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back to article Microsoft beats Apple's tablet sales, apologises for Surface 4 flaws

Microsoft has apologised for the “less-than-perfect experience” reported by many buyers of its new Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book computers, but has nonetheless beaten Apple in the tablet sales stakes. The Surface Book has suffered from flickering screens. Both machines have generated complaints of poor battery life, …

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  1. The Average Joe

    Mission impossible...

    How did they get the numbers from Apple's retail stores?

    I say this is FUD.

    Two different price points, one for consumers and one for high end enterprise shops that trust Microsoft over HP, Dell or Lenovo. In the enterprise once you can image and update vendor X products you never want to introduce something different as you have to hand install or use a second management tool. The PC has BIOS/UEFI that each vendor manages and updates differently.

    I would rather have the executives keep buying iPads or Apple computers as we already have a handle on those in some shape or form.

    Home users will NEVER buy the Microsoft kit as it costs more. iPads for the premium home users and Android for the low end home users. There is no place for any Microsoft tablets...

    28 55 Reply
    1. Michael B.
      Reply Icon

      Re: Mission impossible...

      They haven't got Apple's retail numbers because this is ONLINE sales only which they calculated by using a panel which has their online activity tracked, including their ecommerce activity. They claim their panel covers the top 100 online mass retailers.

      Basically YouGov for shopping.

      10 0 Reply
    2. DavidRa
      Reply Icon

      Re: Mission impossible...

      This doesn't make sense to me. You already have management of devices that Apple freely and willingly push as "personal, not for business" yet won't consider managing devices that are intended to be managed?

      Either you have the ability to push out Windows updates (which includes Surface updates and BIOS), or you don't. Since I'll guess you do, you can update these tablets already. Also, you probably have some form of OS and app deployment (SCCM, Zen, ?????) which can push to any Windows machine. Because this is just another laptop/Windows machine. You manage it like anything else Windows in your fleet.

      Also, I know several non-technical people who have purchased SP4 specifically because it's Windows and a tablet (in addition to the techies). No, it's not for everyone. But blanket disregard for change is antithetical to professional IT.

      30 4 Reply
    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mission impossible...

      "Two different price points, one for consumers and one for high end enterprise shops "

      You might want to think so, but with the Surface you can actually buy a far more capable product than an iPad for a similar cost.

      Enterprises that use tablets have certainly noticed as for instance nearly every airline announced tablet deployment in the last couple of years has been on Microsoft based tablets - mostly Surface...whereas previous this was an iPad only domain!

      9 11 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Mission impossible...

        nearly every airline announced tablet deployment in the last couple of years has been on Microsoft based tablets - mostly Surface...whereas previous this was an iPad only domain!

        Vic?

        0 2 Reply
        1. Vic
          Reply Icon

          Re: Mission impossible...

          <i?nearly every airline announced tablet deployment in the last couple of years has been on Microsoft based tablets - mostly Surface...whereas previous this was an iPad only domain!</i>

          Vic?

          Nothing to do with me. I'm not ATPL. Indeed, my most common contact with the ATPL world quit flying for Virgin a few weeks ago.

          Vic.

          2 0 Reply
    4. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mission impossible...

      Can only speak for my environment but our poc users love the SP. Yeh it has teething problems but i had a senior manager handing back his iPad last week he loves it that much, When Win10 exits beta it'll be better I'm sure.

      7 7 Reply
    5. Timmy B
      Reply Icon

      Re: Mission impossible...

      We have two home users here using Microsoft kit. We tried Apple and Android. Both failed and MS is doing much better.

      8 7 Reply
      1. RubberJohnny
        Reply Icon

        Re: Mission impossible...

        With a Microsoft tablet you can run development stuff, compilers etc. Apple won't let you do that properly on IOS so.....

        7 3 Reply
        1. The First Dave
          Reply Icon

          Re: Mission impossible...

