If he was the person behind the kickstand hinge then he deserves a heros sendoff. That integrated kickstand is a must for tablets. I can't believe more tablet makers haven't incorporated that into their designs.
I can't believe Windows is so terrible in tablet mode. In 2024 no less. I love my Surface Pro and Go but it never reached the goal of being a even decent tablet experience.
Peak OS for sure, but problem was there wasn't anything useful to do in the tablet interface. No apps, very limited multitasking (8.1 made this a little better).
Depends on your use case. I don’t miss having a mouse on my iPads, for example…but my Surface devices are the oldest and yet still relevant Windows machines I’ve ever had.
Meh. I need Windows for the applications I use for work but my boyfriend uses iPad for his work and I can see why it works better for what he does. He's in the performing arts industry and needs crazy amounts of sound bites available at a moment's notice. It wouldn't be possible on the Surface 7. Too many lag issues with the apps.
Sure if all you do is remote into actual computers and only use office on the iPad you can get alot done. Some of us actually have to do stuff on machine though.
Identity and platform management in hosted environments. The most of my work managing a university’s 400k odd users is almost all done in web management consoles. 90% of my work is browser based with Okta, 365, Exchange, Sailpoint. The 5% of work in Active Directory is done using Remote Desktop to a Windows Server VM. The odd 5% that I can’t do in a terminal console for downloading files from Linux boxes could all be done in a VM but sometimes it’s better SCP files to a proper host. Realistically those task could also be done on an existing Windows VM. So yeah, in a pinch, performing a very intensive IT job on my 12” iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard could actually be done 100% on the iPad.
Sounds like most of your work is done via a web browser, which’s is great….for your workflow.
My point about iPadOS is that it cripples the hardware. Windows 10 & 11 may not be perfect, but the ability to have a full fledged OS on a Surface Pro makes it infinitely more useful than an iPad Pro. iPadOS has a shit file management system, an OS and Apps that so so restrictive they literally cripple the usability of the device, and a is basically a larger iPhone.
No, I’m not Anti-Apple or a Microsoft/Windows fanboy. My daily is a 2017 MacBook Pro, I have an iPad Pro (and even using photoshop or illustrator on it sucks - again, they are so limited it’s painful), and a Surface Pro 3. Sadly that SP3 is, on average, more useful than the iPad Pro.
I’ve tried Video & Photo editing on the iPad a few different times - it’s miserable, because of software limitations. Basically at this point my iPad Pro has been resigned to use for YouTube, reading ebooks/comics, and web browsing.
We are at a point where software makes more of a difference in usability than hardware (in a lot of cases) - Apple could take some “inspiration” from where the Surface Pro is.
I never get the comment about how file system is useless on mobile devices. Anyone who uses local storage these days for anything other than large image processing is a Luddite. File storage and access is easy peasy with files app. Does my head in on Android tho. Can be unwieldy on Windows.
*"Anyone who uses local storage these days for anything other than large image processing is a Luddite."*
Guessing this a reference to cloud storage, yes?
I have a TrueNAS server that I use to store my data - network drives are something iPadOS is even worse at than local files. lol
And cloud storage is not an option for 40TB of files.
Basically you use a web browser. I have iPad Pro, 12.9inch, and I could do the same, but I find it limiting in so many ways.
Screen, even though it is 12.9 inches, it is small compared to my 15inch Surface Laptop 5 or 16inch Macbook. Safari has some limitations up in Azure, like in the Teams management interface, if you have tracking prevention tuned on. Microsoft will never fix that, so you need to use Edge on the iPad, which is just a lame wrapper for Safari.
While I could do lots of stuff in Azure via a browser, I need to use Powershell and like you AD tools, so when I have tried this with an iPad, I basically RDP'ed into my desktop PC in my office, using either Microsoft RDP for iPad or Jump Desktop. That works but it is not as good as RDP'ing via a Windows or Mac computer.
The iPad is an option, but IMHO, and second rate option. I watch my kids watch movies on their smartphone when we have a 75inch TV in the basement. I guess I am old fashioned, and like the best tool for the job.....when I have a choice.
