An Arm and a Windows

I have to say that as a first generation Surface owner, I'm pretty excited about the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2. It seems to me that Microsoft really took the lessons that they learned the hard way from Surface RT and Surface Pro 1 to heart. I'm confident in recommending specifically the Surface 2 to the following people for the following reasons:

Who should get the Surface 2? 

• Anyone looking for a productivity tablet (you really can't underestimate the power that comes with having the core Office suite pre-loaded and fully functional) 
• Those willing to shift over to (or are already in) the Microsoft ecosystem (i.e. Outlook, SkyDrive, etc) 
• Anyone who doesn't have a problem purchasing device insurance (see my post about that here)
• Those planning on also getting the keyboard 
• Anyone looking for a touchscreen laptop replacement that doesn't mind the fact that they'll only be able to download Start Screen apps, not traditional Desktop programs (i.e. NO Chrome or Firefox)

A few big pieces of news coming down the line for Windows RT:

* Outlook 2013 On Its Way (together with Windows 8.1)

For all of the missteps Microsoft took in releasing the Surface RT and with the RT operating system in general, you've got to hand it to them for adjusting course and essentially giving away a major productivity tool to everyone who owns an RT device. Speaking of giving things away...

* Surface RT now comes with a FREE touch or type cover (limited time offer...for now)

Should have done this a long time ago. In fact, this is how the Surface should always have been sold. Its main advantage over other devices is how well it works with a keyboard to enable the user to get work done. By selling it without a keyboard, Microsoft basically handicapped their own sales efforts.

* Windows 8.1 Public Preview in June

Sounds like you'll have to reinstall any apps once the "real" version comes out, but count me still in for installing the preview when it comes out.

* Surface Mini?

Sounds like a good move: a little bit of a lighter price tag for those not ready to commit wholesale to an RT device. Not sure if users will really get the benefit of having an RT device though (in my mind: the ability to do real work on a tablet).

Here are the top 50 free apps on Windows RT, as ranked by the App Store itself (I presume this is done using a pure download count...please someone enlighten me if I'm wrong).

A few notes based on differences between this list and the last one I posted at the end of March:

*Dropbox dropped off: I was never a huge fan of the Dropbox RT/8 app. Like the other cloud apps, it didn't give you any way of syncing folders, which is the huge power of Dropbox. What was even worse, the app didn't allow you to upload. I'm not sure if this has been updated since I totally switched over to just using the browser to access Dropbox.

*Facebook Now the clear winner? Back in March Facebook Touch was the client at the top of the list. Now in May Facebook Now seems to be dominating. Not only is it ranked third overall (compared with 40th for Facebook Plus), it also has a higher user rating.

*More Better Games: A few new games are rising to the top: Pac Pac Man, Tetris, SushiChop (the Windows RT version of Fruit Ninja), and Drift Mania. Samurai vs. Zombies Defense is a fun sidescroller defense game that was popular on Android and iOS a short while ago. A Bird's Journey looks absolutely beautiful...I'm going to give it a try after I finish this post.

*Last But Not Least: Nook. It's there. A lot of people have downloaded it. It's not rated particularly well.

The Best of the Best:

1 Xbox Smartglass
2 Skype
3 Facebook Now
4 Google Search
5 Pac Pac Man
6 Netflix
7 MS Solitaire Collection
8 Pinball FX2
9 Advanced English Dictrionary
10 ESPN
11 Twitter
12 Photo Editor
13 Tetris
14 Instagram Explorer
15 Cut the Rope
16 Youtube Player/Downloader - Megatube Support
17 Wordbrush
18 Jetpack Joyride
19 Drift Mania Championship 2 Lite
20 Work Notes Pro
21 SushiChop
22 Hulu Plus
23 Monsters Love Candy
24 Wikipedia
25 BubbleBreaker

The Next 25:

26 Slots
27 MS Mahjong
28 Flixster
29 The Weather Channel
30 Solitaire HD
31 OneNote
32 Amazon
33 Calculator Free
34 A Bird's Journey
35 4 Pics 1 Word
36 The Chess Lv. 100
37 Samurai vs. Zombies Defense
38 Audible
39 Backgrounds Wallpapers HD
40 Facebook Plus
41 Flow Free
42 Yahoo! Mail
43 Adobe Reader Touch
44 Kindle
45 Jewel Fever
46 Piano8
47 NOOK
48 iHeartRadio
49 DealOrNoDeal
50 Monkey Flight

It's only been about six months, but I'm already feeling very lonely as a Surface owner these days.

