iPad is Dooooooomed

Doug Gross writing for CNN:

It's sacrilege to some Apple fanboys.

Six words in and this article is already stupid.Yes, I get it; Apple is actually a cult-like religion and those who use it's products merely brainwashed zombies who have a blind allegiance to Apple. It has nothing to do with the quality of the products and software. Nothing.

But when Microsoft unveiled the Surface tablet (actually a pair of them) Monday, the software company clearly had one ultimate goal: to make a tablet that's better than the iPad.

This is just about the only thing we agree on.

By most standards, Apple has crushed its tablet rivals that have tried to compete feature-for-feature. No single tablet running Google's Android system has gotten much traction (save the smaller, cheaper Kindle Fire from Amazon) and BlackBerry maker RIM's Playbook hit the market with a thud.

Yeah... the Kindle Fire and iPad are neck-and-neck.

And Microsoft's past attempts at building Apple-like gadgets -- witness the iPod-copying Zune -- have failed.

Okay, we agree on two things. Gross goes on to list five reasons the Surface may best the iPad. They are awesome. The first is the keyboard.

A frustration for many users of the iPad and other touchscreen devices is the keyboard. While it's possible to get somewhat proficient at tapping spots on a flat screen, most acknowledge it's impossible to get e-mail and other documents written as quickly as with physical keys.

Typing on a flat surface sounds like a real pain. What's Microsoft's solution, Doug?

The Surface keyboard will be part of its Touch Cover (...) with pressure-sensitive flat keys

Oh. Much better.Yes, there will be another keyboard cover with actual keys (and a trackpad) but neither has been tested yet. And Gross simply writes off all the 3-rd party iPad keyboards because they can be clunky.

Gross then goes on to quote some folks who love the keyboard. Farhad Manjoo starts out with, "If [the touch cover] works well" and ends with "If the Surface ships with the keyboard -- and if Microsoft markets the device as a tablet that will let you get some work done -- it could be a big hit." If, if, if, and could. A glowing preview if ever I've heard one.

Gross then goes on to say the Surface is bigger and that's what makes it better. The screen is larger (though widescreen, so I'm not sold on portrait mode - which Microsoft doesn't seem to want us to use anyway), the machine is heavier, and, admittidly, thinner. But Microsoft must have breathed a sigh of relief when the new iPad come out, because it is thicker and heavier than iPad 2 (with which Surface was competing during it's development).

Something I found especially fun was this bit:

[I]t's optimized to have essentially the same dimensions as a movie screen: So, farewell black bars when watching video.

I don't know how people use their iPads, but I do not watch movies on mine unless I'm somewhere without a TV and have lots of time to kill. Older full-screen content (which I watch a lot of) will still have black bars, and academy aspect ratio movies (think Lord of the Rings) will still have black bars. Whatever. I just cannot understand why every screen is designed to have the same aspect ratio as movies. Are people really watching that much video content on their iPads?

Next up is power. The surface will be much more powerful than the iPad, apparently. Even though no one's used it. He says:

Especially with the Windows 8 Pro model

Are you kidding me? This implies that obviously the Surface RT will be more powerful, but the Surface Pro will be especially powerful besting the iPad to the point of embarassment. This strikes me as awfully presumptious. Gross doesn't take into account the CPU requirements of the OS running on the tablet. Believing, based on nothing, that Microsoft's OS can run as power-effeciently as iOS is very optimistic. Anyhow, Gross continues:

The Windows Pro model will run on an i5 Intel processor

And I'm sure it will get iPad's 10 hour battery life. I'd even say that the Surface pro won't get battery life as good as the 11" MacBook Air. Less than 5 hours. My personal guess? Surface for Windows 8 Pro will get around 3 hours on a charge.

Gross then extolls the virtues of the USB port:

[The USB] ports open up the possibility of extra storage, printing and other external capabilities that should be easier and quicker than the workarounds iPad users need involving cloud storage, Wi-Fi connections and the like.

So... just grab your Surface, fold the kickstand out, slap on the keyboard, connect a USB hub and hook up to your printer, external HDD, and card reader. What? This sounds like a docked laptop to me. With Dropbox, AirPrint, and Apple's Camera Connection Kit I can do all that same stuff wirelessly. And isn't wireless and portable the point of tablet computers?

The final killer feature of Surface? Xbox SmartGlass... which has not yet been linked to the Surface by Microsoft itself. In fact, Gross is the only person who has even talked about this. So one of Surface's killer features isn't even a feature yet. Anyway, he says:

It will connect a smartphone or tablet with the Xbox, which in turn will be connected with the television. By connecting the devices, users can watch a movie on their television while getting bonus material on their tablet. They could also start enjoying a game or movie on the tablet, then transfer it to a TV -- or vice versa.

If only Apple had something that could do something like this...