their highly portable tablet…
But WRT UIs in general: especially ~CAD of various kind could be awesome on (large) touchscreens down the line – back to the drawing board model of interaction, after the short detour to unnatural, unwieldy (decoupled from input) monitors.
And I imagine that some apps for Chinese social networks will show up quickly…
Edited 2012-11-01 00:08 UTC
Well, why I’m not surprised? Maybe because they don’t like much of anything that’s not coming from Cupertino? Good looking (?!?) reviews, maybe but if you’d rather look for fair and in-depth, you’re better served from the likes of Ars technica or, even better, AnandTech.
And just to play the devil’s advocate here: there were no apps for the iPhone (by design, no less) and there were no apps for Android either.
Oh, and did anyone notice that The Verge has been officially quoted during the other day’s keynote? I really wonder why…
RT.
Yeah, they should have focused on what surface will be in the future: something you’ll get from the bargain bin, with a price much more in line with its value.
“The Verge’s review is not so positive, because they focus on what Surface is now.”
That is the PURPOSE of a product review! How can a reviewer speculate as to what a product WILL become and be credible? Reviews are based on observation and testing, both of which have nothing to do with the future.
Speculation is for fanboys and dreamers. Reviews SHOULD be pragmatic.
That’s not really true particularly in ~IT industry.
NVM how the size of company, its position, and expected support play major role down the line – the consumers themselves certainly look also at the future when buying, not only at the present (Osborne effect anyone?)