The still ubiquitous advertising campaign has only heightened that feeling, as the crowds all clicking their keyboards into place clearly exist only in TV-land, and not in reality. In the many times a week I do sit down at a coffee shop and "click in", I have never, ever seen another Surface owner.

The experts were right. Windows RT exists in no man's land. New, more efficient Intel chips are making x86 tablets more competitive with ARM based tablets. Most consumers aren't willing to spend $500+ on an RT tablet when they can find a very nice Android or iOS tablet for $200 - $300, even if it comes with a smaller screen. And the marketing campaign....

With that said, here I am, typing away on my Surface, nearly completely satisfied with my decision to sell my laptop and commit wholesale to using the Surface as my primary mobile computing device.

I'm not saying that the Surface is for everyone. There are just a few types of users that I would recommend it to. With that said, for users like me, the Surface actually makes a lot of sense, even at its current price point (though you can find other RT tablets now in the roughly $350 range...if you find yourself nodding at a lot of the following points, then you should jump at the next $350 RT device you can get). Let me share a few aspects of the Surface that have worked out quite well for me.

One Note

Ok, I actually was pretty turned off by One Note at first. I never used it on my old laptop, and I found it to sync rather inconsistently, sometimes creating notebooks that I didn't intend to create, other times duplicating notebooks I already had. But when I decided to just host all of my notebooks on my Surface's SD card and back it up elsewhere, suddenly my Surface has become much more functional as a replacement to my usual pad and paper. I take pictures of white boards, I "print" word files directly into my OneNote notebooks, and I print/share from OneNote fairly frequently. Although Evernote and other apps have their place, I found OneNote to be the best mobile note taking program yet.

Microsoft Word

The office suite alone is worth paying an extra $100 for the Surface. I've used Word heavily now on RT for the past six months and I've been completely satisfied with it. I really feel like it was a seamless transition from using Word on my old laptop to using Word on the Surface. And that's actually related to the thing that really makes the Surface a worthwhile option for some people...

USB Port and Compatible Drivers

I don't know how Android tablets are (or how many come with USB ports), but it is great being able to just connect a USB cable from a random printer to my Surface and know that I'll have hardcopies in seconds.

Overall Seamless Transition Between Tablet and Desktop PC

Unlike my Nexus 7, I don't experience any hiccups when I switch back and forth between my Surface and the Windows 7 PC I have at my office. Again, going back to Word, it's great not having to convert files to a different format in order to work with them.

Control Panel and Friends

It's nice being able to "look under the hood" by accessing such timeless Windows tools such as Control Panel, Task Manager, Desktop Personalization, etc. With iOS and Android I've always felt like a car owner who never checked his oil or tire pressure, instead just waiting for the indicator lights to come on. With RT you get access to many of the same utilities as have always been available on Windows. Now if we could just install other programs....

And one thing that has worked out terribly for me:

Inability to sync a folder with Dropbox or Google Drive or even SkyDrive. Yes you can access SkyDrive as a synced folder...when you're connected online. When you're not online, SkyDrive is disconnected as well. When I was using my Windows 7 laptop, I'd really grown to love keeping all of my current projects on Dropbox and working on them even when I was disconnected. No longer having that ability has been a major downside to working on an RT device.


Long Story Short:

The Surface (and other RT devices) works for those who actually want to get laptop quality work done on their tablet. Sure, most people these days carry both a tablet and a laptop. And sure, the Surface is neither the best tablet, nor the best laptop. But it is a suitable hybrid that's satisfied this user.

While you may want to wait and see what Windows Blue looks like before going with an RT device, the fact is the Surface is probably more powerful than you think.

Well the "real" March Madness has finally begun, but things aren't failing to be interesting over at the Windows RT Store. The Top 3 (Xbox Smartglass, Skype, and Google Search) all held serve, but the RT Twitter app jumped in from being unranked to claim the 4th spot from Netflix (which only dropped down to 5).

