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Originally Posted by Bilbo1967
I'm curious how a ten minute play can provide anybody with the conclusion that the "lack of apps was the most glaring deficit"?
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Probably because you've never handled a Surface. It is obvious after spending any amount of time in the app store, as mgmueller said.
Other than that, I approached the Surface with the idea of seeing what I could and could not do that I could accomplish on an iPad. Can I read the news or RSS feeds using Reeder, Zite, Flipboard, or Pulse? Nope. Can I get digital versions of my magazine subscriptions, like Wired and the New Yorker? Nope. Can I read my time-shifted articles using Instapaper? Find restaurants using Yelp? No and no. Can I play my favourite games, like Carcassonne, Letterpress, Beyond Ynth, Tilt to Live, Monkey Island, Sword and Sorcery, Machinarium, and so on? Nope. Can I modify my site's code using Diet Coda or edit my blog using the Squarespace app? No. Ad infinitum...
The store also lacks choice. There are several Twitter clients, if I recall correctly, but fewer than on competing platforms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dulin's Books
what were the issues you faced?
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Principally a huge amount of trouble hitting tiny touch targets with my finger. They ported over the desktop UI without making any discernable (to me) changes from Word 2010, and it is not at all optimized for a touchscreen tablet. That was bad enough when trying to push buttons, but it got worse when performing more complex functions like editing formulae or bringing up context menus. The program also hung a bit, particularly when selecting text.
The other major problem I had with it was how much effort it took to constantly lift my hand off the keyboard, move it to the screen to select something or change columns, then bring it back down to type. Or to keep my hand suspended in the air in front of the screen to repeatedly touch while typing one-handed. It was so, so, so much more inefficient than using a mouse. I kept thinking, "why would I choose this over an ultraportable laptop to do work?"
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Originally Posted by mgmueller
On one hand I agree: The experience is somewhat inconsistent. On one side, you have the tiles. Great design and quite an innovation. On the other side, the office suite falls back to the desktop. Still better than what I've seen on iOS or on Android.
But: There's a version of OneNote within the office suite. And there's another, Windows 8 specific, version of OneNote. I very much prefer the Windows 8 style. And it perfectly shows, what can be done...
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I generally liked the tiles, but would have to play around with them for a while longer to get a good feel for how they work. I'm in total agreement that they should have redeveloped the office suite from scratch to be optimized for the metro environment, at least on tablets.