Ok, here we go again. It’s time for this week’s Surface news roundup.
This week, we have the following quartet of stories for your information:
- Build 2016 Dates Announced
- Surface Phone in 2016?
- Surface Book Sleep Fix Won’t Arrive Until 2016
- Surface Beats Apple in October for Online Sales
OK, let’s get started… [divider]
Weekly Surface News Roundup: Build 2016 Dates Announced
Microsoft has announced that the 2016 Build Conference will start on March 29th and go until the 31st. The venue will be the Moscone center in San Fransisco. Personally, I find this funny since the only time I visited there was for a Apple WWDC conference a few years back.
Anyway, the reason this conference is important is because Microsoft tends to announce new products during the Build Conferences. Since Microsoft seems to have fallen into an alternating 6-month release cycle for Surface products (Pro / not Pro), it’s reasonable to assume the Surface 4 (or whatever they’ll call it) will be announced. In addition, they could introduce a Surface Phone (more below) as well.
I’m sure rumors will surface (no pun) as we get closer to the start of the conference next spring.
Related: Neowin, Microsoft [divider]
Weekly Surface News Roundup: Surface Phone in 2016?
According to Windows Central, unnamed sources have revealed that an all-new flagship phone has been greenlit by Panos Panay. The project was given to the same team of engineers that built the Microsoft Surface and Surface Book. Reportedly scheduled for release in the second half of 2016, this very well could be the long-rumored Surface phone.
I guess we’ll find out next fall.
Related: PhoneArena, TechRadar, Winbeta [divider]
Weekly Surface News Roundup: Surface Book Sleep Fix Won’t Arrive Until 2016
While Microsoft has been steadily fixing problems with the Surface Book since its release in October, one problem has still not been addressed.
This problem has to do with the Surface Book not “sleeping deeply enough”. Consequently, the CPU stays active (and eats battery) while the Surface is supposed to be using very little power. This results in a battery depleted device when you try to use it later.
This sleep state issue doesn’t happen to all Surface Book owners and is seemingly random. Microsoft is aware of the situation but they don’t plan to address the bug until next year. This news is according to a representative from the team who posted the following in the Community Forums:
Yes, The ‘standby’ battery life is an issue we are working on and have been working on. We can put the processor into a deeper sleep state than it is currently set to. We couldn’t do it at RTM for a variety of reasons, power management is a very hard computer science problem to solve especially with new silicon. Currently it is not in the deepest “sleep” that it can be so there are wake events that would not otherwise wake it. We will have an update for this issue sometime soon in the new year.
So, if this problem is affecting you, a fix is on the way… eventually.
Related: Softpedia, WindowsCentral [divider]
Weekly Surface News Roundup: Microsoft Beats Apple in October for Online Sales
According to an early version of an upcoming report from the 1010data Ecom Insights Panel, the Microsoft outsold Apple by a significant margin in October. According to the report, a full 45% of all online tablet sales in October were Microsoft tablets (including Surfaces). You can see that on the graph below:
Apple still holds the lead for the year with 34% of all tablet sales for 2015. Microsoft has just 19% but that’s enough to put them in 2nd place.
It’s still not clear if October is just a statistical aberration or if the heralding of the end of the iPad’s reign as king of the tablets but it’s going to be an interesting 2016 for the tablet market.
Related: PhoneArena, Winbeta [divider]
And that’s it for another week. Only a couple more news roundups until it’ll be 2016. Where does the time go?
Tim
