MS Hypes Win7 Tablets For CES — Again 188
jfruhlinger writes "About a year ago at this time, we were all hearing exciting news about Windows-based tablets that Microsoft would be unveiling at CES. They would transform the industry and strangle the iPad in its cradle! Well, now the hype machine is starting again, for the same products that never materialized last year. This time around, though, the market has changed so much so quickly that Microsoft's tablet bid isn't cutting edge; as Ryan Faas points out, it's desperate."
UI Upgrade? (Score:5, Insightful)
Win7 (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing inherently wrong about running Win7 on a tablet. As long as the gui shell is optimized for the form factor and method of input, then it has a fighting chance. However, people will invariably want to run standard Windows applications on the device, and that is where the user experience will be miserable.
Apple really pulled a strategic coup with the iPad. First they built up an impressive array of modern applications totally designed around a multi-touch interface (via the iPhone), then they built a tablet that was fully compatible with that massive suite of applications.
MS has a massive application base, but there is no acceptable manner of utilizing those applications with a touch-only interface (and oh, has that been tried and tried). Couple that with Microsoft's heavy-handed treatment of developers of late (C# only for Windows Phone 7), and the tablet version of Win7 will never build up that critical mass base of applications it must have to survive.
Re:UI Upgrade? (Score:5, Insightful)
Never viable (Score:5, Insightful)
The Courier was never viable, nor even a real product - it was an attempt to use the classic FUD cloud to head off the iPad. But if the vapor is too thin, anyone can see through it and that was true in this case.
Imagine the batter life and weight of a Windows 7 tablet with two screens. Imagine the hassel of a mechanism that would fold easily while also letting you hold it open cradled in a hand or two.
Courier was never more than a concept video, and not even a well-thought out example of that. It looks amazing in the same way riding a dragon through the sky seems awesome and amazing, because it's not going to happen in reality.
Re:Curious timing (Score:5, Insightful)
You can tell how much they missed the boat on this by looking at their new phone OS, or at least what they named it. I wouldn't be surprised to see them use it for future tablets and stop trying to put Windows 7 and its successors on tablet devices. The funny part is that they called it Windows Phone 7, which (at least to me) indicates that they had no thought at all of using it for tablet devices, even after watching Apple port their iOS to tablets.
It's pretty clear that they intent to pound their heads into the wall and continue pushing their failed strategy. It's starting to look sad.
Remember "Linux on the desktop"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Remember that piece of Fucked Up Disinformation from decades ago? Of course you don't, don't want to, that is. Because you Linux fanbois can't ever apply anything un-hypocritically to yourselves.
Re:Microsoft can still win (Score:5, Insightful)
They've done better than that. They've got laptops that convert into tablets with a twist of the screen. I've got one. I like it as a laptop, but I *never* use it as a tablet.
The problem is that it's all very good to say "UI-switching problem", as if that were a single, discrete problem that could be solved by something like enabling touch input. It's not.
The problem is with the "value proposition", which runs roughly like this: "Use the apps you've already invested in exactly the same as you always have, but on a *tablet*." On paper that sounds like genius, but unfortunately it's not a self-consistent idea. Tablet interaction is radically different than mouse and keyboard driven interaction, so if the apps don't behave radically differently, they're going to suck in tablet mode.
You can't fix this problem by imposing a shallow tablet interface on top of the old app (which Win 7 does with approximately as much success as is possible). The app's UI has to be redesigned from the ground up to give users a tablet experience, not a mouse/keyboard experience simulated on a tablet.
Re:Yet another Apple killer from Redmond .. Yawn (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft live and die on Windows and Office, nothing else really makes them any significant amounts of money.
Probably why they're willing to throw a lot of money to expand into something else. Their stranglehold of the PC and Office market may last for several more decades, but they realize that they've already saturated both markets and there isn't much room for growth in either. They're trying to find the next thing that will make them significant amounts of money so they can live and die on X, Y, and Z instead of just X and Y. It's a little like how Apple lived on died by the Mac. Then the Mac and the iPod. Then the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone. Now the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPod. More legs to stand on.
But, if I remember correctly, isn't it just some product they bought in and re-labelled?
You're thinking about DOS. Ba-zing!