Microsoft’s first Surface television advertisement debuted last night in the US. Apparently, it’s for an iPad keyboard that makes a clicking sound. Honestly – I have no idea what non-techies are supposed to take home from this.
Microsoft’s first Surface television advertisement debuted last night in the US. Apparently, it’s for an iPad keyboard that makes a clicking sound. Honestly – I have no idea what non-techies are supposed to take home from this.
The world is a happy place, if everybody uses Surface.
I guess.
Epic fail for the miserable old git market or me anyway.
I think I liked the commercial better back when it was a Kids in the Hall skit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZoDS8zty38
When you buy this Surface keyboard for your Ipad you can skip the dancing lessons and be a pro dancer right away ..
That is what _I_ take away from the ad.
Now I know it’s true. I am caught in the Matrix.
Wow that sucked. They tried to be cool but it just became stereotypical-american-cheesy. And where is Honey Boo Boo?
To my eye it looked like an ad for high-school musical comedy. Too much focus on bright colours and fancy choreography. Hell, you can’t even tell what they’re trying to sell unless you already know.
Almost certainly playing off of Glee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glee_(TV_series)
No pricing, no specs, and no features covered other than the fact it has a keyboard.
The bit that has me concerned about this ad is Microsoft is now in the Ad business supported by services like Bing and Hotmail. I would argue they ate betting the farm on that and cloud. If Microsoft can’t communicate what a new flagship product is beyond it has a keyboard, how useful are the rest of their ad services?
Just my $0.02 and I welcome feedback from others.
They seem to be making a big deal about the detachable keyboard, and nothing else. I suppose Microsoft haven’t seen the Asus Transformer.
Hey, Asus Transformer lacks this amazing clicking sound.
No, it most definitely clicks! At least, mine does…
It would appear that even Microsoft’s own marketing department can’t see anything about the device so new or innovative that it’d be worth touting about to the general populace, nothing special to draw their attention to or awaken their fascination and interest towards the device with. When even your own marketing department can’t find something to focus on and with which to sell the object to your clients you’re kind of, well, in a not-so-promising situation.
Couldn’t they spend the commercial showing off all the cool apps that developers have been working o- Oh that’s right, WHAT APPS?
You missed the first one by a few months, and you can see it linked from that Youtube page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpzu3HM2CIo
Much better if you ask me; very similar to the Motorola “Droid” ads.
Then again, I also thought Zune was visionary.
Two totally irrational, gut-level associations I made while watching:
1. Doesn’t the main actor in this clip (skinny tall guy in the blue sweater at the beginning) also play a really, really creepy role in some movie? Does anyone know what I’m talking about? I found that unnerving.
2. Did anyone else feel like this was filmed in BrasÃlia? (My apologies to the Brazilians here, it’s clearly not BrasÃlia, it’s just the vibe that I got. Has a very Niemeyer-esque feel to it, albeit less curvy.)
I recognize that guy/actor/dancer. He did the awesome Music Box short film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ekUyxxpBt0
I checked IMDB, and perhaps you are referring to Step Up 3D? I usually skip dance movies, but his role is “Kid Darkness” so it sounds evilish.
This is so typical MS. They are nothing if not consistent.
This is the same playbook from the early 90’s: Rip Apple publicly while ripping them off internally.
Then all you have to do is get a clumsy, goofy version of the same thing out a few years later and convince every corporate type that this is now a safe buy.
But much has changed since the debut of Windows 95:
1- Apple’s products are now generally lower priced than similar devices – because Apple controls their supply chain for their own cost benefit, with the added bonus of allowing them to lock out other makers from critical parts. Want your apple-quality cases, screens, and touchpads on other products? Big advantage apple here, which did not exist in the 80’s.
2- Apple’s app & peripheral market is years ahead of MS’s. This is not just lifestyle stuff, but includes encryption, GIS, etc. There are vertical market apps on iOS right now that are more advanced – as in modern, not necessarily larger- than current Windows apps. (Many on this site focus on the lack of ‘power’ in mobile OS’s, but they totally miss the advantages of being light, mobile, and aware through your sensor array. All of our 2012 phones can do things that our desktop computer from 2002 could only dream of). This advantage was all MS’s in the 80’s and it’s turned around considerably.
3- This new usage model can be simplified into “Touch” (big UI, big targets, single-focus apps), which is now competing with “Pointer” (small UI, small targets, multi-taking palettes and apps).
Note that the OS in the living room, the cell phone, and the first round of tablets all live in Touch. Laptops and desktops live in Pointer, and Servers run Pointer and the original CL.
4- Apple saw this landscape and went fully into developing touch over 7 years ago. iOS still has the smoothest, most refined, and in most cases most powerful touch interface despite ferocious competition from android. Apple’s latest OSX can do about 70% of the touch goodness on it’s top of the line trackpad.
Microsoft was so convinced that tablets would use Pointer-style with a stylus that they laughed at the iPad for years and continued to push their Pointer-driven tablets which were huge and ancient looking next to an iPad.
So here we are, Microsoft ripped apart the iPad, made their version of improvements, and are trying to get a product to market (their first real cutting edge hardware) at a reasonable price.
This new Surface idea is attempting to do both Pointer and Touch at the same time. It says you can be mobile and need to sit down at the same time. And it requires this critical plastic piece that hooks into another plastic piece to do it’s magic. If this device really made iPad’s look old news, it might have chance, but instead it looks like a disaster waiting to happen.
No matter they haven’t let anyone anywhere actually use it. When Apple shows something, they let you go right out and use it. Big difference.
Apple is much better at this style of advertising. Ill wait for the actual product to decide whether or not I want to buy one.
ps. Is it just me did the angry 8-year olds in catholic school girl uniforms doing their best “You Got Served” routine make you laugh?
That ad is no better or worse than the vast majority of other ads out there. It’s just typical nonsense. I’m not moved in either direction having viewed the ad. In agreement with what another user commented, I’ll see what Surface has to offer and at what price point before I decide whether or not to invest in one.
Holy crap! That commercial reminded of the times I did shrooms. WTF was that all about? It says nothing about the product other than it has a detachable keyboard and thing to hold it up.