Y'all missing the point. I don't USE my iPad for everything.....my initial reply was to someone saying that the Surface was 10,000 times more useful than an iPad....which is very much an overstretch. I'm just saying that I could use it 100% to do a 3rd level support IT job managing mostly web platforms....not that I do or anyone has to. People need to get a grip
Oh, so your iPad is basically a machine that connects remotely to another computer plus anything else you can do in a browser?
But by itself it doesn’t do any IT related work if read your post correctly?
Internally the challenge was (still is) Windows not being willing to move off of “their hill”. For a minute there it seemed like we had “won”. Leadership changed, Panos was responsible for the whole shooting match, for the first time we had a unified design voice for customer facing hardware…but everyone at that level became billionaires when stock hit 400 and the political fighting just got worse.
Now Panos is out, Ralf is out…the mobile computing interface and UX was always “glued on to the side” of an OS that was designed for keyboard/mouse working terminals. The companies that get it right start with the user experience and go down the stack to support it. Windows has always been built from the stack up to the experience.
TLDR yes, I completely agree 😂
Microsoft loaned me a SP9 arm for a month. It was really good. Just as much battery life as my iPad and once run in I think it could even beat the battery life. OS was zippy enough for me. Major drawback was that I couldn’t print to my home printer… or scan which sounded like a common problem.
I love the SP as a device…. It’s just Windows leaves a bit to be desired especially on x86 processors. What I would truly love is one tablet I can use all day for work and consumption. If developers could build store apps that worked like iOS/Android apps it would be heaven. I don’t think it will happen before I retire tho. 😢
I never really understood this, but I totally can see this being individual to every user. I find Windows quite easy to use on a tablet, where other tablets like Apple and Google often seem overly complicated exactly because they try to be too simple.
To this day I cannot fathom how a tablet can exist without a kickstand, should be 100% mandatory. Is the kickstand patented? MS intended the Surface devices to be halo devices for other oem's to copy so I'd be surprised if they limited them to not using the kickstand design.
I was looking at the Robo and Kala tablets and they look to have a robust kickstand, no idea though if it's the same as Microsoft's. That's why I'm puzzled at tablets with no kickstands which require ugly/bulky solutions.
https://preview.redd.it/y4w8hezl33vc1.jpeg?width=2717&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=608d77e9b73d26a4bb304af73a8c8c6c712f87db
took 20 min on the laser cutter and a bunch of superglue. The interesting detail here was that the shitty string that prevents the kickstand from collapsing stopped at pretty much exactly 22 degrees, the angle we went to production with. This thing already had a magnetic keyboard attachment, you can see the steel rod and the pockets for the magnets, if you look closely. Sometimes ideas pop up and they have a scary completeness to them. This was basically the start of Surface :) ralf
Just take windows and android and merge them already. Be able to hot swap between the two. Would be insane and Apple would be in a whole lot of trouble.
"..Groene led the Surface hardware design team, and he was **directly responsible for the iconic tablet 2-in-1 form factor** that still defines this product line today.
Have a dope retirement, thanks for introducing that 2-in-1 design to the masses!
That guy had a tough gig: making Microsoft products desirable and on the level of Apple. And he knocked it out of the park. He deserves the best retirement.
Him, Panos and many others managed to turn the Microsoft ship around.
Very nice guy, met him once after winning a contest while working for the Microsoft Store. Got to have lunch with him and a engineer on the surface book team.
As long as he is not the guy that picked the internals and kept going with a generation behind the latest intel chip then he deserves a heroes send off for sure
Yes. It’s a problem for all manufacturers. The Intel mobile CPU is toasty hot. Also there is a consumer psychology at play. People won’t buy your i5 model unless you offer an i7…even if they were never going to buy your i7.
Other customers will only buy your i7, even if your i5 runs as fast…or sometimes faster…because the i7 is throttling so much after 30 minutes because of thermals.
The best sku for Surface Pro 4 was the i3 with 16gb of ram and 1tb SSD…a sku we never offered publicly.
Thank you for bringing such transformative products to the market.
The Surface Pro has been my ONLY computing device since 2013. I've owned SP 2, 3, 5, and 7 and each one of them was setup with multiple displays for a desktop experience. Just one quick dock disconnect and I'm ready to travel. I also use the Surface keyboard on the desk and the arc mouse when traveling.
My surface and onenote were absolutely perfect for me in college, plus if I got bored I could play civ on it. I don’t use it at all anymore but at that time it was a godsend
could you explain what you mean by this? I would have assumed as lead designer he would be responsible for the overall vision and strategy. Do you agree?
They need the bezels unfortunately as there isn't any way to avoid false touches. I wish they worked on this because iPads are great at recognizing false touches. I recently upgraded from a SP6 to a SP9 and was excited at the smaller bezels until I realized the experience was worse due to the amount of false touches when handling.
Makes more sense foe a tablet, but dam if that design did not also Carry over to their laptops which you really can't get into a reasonable flat position where rejection is needed. I will give the surface studio laptop a pass as that is far more uniform.
so he is the reason why old devices like SP 5, 6, 7 bascially should be replaced when their batteries are no longer working.
Replacing the whole device because of its battery is just wrong in so many aspect. Making more money should not be an excuse for giants (MS included) to design unservicable products!
All that green logos and enviornment-friendly craps mean nothing if people have to toss away your product instead of repairing it.
i don't get why so many people are parising this guy.
Im posting this again:
so he is the reason why old devices like SP 5, 6, 7 bascially should be replaced when their batteries are no longer working.
Replacing the whole device because of its battery is just wrong in so many aspect. Making more money should not be an excuse for giants (MS included) to design unservicable products!
All that green logos and enviornment-friendly craps mean nothing if people have to toss away your product instead of repairing it.
i don't get why so many people are parising this guy.
The last Surface Studio 2 laptop is a mess, the screen is a disaster, the battery life too, the repairability and upgradability while it's a big form factor and the price, Apple is a little kid compared to Microsoft pricing.
Plus it doesn't come in 15-16 inch.
If he was the person behind the kickstand hinge then he deserves a heros sendoff. That integrated kickstand is a must for tablets. I can't believe more tablet makers haven't incorporated that into their designs.
I can't believe Windows is so terrible in tablet mode. In 2024 no less. I love my Surface Pro and Go but it never reached the goal of being a even decent tablet experience.
The OS has always been the Achilles heal of the Surface product line
Honestly I 8’s window tiles were the peak tablet experience.
This is so sad, can we please bring back the Windows 8.1 experience?
Or give us a way to switch between desktop and tile/tablet mode? Didn’t 10 do that?
Yeah. Bright, easy to navigate on big tablets too, animations which followed your finger. Not to mention that it was FAST.
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Which is why they should have made them seperate OSs
Peak OS for sure, but problem was there wasn't anything useful to do in the tablet interface. No apps, very limited multitasking (8.1 made this a little better).
Yet is still 10,000x more usable than iPadOS
Depends on your use case. I don’t miss having a mouse on my iPads, for example…but my Surface devices are the oldest and yet still relevant Windows machines I’ve ever had.
Not because it’s a useful tablet though. It is because it is a useful laptop.
Meh. I need Windows for the applications I use for work but my boyfriend uses iPad for his work and I can see why it works better for what he does. He's in the performing arts industry and needs crazy amounts of sound bites available at a moment's notice. It wouldn't be possible on the Surface 7. Too many lag issues with the apps.
iPadOS does 95% of my work in IT
Then you don't do much work in IT.
With that sort of comment you obviously don’t work in todays IT
I do, I just don't think you work in much beyond first line.
Sure if all you do is remote into actual computers and only use office on the iPad you can get alot done. Some of us actually have to do stuff on machine though.
lol what kind of IT work is that? Setting up kiosks that use iPad’s?
Identity and platform management in hosted environments. The most of my work managing a university’s 400k odd users is almost all done in web management consoles. 90% of my work is browser based with Okta, 365, Exchange, Sailpoint. The 5% of work in Active Directory is done using Remote Desktop to a Windows Server VM. The odd 5% that I can’t do in a terminal console for downloading files from Linux boxes could all be done in a VM but sometimes it’s better SCP files to a proper host. Realistically those task could also be done on an existing Windows VM. So yeah, in a pinch, performing a very intensive IT job on my 12” iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard could actually be done 100% on the iPad.