          "With a Microsoft tablet you can run development stuff, compilers etc"

          Who would want to code on a tablet?

          10 6 Reply
          1. Harry Kiri
            Reply Icon
            Coat

            Re: Mission impossible...

            Good point. I usually have a combination vicodin, mogadon and tramadol.

            5 0 Reply
          2. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Mission impossible...

            No-one - if it was a tablet, but it's not. It's really a high speed slim touchscreen/pen laptop where the keyboard is detachable. Speedwise the 'low end' 6300U model appears to be (on a single core basis) only 13% slower than the reasonably high spec three year old i5 desktop here (if the four vs two cores comes into play, then the desktop wins handsomely, of course). It's using an SSD, too, so the old days of slow hard drives doesn't apply either.

            The screen resolution is huge, and whilst 12" isn't a huge screen, it's no worse than most X series Thinkpads.

            11 3 Reply
          3. Timmy B
            Reply Icon

            Re: Mission impossible... (Code on a tablet)

            I do. I may not actually do the code on a touch screen but it's great for demoing to other team members. I need to go over to another desk and show a manager or analyst an issue or change and it's just simpler to undock the tablet and walk across the room.

            1 2 Reply
        2. Ian Joyner Bronze badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Mission impossible...

          Rubber Johnny: "With a Microsoft tablet you can run development stuff"

          That is just a con. To do proper development you need more than a pad with small screen and lightweight keyboard.

          You can actually do programming on the iPad - there are environments for Python, Haskell, etc.

          I could also observe that OS X and iOS developers (and users) have lots of windows open doing diverse activities. Most MS users you see, just maximise one window on the whole screen. OS X is much better for doing multiple activities at once. Thus Windows is already much more towards iOS than OS X. OS X is a much more capable OS.

          4 7 Reply
          1. Greg J Preece
            Reply Icon

            Re: Mission impossible...

            That is just a con. To do proper development you need more than a pad with small screen and lightweight keyboard.

            You can actually do programming on the iPad - there are environments for Python, Haskell, etc.

            I could also observe that OS X and iOS developers (and users) have lots of windows open doing diverse activities. Most MS users you see, just maximise one window on the whole screen. OS X is much better for doing multiple activities at once. Thus Windows is already much more towards iOS than OS X. OS X is a much more capable OS.

            This is about 80% twaddle. Surface Pros are x86 Windows machines. They can run full-fat IDEs. The iPads are better because they have Python interpreters?

            As for how people use machines, that has nothing to do with how capable the systems are of doing certain tasks. I've got all three major OS's installed on my Macbook Pro (think on that before you engage the distortion field), and frankly the OSX windowing suite I consider the worst of the bunch. The clunky multi-window management in the dock, dodgy app switching, counter-intuitively keeping apps open eating resources when the user doesn't explicitly close them, their ridiculous implementation of fullscreen apps, their insistence on adding stuff like Launchpad (which does literally nothing), the barely competent and anticompetitive App Store (not that Microsoft's is better), and a file manager so dazzlingly shit that basic things like "rename file" are missing from the GUI....this is not a windowing ecosystem anyone should be crowing about. OSX might have made its name for usability in the 90s but now half of what it does seems archaic and the other half seems like pointless gimmickery.

            For programming I'd rather use OSX than Windows because OSX has a competent-if-underdeveloped command line, but I'd rather use Linux over either of them because KDE is a competent windowing system with many advanced options and a great app suite, and Linux has far superior programming tools, package managers, etc. And I bet it could run on a Surface Pro, too.

            To say that it's impossible to do "proper development" on a tablet that's more capable of programming more things in more languages with more tools because Windows users use the maximise button is.....twaddle.

            3 0 Reply
            1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge
              Reply Icon

              Re: Mission impossible...

              When you put it that way.. They are all crap. It's not as if Linux is perfect either.

              What was so wrong with OSX now again? Windows? Dock? Expose?

