Microsoft beats Apple to its own design game – Quartz

At a small event in New York Tuesday (Oct. 2), Microsoft unveiled a range of new devices that, at first glance, appear to be real improvements on critically acclaimed products. The company has also introduced new Windows software, a new way to own its products and one more thing: a new pair of wireless earbuds delivered with the Microsoft Digital Assistant, Cortana, integrated. It was a tight information from one hour packed presentation which for whatever reason was followed by Bradley Cooper.

Last month, Apple spent about an hour and a half unveiling an updated iPhone X, a new, nice new watch, and a new, low-budget phone. It was not exactly the most complete event, in terms of products, ever organized by the company.

Even though Apple still has its pedigree in terms of design and know-how on which to support (although some products are definitely lacking today), it is rare that a launch event of produced as the month of September can wait for new customers (and even some loyalists). continue to rush towards them. For its part, Microsoft, a company that has made a name for itself on the software, seems to improve its computer hardware every year.

Yesterday's event was very much like an intimate version of an Apple event: Apple's new Steve Jobs Theater can accommodate 1,000 people, while there may have been a hundred or so yesterday (though the CEO Satya Nadella was absent). Key administrators analyzed the new hardware, which set it apart from the competition, and made room for sub-contractors to run software, interposing speaker changes with breathtaking product marketing videos. Panos Panay, the company's device manager, returned to the stage to present the new helmet, the "final element" of the event – a presentation technique directly passed on to Apple's co-founder, Steve Jobs – before closing the event.

After the end of Panay, reporters and analysts rushed to check for new devices. Microsoft has expanded its Surface product line to include a myriad of laptops, tablets, desktops and now, headphones, all of which were on display.

One of the highlights of this event was Surface Studio 2, its new desktop computer, which has undoubtedly taken up the limelight of Apple's iMac as the most magnificent desktop. The $ 3,499 machine has a 28-inch HD touch screen and can be used as a traditional desktop computer or tilted down in a drawing easel or a flat surface on which to write.

Surface Laptop 2 and Pro 6 tablets were also unveiled. Both run under full versions of Windows, and now come in a black shade that feels both modern and pretty retro (remember when laptops only came in black?). The devices connect to one of the best-designed portable mice I've used in years, the Surface Arc mouse. The new $ 80 mouse seems to use the same technology as the slap bracelets of the 1990s: it rests flat, but push it from the middle upwards and it appears in an arc that allows you to hold, and also turns on the mouse . If flat, light and thin, it will find its place even in the narrowest suitcases. And it works with AAA batteries – compare that with Apple's rechargeable Magic Mouse 2, which has the slight design flaw to be completely unusable during charging.

Microsoft has also attempted to multiply by an Apple iPhone upgrade program, in which customers can pay a monthly subscription to get their latest smartphones (and customer support) each year. Microsoft introduced All Access, a monthly payment plan that includes a Surface device, accessories, and a subscription to the Office 365 software. That starts at $ 25 a month for a Surface Go tablet with a keyboard cover and goes up from there . Although, unlike the Apple phone plan, subscribers do not get a new device in a year; they only pay the price of a device in two years.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Microsoft dominated the computer software industry, but missed the transition from industry to mobile. After a few years in the wild, the company seems to have a much stronger foundation, mainly because it has embraced the cloud and distributed software services. Meanwhile, he has also managed to start building impressive hardware: he has already been mocked for me too, from products like the Zune (his response to Apple's iPod), and even his recent Surface hardware push has been criticized for attempting to copy Apple's advanced design software products in order to generate high-end hardware revenue.

But the problem is that Microsoft's current hardware is more interesting than Apple advocates. The Cupertino company has oscillated between marketing the iPad as a replacement for a PC and the apparent realization that few people want to do so because its sales of computers remain relatively robust. He produced some decent upgrades of his computers (as well as some failures), but nothing about them was particularly revolutionary. Microsoft, on the other hand, is trying all kinds of new things. Many may not succeed, but at least the company seems interested in understanding how customers will want to use their Windows software in the future.

Microsoft has recently unveiled zany (and expensive) ideas, such as the Surface Hub 2, which is supposed to be the future of collaborative office work, and the Surface Studio, which looks like a cross between a secular easel and office computer. . He designed the new Surface Helmet because he thinks that's what modern office workers need (since no one has cabs anymore). These are tablets with half-sized keyboards that run under a full operating system and can connect to a mouse (so you can have fun with spreadsheets and presentations from your head office). d & # 39; plane). And he is moving away from smartphones – beyond the integration of mobile notifications in Windows – because he now seems to recognize that this is not his wheelhouse.

With many of its devices, Microsoft sells to businesses, or those looking to work and play on the same device. Most of Microsoft's history has been swallowed up by the sale of corporate services – which Apple has not seen on a large scale yet – so it may not be as surprising that Microsoft is willing to do a little more testing in a field in which it usually feels comfortable However, the difference now lies in the fact that it sells physical products instead of managed licenses for Microsoft Office or Windows XP.

Apple will invariably continue to sell many computers and tablets (partly because of its mastery of locking in its ecosystem), and nothing seems to guarantee that the hardware wager of Microsoft will be profitable. Its "More Personal Computing" activity, which includes Surface devices, Xbox console sales and Windows software sales, generated sales of nearly $ 11 billion in the last quarter. Although the company noted that its Surface device revenues increased by 25% compared to the same quarter of the previous year, it is still a long way from the $ 40 billion in hardware sales made by Apple over the past year. the same period. But at least Microsoft is trying new things, exciting things, which have even forced Apple to adapt – the Surface tablet, with its connected keyboard case and stylus, was released about three years before the iPad Pro. Apple.

In terms of computer design, Microsoft seems to have won the crown of Apple, at least for the moment.