Do you need a table?

I have received a few questions recently about whether or not a Surface Table is actually necessary to build something worthwhile on the Surface platform.

My answer: absolutely it is!

For all the benefits of the Surface Simulator, all tools have their limits. While the Simulator may provide a pretty realistic reproduction of how the computer will behave it provides down right misleading information about how the users will behave. You see, users aren’t going to be sitting at their cozy work desks pressing neat little mouse buttons to tap away on the screen. They are going to be wearing Hawaiian shirts, and resting their elbows on the table, and timidly tapping their fingertips.

So even if your application looks great, and works great in the Simulator, it could be a colossal failure when you actually put it in front of users.