I had another quick thought about the Microsoft Surface that I haven’t seen addressed anywhere else. I’m not sure how much the thought is worth; it may presume too much. But I figured it was worth pointing out.

Microsoft has determined to bundle its keyboard covers with each of the Surface tablets, rather than sell them as an accessory. Apple, if you might recall, had a keyboard dock for the first iPad, but it was a $60 accessory (I bought one, figuring I would do a lot of writing on the iPad). Some might say “Ha! Apple’s being a cheapskate here.  The Surface is worth more!”  I think that’s wrong.

Suppose you’re developing a program for the iPad when the iPad was first released. You could incorporate a certain amount of support for Bluetooth keyboards and the like. The one thing you couldn’t do, however, is assume that there was a keyboard attached to the iPad. I would guess that in 90% of circumstances, there wouldn’t be.

Now let’s suppose you’re developing for Windows 8 tablets. Since Microsoft is incorporating a keyboard into their tablets, it’s likely that other companies would follow. As a developer you may well begin to assume that a keyboard is attached, and program accordingly. Maybe your game will use WASD style movement controls. Maybe another program will use keys as input methods.

This is really bad for the platform. In my view, you want developers to create the touch interface, rather than rely on the PC style keyboard. You’re not always going to be in a place where you can use a keyboard, and it’s not going to be the right method of input for a lot of things.

Maybe I’m wrong and developers, at least other than the ones not worth thinking about, would code for the tablet without consideration for the keyboard. But I’d worry about it.

So there was an announcement about Microsoft Surface yesterday. Looks like it might be a cool device. The anti-Apple crowd are certainly going to crown this as the next iPad-killer, a crown they’ve given away to roughly fifty-seven devices now (few of which have sold more total than the best single day of iPad sales).

I’m not convinced that this thing will be competitive at all. And I have several reasons for it.

First, let’s look at the video Microsoft themselves produced for it. Go ahead, I’ll still be here when you get back.

Notice anything special about it? Or rather, anything missing from it?

Compare it to Apple’s latest iPad video for a really sharp contrast.

That’s right. The Microsoft video does not actually show anyone doing anything with the device.  Why not?

I’ll let you answer that one for yourself.

My hunch is that we’ll have any number of pundits proclaim “Finally!  A tablet that you can do real productive work on!” Is that so? Then why doesn’t Microsoft show someone actually doing something productive with it?

My hunch is their cover is going to be as awkward to type on as those silicone keyboards that the early computer makers once shipped their computers with, and thankfully stopped when they realized that they were a horrible experience. Maybe not. But is there a way to type without the keyboard? Say I want to just put in a word in a search field to find a movie, or a bit of music. Can I do that without the keyboard? Or do I have to find a flat surface just to do that?

Again, I’m not sure the answers to those questions. It’s not apparent from Microsoft’s site and it’s also not in the Verge’s rundown of the event. I’m guessing it has to have an onscreen keyboard but it sure would be nice to know!

Let’s look at the spec sheet.  Let’s concentrate on the Windows RT tablet because that’s likely the one that will be positioned to compete with the iPad.  It’s a tad heavier than the iPad, a tad thinner, neither of which is likely to be a deal breaker. Next we have the display: A “10.6” ClearType HD Display”.  What are the exact dimensions? Who knows! I do know that Wikipedia defines an HD display as something of at least 1280x720. My bet is that’s exactly what it is.  If it were better, Microsoft would say so.  And at 1280x720 it’s competing with the iPad 2 (which, incidentally, is thinner and lighter), not the iPad 3. Not even close to an iPad 3. No one comparing the two side to side would say the screen comes close.

Then there’s the battery.  31.5 W-h. Great.  That’s actually 11 W-h lower than the iPad 3, but there are all sorts of differences between the systems that makes it impossible to really figure out the one thing you care about: how much life will you get out of this battery? Why isn’t Microsoft saying?

Then there’s price and availability. Microsoft promises that it will be “competitive” with other ARM tablets. I think at $299 this would be a strong alternative to the iPad 2. But if Microsoft were going to price it at $299 they would have said so. My guess is that they’ll price it at $599, claiming that at the same price as the iPad, you get your touch cover, a keyboard, and Office, all of which would drive the price of the “equivalent” iPad to over $700.

At $599 it will flop.  It’s not competitive with the iPad 3, no matter how much Microsoft would like it to be.  At $499 it will flop.  At $399 it might see more success than the Android tablets.  But if Microsoft were going to price this thing at $399, they would say so.

And availability? Who knows?  Chances are you won’t have to wait all that long for an iPad 4 after this, and this thing isn’t competitive with an iPad 3.

So, to review, here’s what Microsoft isn’t telling you. Their video doesn’t tell you what it’s like to actually work on the tablet. They don’t tell you the screen resolution. They don’t tell you the battery life. They don’t tell you the price. They don’t tell you when it will be available.