The oldest review for Twitter is from March 13 but the app has been rated 1745 times and is a solid 4 stars. We're looking at a genuine home run of an app here. I'd say download it immediately if you're a Twitter user, and if you're not, consider getting on board.

The 14th and 15th spots were also claimed from former outsiders, with 4 Pics 1 Word jumping onto the list out of nowhere to take 14, and Gmail Touch taking the spot right after it. Both have only been out for a few weeks, judging from the dates of the reviews. 4 Pics 1 Word is another absolute home run, with a 4.5 rating after 4462 ratings with nearly every reviewer commenting on how addicting the game is. Sounds like a black hole for all of your hard earned free time :)

Gmail Touch isn't rating quite as highly...likely folks downloaded it because there's been pent up demand for a gmail client. What's interesting to me is the fact that we finally have another alternative mail client out there (in addition to Yahoo! Mail)! Unfortunately from the reviews it seems like there are some serious bugs that need to be worked out. I'd say go ahead and wait on this one and see if the developer can work some of that out.

1 Xbox Smartglass
2 Skype
3 Google Search
4 Twitter
5 Netflix
6 Facebook Touch
7 Youtube Player
8 Fotor
9 Microsoft Solitaire Collection
10 Cut the Rope
11 Toolbox for Windows 8
12 Jetpack Joyride
13 Yahoo! Mail
14 4 Pics 1 Word
15 Gmail Touch
16 Adobe Reader Touch
17 The ESPN App
18 Youtube Player/Downloader
19 Solitaire HD
20 BubbleBreaker
21 Hulu Plus
22 iHeartRadio
23 Pinball FX2
24 Amazon
25 Flow Free

The Next 25 (26-50)

Not too much of note here except for LINE, a messaging app that's been out since January but has cracked the top 50.

26 Facebook Plus
27 Rat on a Snowboard
28 Next Issue Magazines
29 Backgrounds Wallpapers HD
30 Instagram Live
31 CNN App for Windows
32 Dropbox
33 Calculator
34 Microsoft Mahjong
35 Bible
36 Jewel Fever
37 Calculator Free
38 DealOrNoDeal
39 LINE
40 Taptitude Unlimited
41 eBay
42 Monsters Love Candy
43 MyRadar
44 Fhotoroom
45 Wikipedia
46 Kindle
47 3D Boat Race
48 Guns 4 Hire
49 Agent P Strikes Back
50 Tom and Jerry

So here at An Arm and a Windows we've been prepping for March Madness with our own Top 25 list: a list of the Top 25 Free RT Apps as ranked by the Windows App Store. This is our second week of keeping track of things, and we spotted some new apps on the list, and a few apps that have made significant jumps up the chart.

Here are a few highlights:

• The top 3 remain: Smartglass, Skype, and Google Search
• Toolbox for Windows 8 jumped all the way to Number 7 from being unranked the week before
• Fotor jumped up 35 spots, while Pinball FX2 and Word Twist both made big gains as well 
• Kindle and iHeartRadio both stumbled over 20 spots down. iHeartRadio won the battle of streaming radio apps, however, as TuneIn dropped out of the top 50 altogether.

Now, without further ado: The RT Top 25

1	Xbox Smartglass
2	Skype
3	Google Search
4	Netflix
5	Facebook Touch
6	Youtube Player
7	Toolbox for Windows 8
8	Cut the Rope
9	Microsoft Solitaire Collection
10	Fotor
11	Jetpack Joyride
12	Amazon
13	Pinball FX2
14	Solitaire HD
15	The ESPN App
16	Bubblebreaker
17	Adobe Reader Touch
18	Youtube Player/Downloader
19	Dropbox
20	Flow Free
21	Backgrounds Wallpapers HD
22	Monsters Love Candy
23	Adera
24	Word Twist
25	Cnn App for Windows

The Next 25:

