Microsoft’s Chief Product Officer Panos Panay introduced new Surface headphones yesterday, and that came a bit of a surprise for many. So far, all Surface accessories have been productivity-focused, and you may think that Surface headphones are not as essential as the keyboard covers, the Surface Pen or the Surface Dial.
Still, listening to music is something that helps many professionals to focus on the task to achieve, and the integration of Cortana and innovative noise cancelling technology should be a key differentiation for the Surface headphones. Speaking with The Verge about the Surface family of products, Panos Panay also explained that “just like a Surface, there are a few little elements that we can bring to the table that are transformative for your experience in getting things done.”
During that same interview, the Surface inventor also hinted that more Surface accessories could be in the pipeline, including webcams. “Look at the camera on Surface Hub 2, note it’s a USB-C-based camera, and the idea that we can bring a high fidelity camera to an experience, you can probably guess that’s going to happen,” explained Panay.
Last but not least, Panos Panay shared his interest about making Surface products more modular in the future. The Surface Hub 2S, which Microsoft unveiled at Ignite last week will be upgradable thanks to a new cartridge system, which is a first for the notoriously hard to repair Surface devices. But according to Panay, a modular design could make sense for future versions of the Surface Studio as well. “You look at it and you see what’s the evolution and how do we make it better for our customers,” the exec said. We’ll see how it goes, but we remind you that the first Surface Studio got a 5/10 repair score from iFixit, the highest ever for a Surface PC.