              At least OSX has the nicest terminal consoles, Linux is second, and Windows is a by far, far last.

              0 2 Reply
      2. DiViDeD
        Reply Icon

        Re: Mission impossible...@ Timmy B

        There you see the sheer fairness of El Reg coomentards. You simply state that 2 users are happy with their SP4s having been unhappy with both Android and Apple, and you get a mess of downvotes.

        Blimey! If you'd said the sun was shining you'd have got downvotes from the anti Solaris crew to boot.

        1 0 Reply
    6. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Laptop replacements?

      Through personal experience, I know that some business people are choosing a Surface tablet instead of buying a lightweight laptop.

      So this ends up with some confusion as to what the "tablet" category actually means. The increased volume for Microsoft may not be people choosing to buy Surface instead of iPad; but rather, buying Surface instead of Lenovo/HP etc.

      13 0 Reply
    7. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mission impossible...

      "iPads for the premium home users and Android for the low end home users."

      I'm going to have to tell my wife that she's not getting that Sony tablet because it costs more than an iPad and so is obviously overpriced.

      2 0 Reply
    8. Charles Manning
      Reply Icon

      Online sales are very misleading

      Do you remember Zune?

      Microsoft crowed that Zune was the top seller in Amazon. Yes, even the brown one.

      They did that again with Lumia.

      So.... guess what.... they're doing it again.

      9 3 Reply
      1. Charles Manning
        Reply Icon

        Re: Online sales are very misleading

        Hey moron downvotard...

        Down voting is a pathetic way of registering a negative emotional reaction to what was said.

        If you think what I wrote was crap, then present a coherent argument. Unfortunately you can't, because the facts are facts:

        Microsoft crowed about Zune (even the brown one) and Lumia being the hottest sale items on Amazon.com. I don't know how they achieved that when the real results were appalling.

        3 10 Reply
    9. Greg J Preece
      Reply Icon

      Re: Mission impossible...

      How ironic that you complained of FUD...

      Home users will NEVER buy the Microsoft kit as it costs more

      I love watching people say things like this with a straight face. You're complaining - in favour of Apple, no less - that a tablet device is overpriced for home users. If that stopped people the iPad would have never gotten anywhere.

      I actually know a number of "home" users that have Surfaces because they're just downright better than the iPad competition. Being able to run all their Windows apps inside a decently made portable touchscreen is top dollar for them. If I were to buy a premium tablet (unlikely, but I still have a laptop) the Surface is definitely one I'd be considering.

      4 4 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Mission impossible...

        I actually know a number of "home" users that have Surfaces because they're just downright better than the iPad competition. Being able to run all their Windows apps inside a decently made portable touchscreen is top dollar for them

        Apples vs pears, if you'd pardon the pun. I don't get this black and white view - it simply depends on what people need. If they need to run Windows software in a touchscreen environment, hurray, there is one that works. If they need something to execute iOS apps, well, an iPad it is.

        It's quite possible that at some point we have both in use for different reasons, it's not a bloody religion..

        4 1 Reply
        1. Ian Joyner Bronze badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Mission impossible...

          Anon writes that if you need to run Windows you get Surface, if you need to run iOS you get iPad.

          That is not the right reason to buy a computer - you buy a computer to do the work YOU need to do, writing, composing, watching videos, listening to music, etc. NOT because you need to run particular OS software.

          I agree it's not religion, but the difference is very much in philosophy. Apple get that computers are to help you do your work, not to run their or anyone else's software.

          Read my post on computing philosophies posted earlier.

          4 2 Reply
    10. Ian Joyner Bronze badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Mission impossible...

      Average Joe: "iPads for the premium home users and Android for the low end home users"

      Can't agree with that. Darwin and Mach is a much better base for security for home users than Android with Linux. Linux is good for data warehouses where security is much more controlled by professionals. Linux has no place on end-user machines.

