The Latest In Design Tech — Apple & Microsoft Go Head-to-Head
This week had the rare circumstance of two great companies, both with long and storied histories, unveiling products on successive days, in an attempt to adapt to a rapidly changing market.
On Wednesday, Microsoft officially unveiled its first desktop computer. The very next day, on Thursday, Apple unveiled its latest line-up of the venerable MacBook Pro portable computers.
Heated arguments and brand-loyalty aside, both were great launches with one thing in common — the two tech-titans are gunning for a specific user base — the creative professional. The question is, will Microsoft finally be able to muscle in on a market that has been firmly controlled by Apple for decades?
Microsoft Surface Studio & Dial
Microsoft Surface Studio is an all-in-one desktop PC that can double as an easily-adjustable drawing surface. It features a ginormous 28-inch touch-screen and an ingenious dial for precision zooming and menu-selecting, called Surface Dial . While comparisons to Apple’s iMac is inevitable, it would not be a stretch to say this is probably one of the best designed desktop computers ever, regardless of whether you swear allegiance to Mac or PC.
The screen, which by all accounts is an impressive feat of engineering, stands upright in traditional desktop computing mode, or tilts to a near horizontal plane like a drafting table for direct finger-on-app interaction. The display runs at an ultrahigh resolution (4,500 x 3,000) and can switch between the wide DCI-P3 color gamut and the more common sRGB with the push of a button — a useful feature allowing designers to see what their creations will look like on other devices.
Inside the base is a pretty powerful PC. The $3,000 model comes with an Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 2GB GeForce GTX 965M GPU and a 1TB hybrid drive, while the high-end $4,200 model has a Core i7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, a 4GB GeForce GTX 980M graphics card and a 2TB drive. At those prices, with the incredibly high-spec display and the focus on Pen input, the Studio is clearly not meant for the average user.
At the same time, by early accounts, there’s a fair amount of criticism that is also being directed at Microsoft for not refining the stylus, or Surface Pen as Microsoft likes to call it. The Surface Pen has much higher input lag than Wacom’s high-end solutions. For anyone coming from Wacom’s Cintiq or Intuos line of pen-tablets, this could potentially be a dealbreaker. For creative work, it’s imperative to have a pen that’s resposive at the lightest touch.
Along the same lines, the Surface Pen lacks recognition for ‘tilt’ & ‘rotate’, which again Wacom has near perfected over the years. Comparisons with Wacom came up in every conversation — that’s no surprise, given it’s the market leader. For the Surface Studio to even remotely compete with Wacom in the creative space, it needs to perfect it’s stylus tech.
Apple MacBook Pro 2016
A day after Microsoft’s big reveal, Apple ended the long wait for laptop users yearning for an upgrade by unveiling a new line of MacBook Pros. While the upgrades were predictable iterations, Apple did throw in a novel feature called the Touch Bar — a multi-touch OLED strip above the keyboard that changes context depending on the app in focus.
Officially dubbed the Touch Bar, the new addition sits above a revamped keyboard (one based on the 12″ MacBook‘s butterfly mechanism), as well as a larger Force Touch trackpad and replaces the traditional function keys. A miniature Retina Display with integrated Multitouch, the customizable Touch Bar can be used for traditional system functions like brightness and volume and dynamically adapts to showcase relevant controls for increased efficiency in whatever task you’re completing; QuickType suggestions pop-up when composing an email, emojis appear when using iMessage and scrubbing controls can be used when viewing or editing a video. And the best part is that the Bar doesn’t only work with Apple’s apps: you can use it to better control third-party apps like Photoshop, too.
As far as design and specs go, the new MacBook Pro is Apple’s thinnest and lightest ever. Aluminum on all sides, the 15″ and 13″ notebooks measure just 15.5mm and 14.9mm thin. While the 15″ comes with an Intel quad-core i7 processor with 16GB memory, a Radeon Pro GPU, and up to 2TB of storage, the 13″ comes with either an Intel dual-core i5 or i7, 8GB memory and Intel Iris graphics with 64MB eDRAM. Both also employ all-new speaker designs with a better dynamic range and air displacement, advanced thermal architecture to run cooler and quieter, four Thunderbolt 3 ports and up to 10 hours of battery life.
The Verdict
While it’s easy to be excited about the Surface Studio in the face of an otherwise iterative offering from Apple, it’s worth remembering the devil lies in the details. Microsoft has shown it can one-up Apple in design, but can it match or even exceed the stability and reliability that the Apple ecosystem provides for creatives?
While Apple will continue selling the MacBook Pros in large numbers (let’s not debate this, they will), for the Surface Studio to become a viable alternative to the iMac and to some extent, a Wacom pen tablet, Microsoft is going to have to work to gain mindshare with an audience that is intrinsically wary of Windows and Microsoft in general.
The difference between being the leader and the challenger is apparent in the two products introduced last week. The Surface Studio is a dramatic rethinking of the desktop computer, while the MacBook Pro is an iterative upgrade to a proven formula.
In any case, Microsoft deserves credit for innovating when Apple is content with minor iteration. Whether the challenger wins the round, is yet to be seen.
