you think apple's popup alerts are good? I mean...really? They've been universally denounced as terrible, annoying, and subpar in comparison to the notification system of other mobile OS's (hence why apple basically copied Androids notification system).

I'd suggest re-reading that. bad logic is bad.

from the vast majority of comments I've seen and conversations I've had with people, I think it's agreed that Apple's GUI is outdated, boring, and less functional than the competitors. Why do I need to open an app to see what the next 2-3 events on my calendar are? Or to see current weather conditions? Or most recent…

yeah the icon grid is the pinacle of GUI design...

And now you're committing this:

what do you mean by precision and accuracy? and ergonomy? I mean seriously...you're going to tell me that using your MBP is more comfortable than an ultrabook? and how are any of those devices less "precise / accurate," especially if you're using a peripheral device as your input device...

you're not giving any real reasons here, especially since you already said you do work on a 15" laptop when necessary. So unless screen real estate is your primary issue/concern I'm not understanding, because any of the new generation of ultrabooks have the internals necessary to run photoshop without…

the pro version is as much a laptop as it is a tablet. unless we're not calling ultrabooks laptops anymore. explain why you wouldn't run photoshop on an ultrabook, maybe then what you're trying to get across would make more sense

You carry a drawing slate+mouse, keyboard, 27 inch screen, and external drive with you everywhere you go?

This is exactly it. The last thing MS wants is Apple encroaching on its enterprise territory with the iPad, which is exactly what Apple has been doing. If MS can convince companies to buy this over the iPad, which shouldn't be too hard honestly since this seems to be a more productivity-driven device anyway, then…

Apple would be very silly to go into a patent war with Microsoft. Pretty sure they know that too.

It is for anyone who actually wants to be productive. Ignore the silly stylus hate, people like to just puppet what Jobs told them back when the iPhone was first released.

Apple watched Android march by it in terms of overall market share without batting an eye in terms of innovating for iOS with smartphones. Apple seems to think the icon grid of apps is the end-all-be-all of mobile (and, apparently, non-mobile) OS design. Been like that for 5 years now, wouldn't hold my breath on it…

Agreed. When I first saw the Courier my impression was "AWESOME, a digital lab book that I can download all my experiment notes and everything else from." I have yet to buy a tablet because I fail to see the overall purpose of them simply because it's not a productivity tool IMO. That's what the Courier was supposed…

no, it is not, not when all the other ultraportables it was compared to were about 30-45% smaller in dimensions / weight. when you're talking about ultraportables you're sacrificing specs for weight, and paying a premium for a small size. So when you compare a significantly larger machine and say "AHA, see it performs…

shhhhh, don't use logic around here when you're talking about apple products!

to your point about having more screen space, everything is upscaled so that's a no. you won't have really any more screen space than on a current MBP. Everything will just be slightly crisper...guess that's worth the extra several hundred $ to some people...

Wirth's Law (for whatever reason the Wikipedia link refuses to work in Giz's comment system): "The hope is that the progress in hardware will cure all software ills. However, a critical observer may observe that software manages to outgrow hardware in size and sluggishness."

for $2200...

who is doing that on a regular basis? Not the majority of people buying these machines, that's for sure. Recommending spending more on a device that's already overly expensive for the vast majority of users' needs on an upgrade that those users will likely never see a real difference from is not helpful for your…