25	Cnn App for Windows
26	Allrecipies
27	Instagram Live
28	Yahoo! Mail
29	Guns 4 Hire
30	Calculator Free
31	Microsoft Mahjong
32	eBay
33	Next Issue Magazines
34	DealOrNoDeal
35	One Note
36	Hulu Plus
37	Jewel Fever
38	Kindle
39	MyRadar
40	Wikipedia
41	Bible
42	3D Boat Race
43	iHeartRadio
44	Blocked In
45	Rat on a Snowboard
46	Unit Conversion
47	Khan Academy
48	Agent P Strikes Back
49	Windows 8 Cheat Keys
50	Archery Master

Dropped out: Youtube Downloader, to-dos, Shazam, TuneIn Radio, Dodo GoGo, Doodle God Free, Piano8, PhotoFunia, Parking Mania, Facebook Friends, Wordament

So I'm going to get out in front of the March Madness curve by a bit and do my own homage to college basketball by starting a new tradition here at An Arm and a Windows. In college basketball, both the AP and USA Today poll broadcaster, sportswriters, and coaches to determine who everyone believes the best 25 teams in the country are.

In that same vein, I'm going to be publishing a list of the Top 25 Free apps, as decided by the Windows Store itself, here at An Arm and a Windows on a (hopefully) weekly basis. Personally I'm interested to see which apps hold their places, and which apps rise and fall from week to week. Also, since there are a few absolute strongholds (Xbox Smartglass, I'm looking at you) that I doubt will ever lose their top spots, I'm also going to post apps 26 through 50.

Before I post the list, though, one quick note: is it just me, or is the Windows App Store getting significantly better? I've been noticing that a lot of the old top free games are getting bumped by new, better games, and there seem to be a few solid new productivity and news apps coming out every few weeks. Still a far cry from the Android Play Store and Apple's App Store, but the change is noticeable, at least to me.

Okay, without further ado:

In one of ZDNet's recent moderated blogger debates (think Obama vs. Romney, but via online post), given the choice between declaring Windows RT either "The Future" or "Worthless", both the moderator of the debate as well as 65% of the voting audience gave Windows RT their nod of approval.

Now the moderator's words were far from glowing. By "the Future", he means that Windows RT is more likely to survive in some form or another than not. But this is a much needed bit of positive press for an operating system that's been getting absolutely roasted by tech journalists everywhere.

In my mind there are two reasons why current and prospective owners of Windows RT devices (such as the Microsoft Surface) shouldn't be worried about their machines going the way of the HP Touchpad.

I've noticed a number of reviews of Windows RT stating something along the lines of "the RT desktop is not touch friendly".

While I can't disagree completely, I do wonder if said reviewers were aware of the fact that you can adjust the size of menu items and whatnot on the desktop via the RT Control Panel. I did so and now rarely have any issues using touch when working on Microsoft Word or the desktop version of Internet Explorer (I prefer it over the Start Screen version since it allows me more options when organizing my favorites/bookmarks.

In any case, if you'd like your desktop to be a little bit more touch friendly on Windows RT or Windows 8, just follow the directions below:

Theoretically I could do video editing and whatnot through TeamViewer as well, but I imagine that it would be unbearably slow. I'll try it though one of these days just to see.

I published a top 5 app list awhile back, but 1) a ton significant amount of new apps have hit the Windows App Store since then, and 2) my own usage habits have adapted and evolved as I try to get more and more efficient with my Surface RT.

So, without further ado, my updated Top Five list:

If you've been reading the tech headlines lately, it sounds like Windows RT's funeral was held this past week. Over at the Register Neil McAllister wrote an article titled, "Microsoft's ARM blunder: 7 reasons why Windows RT was DOA." At InfoWorld Brad Chacos wrote one titled, "Why Windows RT is Hurtling Towards Disaster".

Why write these articles now? Chacos actually gives the reason at the end of his article: RT was nearly invisible at CES2013, a terrible sign for an operating system that just appeared a few months ago.

Even though I agree with much of Chacos' reasoning, as you can see from the title of this article, I'm not so sure we can order a tombstone for Windows RT quite yet. Let me give you two reasons why:

One question that I get a lot from people who know that I have a Microsoft Surface is, "Can it replace my laptop?"

Well, I sold my laptop so let's hope so!