Why don’t they tell you any of these things?

Because you won’t like the answers.

I wish I had some of these to review.

There seems to be a few articles running around about how the next generation Mac Book Pro is a computer you should avoid because it’s not upgradeable and hard to fix and so on. (See, e.g., here and here.) First, a few words about that.

I can give the iFixit guy a pass because he’s basically shilling for his own business. He makes a living off of people upgrading and repairing their own computers, which presumably they won’t be able to do with the new MacBook Pro. I question Wired’s wisdom in letting a guy so conflicted up the wazoo offering such an opinion, but that’s neither here nor there.

But TUAW? That’s apparently a site for Apple fanboys. My question: how can you be an Apple fanboy and rail against this machine for its lack of upgradeability? How is it that you have not moved on to covering Dell or Android or something else who caters to that geeky segment who likes doing that? Have you had your head up your ass for the last decade and a half?

Ever since the original iMac came out, Apple’s philosophy here has been obvious. They will not let the design of a machine be dictated by concerns for upgradeability and repairability. If upgradeability and expandability can be added without materially affecting design, great. But they’re easily discarded when it got in the way of a good design.  People were griping about the iMac’s all in one design meaning you couldn’t upgrade the screen.  Or the batteries not being swappable in MacBooks. Or no swappable battery in the iPhone, or, for that matter, any sort of card slots in the iPhone or iPad. Prior to now, the MacBook Air had the same issues as the current MacBook Pro. Consumers voted, making the MacBook Air the most popular Apple computer and putting the world on notice that it was the way to go. Apple’s path in this regard has been obvious. If you’re someone who really values upgradeability and repairability, why haven’t you abandoned Apple and moved on?

Besides, I thought.  You can always get the current MacBook Pro anyway.  That’s when I discovered something I thought was interesting.  Go to Apple’s store and try equipping MacBook Pros and next generation MacBook Pros in a similar manner.  Here’s what you get:

Old MacBook Pro: 2.3Ghz i7 processor, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, Superdrive, standard Glossy Widescreen: $2,399.00

Next Generation MacBook Pro: 2.3Ghz i7 processor, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB Flash storage, Superdrive, Retina display: $2,278.00

Old MacBook Pro: 2.6Ghz i7 processor, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, Superdrive, standard Glossy Widescreen: $3,099.00

Next Generation MacBook Pro: 2.6Ghz i7 processor, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB Flash storage, Superdrive, Retina display: $2,878.00

So, at the high end, you save $221, or a bit over 7%, by going with the newer model, and with that savings you get a much nicer display. (I’ve seen them. They’re fantastic.) Which makes me wonder about the sort of person who would buy an old MacBook Pro and equip it with an SSD.

So why are the products priced this way? It’s my belief that any sane person, which is to say someone who wants to use a laptop rather than tinker with it, would pick the next generation MacBook Pro over a similarly configured older one, even if they were priced the same. With these prices, Apple is positively pushing people to choose the newer computer. Which leads me to ask: why?

I can think of two broad reasons. First, let’s assume the quite likely scenario that the new MacBook Pro, with its assuredly expensive screen, non-standard parts, and so on, costs more to manufacture than the older MacBook Pro. If that’s the case, Apple’s taking some lower margins on this machine for strategic purposes. Perhaps they want to get the Retina quality display in enough people’s hands to provide developers the incentive to create software for when all of Apple’s products go retina. Perhaps they just think it’s a way of stealing market share. These are a couple possible explanations.

More interesting is the other possibility: perhaps our assumption was wrong, and it actually costs less to manufacture a new MacBook Pro than an similarly equipped older one. Maybe all these customizations have led to an economy of scale where all the standard bits that get left out of the newer machine end up resulting in savings allowing more expensive custom bits.  If that’s the case, then that’s rather exciting, and offers a solid counterpoint to those articles decrying the lack of upgradeability of the machine. If I offered you a retina display and $221 in exchange for not ever being able to upgrade your machine, would you take that?

I would.

So now the topic that prompted me to create this blog: the asymmetrical blades on the new MacBook Pro.

I’ll say this right up front: I’d love to have a new MacBook Pro. If I were still earning paychecks that allowed me to buy one, I’d have ordered one immediately after they were announced. But I’m not in that position right now, and I’m not in a position where I would use such a laptop professionally. So my interest in it is primarily as a self-admitted Apple fanboy.

The one thing that blew me away about the product was the discussion of its fan.  The video, which you’ve probably seen already, is available on Apple’s web site, and the discussion of the fan is about at the 3:30 mark. The distinguishing aspect of the fan is that its blades are asymmetrical, which I understand to mean that the space between the blades varies. This, according to Apple, makes the fan seem quieter by spreading the pitches created by those blades across different wavelengths.