      4 7 Reply
  2. Mikel

    Figures lie, liars figure

    Of course these numbers don't include Apple's direct figures. Nor a bunch of other info. It is tilted to cast Microsoft in a successful light. That is a key Microsoft marketing strategy: declare victory early and often. I lost count of the euphoric early howls of victory over such dogs as Vista, Zune, Windows Phone, Windows 8 - all of which were nowhere near as beloved as the claims. They even start this victory dance before the product is even launched - as with the original Surface and their shopperless retail outlets, to make sure it builds some perception of momentum as it heads out the door.

    All a bit silly to us, but hey - at least the author paid his rent for another week. That's good for him, right? We're reading about it, posting about it, so the analyst earned his fee.

    40 19 Reply
    1. TheOtherHobbes
      Reply Icon

      Re: Figures lie, liars figure

      In tests, nine of out ten Surface 4 owners who didn't buy an iPad from the Apple Store bought Surface 4s.

      When you look at it like that, It really is an amazing achievement.

      29 4 Reply
      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        WTF?

        Re: "nine of out ten Surface 4 owners"

        And the tenth Surface 4 owner didn't buy a surface 4 ?

        He was gifted it then ?

        Citation, please.

        3 6 Reply
        1. VinceH
          Reply Icon
          Facepalm

          Re: "nine of out ten Surface 4 owners"

          He doesn't need a citation, because he's (jokingly) summarising the point the previous commentard made - that there is a bias in the figures analysed.

          16 0 Reply
          1. dogged
            Reply Icon

            Re: "nine of out ten Surface 4 owners"

            @VinceH - be nice. Pascal's English is superb but it's not his first language.

            4 1 Reply
            1. VinceH
              Reply Icon

              Re: "nine of out ten Surface 4 owners"

              @dogged

              I didn't notice who said it.

              On the plus side, I don't think I downvoted the comment - so I've upvoted it now to help compensate those downvotes.

              See, I can do nice! ;)

              3 0 Reply
    2. dogged
      Reply Icon

      Re: Figures lie, liars figure

      @Mikel - actually, the Zune was pretty beloved (especially the HD, as I recall) but only by about 100 people since there were only about 100 available for sale and then only in the US. Absolute marketing incompetence rather than a poor product.

      It certainly sounded better than an iPod.

      Then again, very little sounds quite as poor as an iPod.

      14 3 Reply
      1. Known Hero
        Reply Icon
        Thumb Up

        Re: Figures lie, liars figure

        I got the 40GB creative Zen touch back in the day, Ohh how I mocked Ipod users for their lack of drive space, limited ability to manage their device and battery life and boy I could shoot down any apple device on battery life. God I loved that brick (and oh it was a brick)!!!!!

        Ok I envied their scroll wheel ;) damn it was a nice control solution, yes the Zen had a touch slider, but it wasn't of the same quality.

        1 1 Reply
        1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Ok I envied their scroll wheel

          I believe that Creative successfully sued Apple for plagiarising the Zen user interface.

          2 0 Reply
      2. Quortney Fortensplibe
        Reply Icon
        Facepalm

        Brown Bomber

        "...Absolute marketing incompetence rather than a poor product..."

        Which of those was to blame for the decision to craft the Zune in 1970s Ultra-Drab© Brown?

        3 0 Reply
    3. azaks
      Reply Icon

      Re: Figures lie, liars figure

      I'm guessing that if the figures were reversed, they would provide irrefutable proof of the superiority of apple products over their inferior competitors?

      0 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Peak Apple

    Buyers have correctly identified the iPad Pro as an overpriced toy.

    20 12 Reply
    1. Dave 126 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Peak Apple

      That's a moot point, because the figures in the article are up to October and the iPad Pro was only sold from mid-November.

      For digitiser sketching on the move, the only options are Wacom, MS or Apple... none are exactly cheap.

