I had my IPad for 3 years before I bought a Surface RT and I was very happy with it. So why did I change?
The simple answer was I wanted something I could write applications for; without the outlay of purchasing an Apple Mac and the other associated costs with publishing the apps, whether for Public or Corporate access.
So I purchased the Surface and it all powered up as expected, Excel, Word, Email, Internet Explorer my primary reasons for having a tablet (The IPad had all of this as well) and all did as it said on the tin. Next I wrote my 1st application (“Hello World”) and after a bit of publishing hassle (You have to register with Microsoft for their Store publishing, but you only publish to your device) I had my VB.NET app running on the Surface. This therefore fulfilled my main objective and I went on to develop the system for the platform and was very happy.
Now the downside: Yes I wanted Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook just to keep me in the loop and to be honest this is where I felt let down. Most of the vendor App’s available for the Apple (and for the Android platform) just don’t exist. There are several attempts at the similar apps but to be honest they are not up to the job.
The issue in part is that Apple had 5 years of apps for the IPhone that just worked (low res) on the IPad, with some minor tweaks the apps were upgraded and ran on both in pretty much a native resolution. With Androids market share of the phone and tablet market most of these apps are appearing there as well, and so many people writing apps (even my kids can do it). Microsoft has possibly missed the boat on this (will they ever catch up?), and with the Surface RT possibly being dropped in the future and the Surface Pro looking more like a normal Note Book PC I suspect the Surface apps (and maybe the Surface itself) may just become one of those FADs that goes out of fashion.
On the plus side: For small and medium sized businesses the Surface (RT or Pro) suits their corporate needs and the Surface may survive in the tablet market just on this need, but with lots of competition it will be hard.
Apple will always have its following, but as a developer of small scale systems, I would love to be able to write my programs on my PC and just drop it onto my IPhone/IPad, without having to pay all the extra costs of having to buy a Mac and their iOS Developer Enterprise Program, plus other tools.
It seems to me that the Android market may be the future for many, with many tools that allow development for free, deployment for free and also now .NET development tools for these devices.
I could of course make all my apps web based, but I have a lot of investment and security features tied up in the code already written so would rather not.
What are your views, why not go to the IAP’s discussion on this in our LinkedIn group.
