What about all those great Apple Apps? Microsoft is still paying developers, reportedly $100,000 and more, to develop apps. How long will it take Microsoft to “catch up”?

You may be pleasantly surprised with the selection of apps that are already available for the Surface Pro.

Do you like the Kindle and ESPN app for the iPhone? They work great on the Surface too. Of course the Kindle reader works. Visit http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/apps to choose “Search for Apps.”

Smoke and Mirrors: When we look at Windows 8 on a Surface Pro (not Surface RT), in the “tiled” interface, it has icons like the iPad has icons. It is a “tease” that you can operate the Surface Pro like you operate an iPad. It is true that the tiled interface is similar to the icons on an iPad, sort of.

One of the best tiles on the Windows 8 tiled screen is the tile named “Desktop” that takes you to something the iPad will never have: Windows, with an interface almost exactly like Windows 7.

Practically any Windows program runs on the Surface Pro. That’s a huge boost in your choice of apps.

Applications that run via web site interfaces – commonly called Web Applications – run fine as well.

Remember, Apple has had time to polish iOS, Microsoft is still polishing.