      4 0 Reply
    2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Peak Apple

      Let us all wait until both the Surface 4/Surface Book and iPad Pro have been on sale for say 6 months. Then let us see how many of each have been sold.

      Only then a viable comparison can be made.

      Each device has it own positives and negatives. As such, I think that they are both niche products.

      Both may make a lot of money for their producers.

      Both may well have a lot of fans.

      There is space for both in the market. It does not have to be just one.

      15 0 Reply
      1. Paul Shirley
        Reply Icon

        Re: Peak Apple

        Not long since the tablet market was reported to be saturated and in a serious slowdown. In 6 months we'll know if this is just a new product launch temporary increase or not, how many (or few) devices were actually sold and whether everyone that wanted a surface bought one early and sales grind to a halt.

        With the current crop of win10 tablets almost at giveaway prices and still barely selling I'm suspicious about this being more than a launch blip.

        2 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Peak Apple

        "Only then a viable comparison can be made."

        It's not in doubt to say that Microsoft have gone from nothing to a significant market competitor in the mid to high end tablet space. The Surface products are clearly in many ways better and more powerful than the Apple iPad - the current market share leader in that space - so I would expect the trend of Microsoft market share growth to continue.

        3 8 Reply
      3. Lyndon Hills 1
        Reply Icon
        Happy

        Re: Peak Apple

        There is space for both in the market. It does not have to be just one.

        Not a Highlander fan then?

        4 0 Reply
  4. Quortney Fortensplibe

    Figures Seem About Right, to Me

    I don't own an iPad. But I don't own just under three Surface Pros either. So the figures seem about right, to me.

    9 1 Reply
    1. Adam 1
      Reply Icon

      Re: Figures Seem About Right, to Me

      I, too, don't own approximately the same quantities of those products. Definitely legit!

      5 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Firefox to rescue what increasingly looks like a Console Only tablet?

    The limited nature of Webkit on IOS tells us Apple desparately needs choice in the browser market.

    Selling it as a games console with restricted web is fine but what about the majority?

    Apple look incresingly in danger of walling out future new custom.

    W10 tablets are cheap as chips and though overkill, they do highlight the price function ratio madness of Apple kit.

    4 6 Reply
    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Firefox to rescue what increasingly looks like a Console Only tablet?

      Restricted Web?

      Thank GOD that Apple restricts some of the CPU sucking, battery slurping crap on the web!

      Apple looks at the user experience, and the iPad is an appliance for browsing the web, handle email etc withouth getting pissed off all the time.

      0 1 Reply
  6. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    Retailers measured...

    "...include the top 100 online mass retailers..."

    There is an implication that this also includes traditional retail outlets, either directly supplied, or buying through on-line sources that are counted within these figures. Such outlets need physical product on display and in boxes ready to "fly off the shelf". Time will tell if there is an element of "Channel Stuffing" hidden within these figures.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Arctic fox
      Reply Icon
      Windows

      @Ken Moorhouse Re:"Time will tell if there is an element of "Channel Stuffing......"

      I don't think that there is for two reasons. One, we see that since the launch of the SP3 and then the S3 the surface line has been doing well (roughly a billion dollars per quarter). The second reason is that, as we know, Redmond massively over produced and overshipped the SP1, SP2, SRT1 and SRT2 with the result that they got very badly burned and had to swallow a humungous write-down. I think that they would be likely to be very cautious after that clusterfuck.

      1 1 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another of those great predictions that doesn't include where people actually buy Ipads from, Apple stores.

    Interesting to note that 1010data is owned by advance publications which in turn also owns

    arstechnica.com

    webmonkey.com

    Wired News

    along with a whole heap of other publications.

    I call bullshit on those figures, perhaps a large and favourable advertising spend from Microsoft may have clouded their judgement.

    12 4 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      "doesn't include where people actually buy Ipads from, Apple stores"

      In the UK, it's more Tesco and John Lewis and Argos...

      2 0 Reply

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