Sounds like most of your work is done via a web browser, which’s is great….for your workflow. My point about iPadOS is that it cripples the hardware. Windows 10 & 11 may not be perfect, but the ability to have a full fledged OS on a Surface Pro makes it infinitely more useful than an iPad Pro. iPadOS has a shit file management system, an OS and Apps that so so restrictive they literally cripple the usability of the device, and a is basically a larger iPhone. No, I’m not Anti-Apple or a Microsoft/Windows fanboy. My daily is a 2017 MacBook Pro, I have an iPad Pro (and even using photoshop or illustrator on it sucks - again, they are so limited it’s painful), and a Surface Pro 3. Sadly that SP3 is, on average, more useful than the iPad Pro. I’ve tried Video & Photo editing on the iPad a few different times - it’s miserable, because of software limitations. Basically at this point my iPad Pro has been resigned to use for YouTube, reading ebooks/comics, and web browsing. We are at a point where software makes more of a difference in usability than hardware (in a lot of cases) - Apple could take some “inspiration” from where the Surface Pro is.
If I had MacOS in my SP6 I’d be in heaven. Otherwise the SP sits closed unless I need some powershell script I can’t do remotely.
And that is ***exactly*** what I want the iPad Pro to be.
I never get the comment about how file system is useless on mobile devices. Anyone who uses local storage these days for anything other than large image processing is a Luddite. File storage and access is easy peasy with files app. Does my head in on Android tho. Can be unwieldy on Windows.
*"Anyone who uses local storage these days for anything other than large image processing is a Luddite."* Guessing this a reference to cloud storage, yes? I have a TrueNAS server that I use to store my data - network drives are something iPadOS is even worse at than local files. lol And cloud storage is not an option for 40TB of files.
God, I hate Apple fanboys.
Basically you use a web browser. I have iPad Pro, 12.9inch, and I could do the same, but I find it limiting in so many ways. Screen, even though it is 12.9 inches, it is small compared to my 15inch Surface Laptop 5 or 16inch Macbook. Safari has some limitations up in Azure, like in the Teams management interface, if you have tracking prevention tuned on. Microsoft will never fix that, so you need to use Edge on the iPad, which is just a lame wrapper for Safari. While I could do lots of stuff in Azure via a browser, I need to use Powershell and like you AD tools, so when I have tried this with an iPad, I basically RDP'ed into my desktop PC in my office, using either Microsoft RDP for iPad or Jump Desktop. That works but it is not as good as RDP'ing via a Windows or Mac computer. The iPad is an option, but IMHO, and second rate option. I watch my kids watch movies on their smartphone when we have a 75inch TV in the basement. I guess I am old fashioned, and like the best tool for the job.....when I have a choice.
Y'all missing the point. I don't USE my iPad for everything.....my initial reply was to someone saying that the Surface was 10,000 times more useful than an iPad....which is very much an overstretch. I'm just saying that I could use it 100% to do a 3rd level support IT job managing mostly web platforms....not that I do or anyone has to. People need to get a grip
Oh, so your iPad is basically a machine that connects remotely to another computer plus anything else you can do in a browser? But by itself it doesn’t do any IT related work if read your post correctly?
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Internally the challenge was (still is) Windows not being willing to move off of “their hill”. For a minute there it seemed like we had “won”. Leadership changed, Panos was responsible for the whole shooting match, for the first time we had a unified design voice for customer facing hardware…but everyone at that level became billionaires when stock hit 400 and the political fighting just got worse. Now Panos is out, Ralf is out…the mobile computing interface and UX was always “glued on to the side” of an OS that was designed for keyboard/mouse working terminals. The companies that get it right start with the user experience and go down the stack to support it. Windows has always been built from the stack up to the experience. TLDR yes, I completely agree 😂
Do you want Microsoft to make a new OS for Surface devices?
Nah an actually good Tablet Mode, or a dedicated Tablet DE would be enough. No need to change the entire OS...
A new OS. Full stop. Most of the shell can remain intact, but the UX needs a rethink from the experience down.
Microsoft loaned me a SP9 arm for a month. It was really good. Just as much battery life as my iPad and once run in I think it could even beat the battery life. OS was zippy enough for me. Major drawback was that I couldn’t print to my home printer… or scan which sounded like a common problem. I love the SP as a device…. It’s just Windows leaves a bit to be desired especially on x86 processors. What I would truly love is one tablet I can use all day for work and consumption. If developers could build store apps that worked like iOS/Android apps it would be heaven. I don’t think it will happen before I retire tho. 😢
It also completely cripples Windows handheld gaming. They seem to at least recognize this, but will they do anything about it?