The truth is, I was pretty hesitant at first to sell my laptop. The limitations of Windows RT just made it seem like I'd need to hang on to my Windows 7 device. (And articles like this one didn't help either) But after talking a bit with a friend, I realized that everything I could do on my laptop but couldn't do on my Surface, I could do on my desktop at my office (i.e. video editing, other Windows 7 software).

What's more, what I gave up in processing power I more than made up for in mobility. Granted my laptop was on the chunkier side (15"), but now not only is my bag much lighter and roomier, I don't have to lug around a charger or look for tables near power outlets anymore either (I find myself charging about every other day).

And let's not forget about that handy dandy usb port! (Seriously...printing, devices, etc...ALL compatible...haven't yet found a device that RT wasn't able to recognize)

I think there are only two things that would keep me from recommending the Surface (or other Windows RT devices for that matter) as a complete laptop replacement for everyone.

One of the advantages of being an independent blogger is I have no qualms sharing issues that I encounter with my Windows RT device. Sure I'd like to see devices like the Microsoft Surface and Asus VivoTab succeed, but if and when things come up I'm going to talk about them.

When I first started using the Surface, I was impressed with the build quality. The VaporMg body really is something. The Surface looks and feels like a serious device, not a toy. With that said, I've encountered two hardware issues, one of which has totally changed the way I feel about the durability of my Surface.

My first issue with my Surface came with my Type Cover. I had received the Surface as a birthday gift, and on the recommendation of a colleague decided to sell my laptop and use some of the proceeds to buy the Type Cover. As soon as I purchased it I set things up and started working, and immediately I noticed a few small bumps on the Type Cover's touchpad. I tried wiping them away with a cleaning cloth, but I could not manage to get the bumps off. I didn't mind too much, though, and so I decided not to do anything about it.

About a week later, my touchpad basically seemed to go on the fritz. Every time I'd put my finger on the touchpad, the mouse pointer would begin shaking. Then when I'd try to point the pointer towards something it would jump randomly around the screen. This rendered the Type Cover half as useful, and so that night I brought it to a nearby Microsoft Store to have them take a look.

One of the store's staff tried my Type Cover out and could not get the issue to repeat, but he did notice the bumps that I wasn't able to remove. He pulled out a plastic card and tried to scrape it off himself and was also unsuccessful. He thought that it might be glue from the factory, and it seemed like it was the first time he'd seen anything like it.

He swapped me out for a brand new Type Cover, and I was on my way. No big deal, but I was feeling pretty good about being a Microsoft customer at that point.

Fast forward to a week ago.

Well, it's finally happened. I read over on Shiny Surface that a hacker who goes by C.L. Rockr has successfully "jailbroken" Windows RT. Since two of RT's biggest drawbacks are 1) the low number of quality apps and 2) the embargo Microsoft has placed on third party programs running on RT (resulting in no third party browsers like Chrome or Firefox), this has the potential to be a game changer.

This is really great news for all RT users. In theory, all someone has to do is take the open source Chromium code for Windows 8 and compile an ARM build for it and RT users will be running Chrome (and all of the glorious applications that run on it) on their Surfaces, Vivo Tabs, etc.

Shiny Surface reported minutes later that a developer named Peter Nelson has already started taking advantage of this and has a successful port to his credit.

A few recent items of note for Windows RT to start 2013 with:

• Those Nokia RT tablets we've been hearing about? They should be hitting stores in the next month or two, and it sounds like they'll be running on AT&T's 4G network.
• The chipmaker of choice for RT has been the quad core Nvidia Tegra 3, but over the last week or two what everyone's been talking about hasn't been the chip, but the Tegra Zone app that Nvidia has brought to the Windows App Store. Although you can access the Nvidia games without Tegra Zone, the app serves as a nice portal for gaming news and more in depth descriptions of their games. The arrival of the Tegra Zone app also seems to be reminding people that RT is capable of being a pretty serious mobile gaming platform.
• Fun new free app of the week? Heard of "Bubble Jump"? I haven't tried it yet, but this new release has kept a 5 star rating up over its first 25 reviews. It sounds like it was a pretty popular Windows Phone game, and so should provide a few hours of entertainment for the interested road warrior out there in need of a break.