It’s been really interesting lately in my tech life. I’m still an avowed user of Apple products. particularly iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. All of these products make up my day to day in terms of running my life.

In order to stay up to date on the latest from Microsoft and Google, I invested in a Surface Book 2 and also a Galaxy S10 5g. For about two weeks, I basically replaced my iPad with the surface. On the smartphone side, I carried both my iPhone and the Galaxy.

Working with the Surface was mostly okay, but it was full of daily annoyances. The time it takes to start up…all the way until applications are actually useful. It seems like an eternity  compared to my iPad Pro 12.9. The apps on the iPad are instantly available for use and interaction the moment I open the tablet. Not the Surface, particularly with Outlook which can sometimes take about 3 minutes to do whatever it needs to do in the background. Granted, it’s the more “complete” Outlook for Windows 10, but that hardly seems a proper excuse. And besides, for what I do, I actually prefer the iOS interface to all the Microsoft Office apps.

The real issue has to do with the Microsoft update process…or a lack thereof. The last update basically bricked my Surface, making the CPU throttle to about Pentium speeds and basically unusable. The GPU in the base also “disappeared”. These are actions from official Microsoft General Availability releases of Windows 10 and Surface firmware. One only wonders if they have active QA.

Contrast this to the beta of iPad OS. It’s rock solid, my apps all work, and I have picked up all sorts of features, like USB Drive support that make this machine a joy to work on. So, I’ve gotten my full of the Windows “experience” for a while until they fix my machine with new updates.

As for the Galaxy, I was more impressed with that…again except for several things I was immediately missing. Integrated messaging like iMessage is basically non-existent and forget about anything like iCloud. The Apple ecosystem really means something to active iPhone users. The smartphone experience is about all the software and services, not just your camera resolution. I found the Samsung phone to be very well made.  I simply didnt care for Android, finding it a bit complex to do ordinary things. Also, the privacy aspects are concerning. Apps that ask for camera and microphone access…when this access is clearly not required happen frequently and are disconcerting. Still, if you started on Android and have never experienced the Apple ecosystem, then I suppose you don’t yet know what you are missing.

It’s a lot!