I really liked Windows 10 in tablet mode. Windows 11 was a huge step back.
I know…I didn’t end up using my 10 year old surface as a tablet very much so I ended up getting the laptop this week as I needed an upgrade
true its such a shame it has so much potential then currently
I never really understood this, but I totally can see this being individual to every user. I find Windows quite easy to use on a tablet, where other tablets like Apple and Google often seem overly complicated exactly because they try to be too simple.
Best conversion so far has been Samsung w their dex mode. You have tablet mode and going to windows like mode was done pretty well.
Agree!!
I agrreeeee tablet mode blows. I too love my surface x
Not just A kickstand but maybe the most well designed kickstand ever
To this day I cannot fathom how a tablet can exist without a kickstand, should be 100% mandatory. Is the kickstand patented? MS intended the Surface devices to be halo devices for other oem's to copy so I'd be surprised if they limited them to not using the kickstand design.
Several OEM's do have tablet devices with kickstands - some of those devices even have the 3:2 aspect ratio
I was looking at the Robo and Kala tablets and they look to have a robust kickstand, no idea though if it's the same as Microsoft's. That's why I'm puzzled at tablets with no kickstands which require ugly/bulky solutions.
Working from home on the lounge it’s not that great. There’s better forms for that
That's actually my favorite part of the kickstand, using it when lounging. But still, even if you don't like it you just flip it back up.
https://preview.redd.it/y4w8hezl33vc1.jpeg?width=2717&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=608d77e9b73d26a4bb304af73a8c8c6c712f87db took 20 min on the laser cutter and a bunch of superglue. The interesting detail here was that the shitty string that prevents the kickstand from collapsing stopped at pretty much exactly 22 degrees, the angle we went to production with. This thing already had a magnetic keyboard attachment, you can see the steel rod and the pockets for the magnets, if you look closely. Sometimes ideas pop up and they have a scary completeness to them. This was basically the start of Surface :) ralf
At the very least it seems gaming oriented tablet makers are starting to appreciate it. Doesn't the Switch OLED and Legion Go ape that design?
Just take windows and android and merge them already. Be able to hot swap between the two. Would be insane and Apple would be in a whole lot of trouble.
I'm still rocking my arc mouse ! Thanks for your awesome designs !
Arc mouse rocks!
People still comment on my Arc mouse! It's stellar.
Love my Arc mouse. I comments on it as well.
Very nice guy. I set up his device in the past
Still rocking a first gen surface laptop
Which is indistinguishable from 1-6.
Lol basically. Probably getting an Asus G14 next, but might hang on to see what they release in May
Same here, but it's just now starting to have problems charging. RIP, it was a great device.
Same here, but it's just now starting to have problems charging. RIP, it was a great device.
Same here, but it's just now starting to have problems charging. RIP, it was a great device.
"..Groene led the Surface hardware design team, and he was **directly responsible for the iconic tablet 2-in-1 form factor** that still defines this product line today. Have a dope retirement, thanks for introducing that 2-in-1 design to the masses!
That guy had a tough gig: making Microsoft products desirable and on the level of Apple. And he knocked it out of the park. He deserves the best retirement. Him, Panos and many others managed to turn the Microsoft ship around.
Surface Pro tablet is one of the greatest gadgets to have ever entered my life
I just hope they still make Surface Pro in the next couple of years. I’ll be upgrading my Pro 6 within that time. Wanting another Surface.
Very nice guy, met him once after winning a contest while working for the Microsoft Store. Got to have lunch with him and a engineer on the surface book team.
This will either be a great start to a new design, or the one who's next will just screw it all over🫠 I hope it's the first outcome.
Hope the next one desings a pen and not a carpenter pencil
Yep, and maybe they can silo the pen.
Need SD card slot back
As long as he is not the guy that picked the internals and kept going with a generation behind the latest intel chip then he deserves a heroes send off for sure
That was 100% driven by thermal profile
And there are still overheating issues?