“Neat,” you may say. “But how many people would buy a machine based upon a fan?”

Not many, I suspect. But consider it for a second. Is there any computer company on the planet who would think to do this? Is there any other computer company on the planet that doesn’t just order fans from stock parts, identical to the fans made for any other laptop? My sense is that a computer company like Dell thinks “No one buys a computer based upon the fan, so let’s stick the cheapest thing in there we can so we can compete better on price.”

My feeling is that the fan, more than anything else, makes me want to buy this computer. It’s not the fan itself; it’s a neat feature that’s very nerdish to care about. What it is, however, is a signal. It’s a signal that Apple takes an approach to the computer that every single component of the computer, from the fan to the batteries to the power connector to the processor, is carefully designed to give the maximum benefit to the user. Every little bit counts.  And that’s incredibly appealing to me.

Two examples will illustrate the point. First is one of my favorite car stories, about the third generation Mazda RX-7. Mazda then understood better than anyone else that the lighter a car was, the better it would handle and the more you would get out of an engine’s power. One very visible but seemingly nutty example of this approach was that they drilled holes in the pedals of the machine. This saved, on the whole, perhaps three ounces from the car’s weight, a seemingly insignificant amount. But what you could tell by learning that they did this is that they took this fanatical approach to everything. Thus, you knew, in ways that you couldn’t see, that everywhere in the car they minimized weight. If they cared about a few ounces in the pedals, they cared about a few ounces in the trunk, and those added up. The RX-7 was not without its problems, but at the time it had an insane horsepower to weight ratio, at the same level as exotic cars costing five times as much money. You could not get a better pure sports car for the money.

The other example is from Warcraft, a game I play too much of. In that game, there are end game objectives that challenge the skills of a player. Players have “gem sockets” which they can use to add gems to make their gear better, and improve their chances of completing one of the end game challenges. You can insert gems of varying quality into those sockets. For a mage, for instance, an “uncommon” gem, which costs about 30 gold in the game currency, you would get an additional 30 intellect.  A “rare” gem would set you back 250 gold and grant you 40 intellect. An “epic” gem might cost 1500 gold and grant you 50 intellect.

What’s the difference between 30 and 50 intellect? Well, 20 extra intellect, by my calculations, would increase your “damage per second” by about 60 to 90 points. A typical mage might do 30,000 damage per second in a given fight, so the difference between a cheap uncommon gem and an expensive epic gem is about 0.2% to 0.3%. Someone I knew figured this out and figured that 0.3% would rarely make a difference, so he might as well save the money and go with the cheap gems.

I hated this approach. The problem with it is that you don’t just have one gem socket; you might have 15. If you’re talking 15 times that difference, you’re now up into the 3-4.5% range, which can make a difference. But it’s also a signal. There are other things you can do to optimize your gear, by buying “enchants”, “reforging” stats, or even selecting the appropriate piece from different pieces of gear. If you use uncommon gems, it’s a signal of an approach, an approach which might reduce your effectiveness by upwards of 10%. This is a huge amount, and if you take that approach I don’t want to be in your group, at least not if we’re trying very difficult challenges.

So that’s what the asymmetrical blades signal to me. They tell me that Apple takes this stuff seriously, and that like the Mazda engineers, they’re looking for every single little thing they can do to make this computer better.

Which is why I absolutely hate posts like this one, from TUAW. In it, Richard Gaywood essentially argues that you shouldn’t buy a MacBook Pro with the retina display because all of the parts are custom, none are replaceable, and so forth.  He gives a slight nod to the idea that doing so would make the machine heavier, and so forth, but it seems from the article that he really doesn’t understand the approach.

There are tons of computers on the market that use stock parts. (The older MacBook Pros are examples of such.) But that’s not the approach Apple took and I wouldn’t want them to take that approach. They took the approach of making the best computer without compromises. Using a standard SSD would increase the weight and thickness of the computer and that’s a tradeoff. Using upgradeable RAM would do the same. Taking that approach bit by bit and all of a sudden you have something that’s indistinguishable from a Dell. Better built, certainly, but not a computer with uncompromising design.

If he wants a computer that is designed like a Dell, there are plenty of them out there. But there’s nothing like the new MacBook Pro. It’s a product only Apple could make, and only Apple would make. And that’s the sort of product I want Apple to make, because it makes them a different and better company.  (How many people wailed about the iPhone’s lack of a removable battery, or the iPad’s lack of a USB slot or memory card slot? Most geeks pretend these things can be added without affecting design and usability, but they can’t.)

In any case, those asymmetrical blades are a signal.  They’re a signal that Apple thought about everything, thought about the little things that would make the computer slightly better. And I have confidence that those things add up to a truly incredible user experience.