Why do I have to choose between Desktop-like Productivity & Tablet-like Ease-of-Use?
My new employer confronted me with a problem: Do you want a MacBook Pro or a Microsoft Surface as your work machine? (We have permission to use them for personal dealings, too.)
This was tough for me.
My background
1st Phase: Windows 95 — Windows XP
Back then it wasn’t really a question what OS one uses. At least not in my household. During the later years I played around with Ubuntu and other Linux Distros, but they never made it as my “productive” system.
2rd Phase: Mac OS X Snow Leopard — Mac OS Sierra
The year before I got my first real smartphone. The decision to make the switch was certainly driven by the Halo effect & acknowledgment of superior UI design, but mostly because of the hardware.
3rd Phase: ?
I am definitely pleased in how my last Apple laptop performed in terms of reliability and speed. But since this purchase several things have happened.
- I switched back to Android, again (enough content for an article on its own, but price was certainly an issue)
- Microsoft under Satya Nadella is different for the better. Windows 10 is maybe a little bit boring, but stable and good-looking.
- Meanwhile at Apple, even die-hards are getting nervous. I wrote about the lack of consumer trust due to not transparent and volatile product releases. Almost every week new bugs — some bigger and mind-blowing, some smaller — are detected. The result: macOS seems somehow neglected. Maybe one company can only deal with one mainstream OS at the same time. And my potential work device received not so good reviews.
There are legit arguments against Windows, but — as with Android — I think it caught up to macOS faster than Apple got rid of its disadvantages.
In short: Microsoft getting more like Apple and Apple getting more like Microsoft makes the decision difficult.
But let’s take a step back. What do I really want?
Desktop-like productivity & Tablet-like ease-of-use
- I want to be able to write in my Note Taking-App with keyboard and with pen.
- I want to play first person shooters with mouse and board games with touch in local multiplayer mode.
- I want to use macros in Excel and flick through mails with my finger.
- I want a web browser where I can install extensions and read my saved articles on the couch.
- I want to edit my pictures with multitouch and the photo files to sync onto the device automatically without opening an app first.
From a conceptional perspective I want to use my device like Samsung Dex: Touch-first on the go, Desktop-first (keyboard, mouse, monitor) when docked in. Note that docking-in doesn’t include any cables. But in contrast to something like Dex, I want to be productive in both environments.
Now there are two ways to achieve this. The Apple way (getting an iPad and a Mac desktop or laptop) or the Microsoft way (getting a Surface).
Going with iPad, I would need a workaround. Parallels Access or Kickstarter-Projects like the Luna Display come to mind. Even with these “hacks”, it’s still not possible to connect the iPad to the accessory (external display / keyboard / hard drive) of your choice. This is as basic as it gets in terms of productivity needs.
Shockingly, most what Lukas Mathis said in 2014 still rings true today.
There are writers who write novels on iPads, and movie makers who cut their movies on iPads. But the fact that you have to point to these people, shows that they’re unusual.
Maybe two devices are the better way of handling this, but then I demand continuous, flawless and instant synchronisation of my work. Because of the walled garden Apple entrenches around their iOS-hardware, it has to come from Apple itself. Ironically, Microsoft is pushing what I would call seamless transition, while Apple didn’t enhance Handoff for quite a while.
If you would’ve imagined a future where Touch is the user input mechanism while still accomplishing everything, you wouldn’t have thought of switching between two devices. What works with touch on mobile (bigger buttons, simplified interface, streamlined UX) is often the better version overall.
This and of course the price consideration steered me to give the Surface the chance to prove itself. If the touchscreen features are good, I’m close to my goal — if their not, well then I use this device like a normal Windows laptop.
<Rant>
Unfortunately, even the slowest and cheapest tablet out there does the job of being a tablet better than a Microsoft Surface:
- Every time I unplug the window sizes change — what was fullscreen is not anymore. Docking and undocking also confuses the Surface in terms of resolution.
- The on-screen keyboard is a disaster. In Tablet Mode it should appear automatically with every input field, but sometimes I need to invoke it manually. In unsupported apps (that reads as every software not made by Microsoft) the keyboard hides what I’m writing by overlaying the inputs field.
- Using Google Chrome in Tablet Mode is impossible thanks to small tap targets. Using Chrome in ChromeOS-mode isn’t possible anymore. I even searched for a second browser, just for operation with my fingers — which brings me to next flaw:
- The Windows App Store is the worst App Store I’ve ever used. Apps that are on every device imaginable, are not there. Or even worse, they’re hideous copycats.
</Rant>
I want to use a tablet that has an elegant user interface, but also works well for productivity.
Do I want too much? Maybe, but keep in mind that both advertising departments promise exactly this combination of productivity & “touch” as of today. It’s clear they are both targeting this future, albeit coming from very different directions.
I still stand my opinion that trying to achieve both is the right strategy for Microsoft. They are at least attempting to bridge the gap — but in the 5 years of the Surface line, Windows is still far away from what I would call optimised for (or even tolerable on) touch devices.
On the other hand the first iPad shipped in 2010 and still hasn’t outgrown its image as a big iPod Touch. Split-Screen is a first step, but not more. It’s certainly easier to reimagine OS paradigms from scratch and then expand on them, rather than trying to fit legacy into a new skin. But you have to at least try to cater to professionals. That’s what I don’t see from Apple nowadays.
I doubt Samsung will be invested in Dex in the longterm, but it shows that even a newcomer has a chance of competing. The Desktop OS is ripe for disruption. Learnings from the smartphone should be deeply integrated and not strapped on top. Heck, there are even ready-made concepts from Indie UX designers. I keep my hopes up.
What sticks is the realisation that we have a long way to go til the revolution (that started with the iPhone more than a decade ago) will come full-circle.