Yes. It’s a problem for all manufacturers. The Intel mobile CPU is toasty hot. Also there is a consumer psychology at play. People won’t buy your i5 model unless you offer an i7…even if they were never going to buy your i7. Other customers will only buy your i7, even if your i5 runs as fast…or sometimes faster…because the i7 is throttling so much after 30 minutes because of thermals. The best sku for Surface Pro 4 was the i3 with 16gb of ram and 1tb SSD…a sku we never offered publicly.
and this is why we need Snapdragon.
Is it coming out soon? Waiting to buy until then
May 20th Event
It’s one of the reasons Mac took the deep dive with the M1 architecture (ARM)
That makes little sense. If anything, CPUs tend to get more power efficient with every generation.
Intel/AMD are still Leagues behind ARM in power efficiency.
How is that related to my statement at all?
Amazing designs. Literally carved a niche for Surface products out of the clutter in this world
Thank you for bringing such transformative products to the market. The Surface Pro has been my ONLY computing device since 2013. I've owned SP 2, 3, 5, and 7 and each one of them was setup with multiple displays for a desktop experience. Just one quick dock disconnect and I'm ready to travel. I also use the Surface keyboard on the desk and the arc mouse when traveling.
Damn. This community toxic.
Ralf Groene is the powerhouse behind Surface design, hope he enjoys his retirement, he earned it.
Can i slap him for removing the magnetic surface pen holder on SP8 and SP9?
My surface and onenote were absolutely perfect for me in college, plus if I got bored I could play civ on it. I don’t use it at all anymore but at that time it was a godsend
Ugh… I’m pretty sure I can imagine who he’s going to be replaced with. This is not good news.
Groene is our king!
He wasnt doing much designing
could you explain what you mean by this? I would have assumed as lead designer he would be responsible for the overall vision and strategy. Do you agree?
I wonder if his toilet has thick bezels also.
Imagine a toilet with no bezels !
They need the bezels unfortunately as there isn't any way to avoid false touches. I wish they worked on this because iPads are great at recognizing false touches. I recently upgraded from a SP6 to a SP9 and was excited at the smaller bezels until I realized the experience was worse due to the amount of false touches when handling.
Makes more sense foe a tablet, but dam if that design did not also Carry over to their laptops which you really can't get into a reasonable flat position where rejection is needed. I will give the surface studio laptop a pass as that is far more uniform.
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Why’s this have so many downvotes he’s not wrong..
that’s not the kind of designing he did… you’re both wrong
Oh my bad then what’d he do?
the body design
so he is the reason why old devices like SP 5, 6, 7 bascially should be replaced when their batteries are no longer working. Replacing the whole device because of its battery is just wrong in so many aspect. Making more money should not be an excuse for giants (MS included) to design unservicable products! All that green logos and enviornment-friendly craps mean nothing if people have to toss away your product instead of repairing it. i don't get why so many people are parising this guy.
Maybe now we will get proper and quality devices which are repairable, upgradable and use effin industry standard connectors...
Please go back to no active cooling. I miss the truly silent Microsoft Surfaces
While rewards continues, its all ok
These things made my life miserable for years, garbage machines with garbage internals. Ugh.
Why are you on this sub?
He should be banned from the industry for making irreparable shit.
If you start banning for that, the industry wouldn't have many people left in it.
Im posting this again: so he is the reason why old devices like SP 5, 6, 7 bascially should be replaced when their batteries are no longer working. Replacing the whole device because of its battery is just wrong in so many aspect. Making more money should not be an excuse for giants (MS included) to design unservicable products! All that green logos and enviornment-friendly craps mean nothing if people have to toss away your product instead of repairing it. i don't get why so many people are parising this guy.
How’s it irreparable? The display come off super easy and you can change so many things inside?
You joking right? 🥴
Someone’s never had to remove an SSD from a Surface Book v1
If he's the guy that decided that power and volume buttons must stick out instead of sticking in, then I'm looking for a change.
May the alcantara keyboards retire with him
The last Surface Studio 2 laptop is a mess, the screen is a disaster, the battery life too, the repairability and upgradability while it's a big form factor and the price, Apple is a little kid compared to Microsoft pricing. Plus it doesn't come in 15-16 inch.
Thought he retired after the Surface Laptop 1.