5 replies to this topic 2 votes

[jasonon]

I was in the Microsoft store in San Diego yesterday, and I gotta say I was really impressed with the amount of people they had flowing through the store. It seems like Microsoft is finally establishing some sort of a consumer interest. I noticed how mesmerized people were by the touch screen laptops. Not once did I see anybody actually resting their hands on the keys or using the touchpad, they were always poking at the screen.

The Nokia 920 has quite a presence at the store, popping up on about every shelf. I spent about 30 minutes tooling around on the thing and I have to say it is absolutely delightful. I'm really looking forward to my upgrade. Many people came to check out the Nokias right beside me. They would normally pick it up and say "wow cool!" and then be on their way in about 20 seconds. Not one out of about 15 people spent more than a minute next to me. Made me think most of them would choose android or IOS for their next upgrade.

I noticed a critical flaw on one of the surface tablets I tried. The 'click' keyboard didn't work! It's not my first time trying a surface, so I was really surprised. The problem was whatever key you pressed, a different letter appeared on screen. I even tried different touch and type covers, none of them worked! (I have a feeling a reboot would fix the issue, but that should be hardly necessary in this day and age).

One last thing I found interesting on the surface was how some apps on the start screen hadn't been opened for a week or more! When I first opened certain apps, I could see pictures and news articles that were very old! The information updates everytime the app opens, and in that instant before it updates I see a glimpse of last week's news. Out of the hundreds of people who use those tablets everyday, nobody had cared to open the Bing search app, sports app, or news app! I can hardly comprehend how this is possible, but I figure that it just goes to show that normal consumers don't know how to discover the content that is already on their computers.

And as soon as I stand up from the surface to look at something else, an middle age man immediately takes my place to use the surface.

Anyways, a trip to the Microsoft store is always a good one! Kudos to Microsoft for creating such an immersive shopping experience.

[carmatic]

jasonon, on 20 November 2012 - 05:16, said:

One last thing I found interesting on the surface was how some apps on the start screen hadn't been opened for a week or more! When I first opened certain apps, I could see pictures and news articles that were very old! The information updates everytime the app opens, and in that instant before it updates I see a glimpse of last week's news. Out of the hundreds of people who use those tablets everyday, nobody had cared to open the Bing search app, sports app, or news app! I can hardly comprehend how this is possible, but I figure that it just goes to show that normal consumers don't know how to discover the content that is already on their computers.

is it possible that they have disk images which get reloaded before the store opens every day? seeing that the computers are all exposed to the public, and the surest way to keep the software in working condition in case someone messes it up is to keep on reverting to the disk image...

[mrp04]

carmatic, on 20 November 2012 - 05:27, said:

is it possible that they have disk images which get reloaded before the store opens every day? seeing that the computers are all exposed to the public, and the surest way to keep the software in working condition in case someone messes it up is to keep on reverting to the disk image...

They are set up with standard user accounts and the "Alison Brown" user profile preloaded on demo Windows 8 PCs resets after 15 minutes when it goes into the demo mode. I don't know what they did for Windows 7 computers.

[dafin0]

carmatic, on 20 November 2012 - 05:27, said:

is it possible that they have disk images which get reloaded before the store opens every day? seeing that the computers are all exposed to the public, and the surest way to keep the software in working condition in case someone messes it up is to keep on reverting to the disk image...

this

every few hours it does a reset. you will notice that most of the time the app store will show that updates need to be install

[jasonon]

mrp04, on 20 November 2012 - 05:39, said:

They are set up with standard user accounts and the "Alison Brown" user profile preloaded on demo Windows 8 PCs resets after 15 minutes when it goes into the demo mode. I don't know what they did for Windows 7 computers.

this makes sense, good to see MS is ahead of the game this time around. I remember seeing some pretty disturbing images that people had left on windows 7 pcs in the past

[+goretsky]

Hello,

Somewhat off-topic, but I have to ask: I have avoided going to the Microsoft Store at the Fashion Valley Mall because of the parking there. Is there a good place to park there?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky