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."
Microsoft's relevance... (Score:2, Interesting)
Windows 7 tablet, or WP7-based tablet? (Score:4, Interesting)
Big difference.
Scaling a PC OS to a tablet always seems to result in failure.
Scaling a good touch-oriented phone OS up to a tablet, however, seems to work well.
See, as an example, the success of the iPad (basically a giant iPhone) and the various Android tablets (pre-Honeycomb, basically giant Android phones, such as the Huawei S7 and the Galaxy Tab series mentioned in TFA).
Oh yeah - I love my Huawei S7 (Android-based tablet, pre-Honeycomb, running 2.1 and with a 2.2 Froyo upgrade in the pipeline). Android took the entry barriers to the tablet market and hit them with a nuke.
Just one problem: Windows 7 is no touch OS. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why haven't MS developed a touch-based shell for Windows 7? They could sell it as Windows 7 Tablet Edition. Yay, they'd get a new product to sell, too!
I've used Windows 7 as a touch OS, and I can tell you it's no pleasant experience. You know the virtual keyboard that iOS and Android pops up as you give a text box focus? Yeah. Windows 7 doesn't support that. It has a virtual keyboard, but you can only click to open it manually. Click to open it. Every time you want to type. Oh, and the dpi setting support to make things easier to point and click at? Well, Windows applications don't use to have good dpi setting support. Their GUI's will break, or simply ignore the setting, and keep using small fonts. And what about window management? Clicking at window borders to resize them, to give room for... Wait a minute -- why do you have to window manage at all? That was taken out of iOS and Android, for a reason.
There are a dozen more reasons it'll make your skin crawl. It's an as poor OS for tablets, as Windows Mobile 6.5 is for mobile devices. It's as if Microsoft didn't learn! Why hasn't Ballmer learnt? Why is he so stubborn. It's his job to understand these things, and lead his company in the right direction! Windows 7 Tablet Edition should have been developed *along with Windows 7* itself! Because even back then, after Windows Vista, did visionaries in the tech industry see this as becoming huge in the future. But no -- MS seem to be willing to repeat their Windows Mobile mistake again. Trying to shoe-horn an OS design in a form factor and a human/computer interface it was never intended for.
Re:I think that MS WILL come out with something so (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows, on the other hand, has a huge amount of well known legacy applications, and when a product is sold as "Windows" people expect that it, and the disk they just got at best buy, will work on it. Trouble is, the vast majority of those 3rd party applications will suck without a proper mouse and keyboard. Not much MS can do about that.
There isn't anything much wrong with the NT kernel(I'm sure hardcore geeks and purists could pick some nits; but the same could be said of linux.), nor does MS have no ability to design a new touchable shell; but making 3rd party stuff not just tear you out of that shell and poke you in the eye with how much they suck would be somewhere between heroic and impossible.
This, I suspect, is why Apple, with their iPhone, Google(de facto, they don't actually stop you) with Android, and MS with Windows Phone 7, enacted a "no legacy" policy.
Re:UI Upgrade? (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone mod parent up about WIMP !
As a game programmer, designer, and the UI work I've done, I've found the exact same thing. Right-Click. Nope. Tooltips. Also can't do those on a touchscreen. Vertical/Horizontal scroll bars? Functionally the user can "scroll" by dragging _anywhere_. The more I use iPhone apps, the more I am impressed with the set of controls, and the SDK Apple has provided. Just the screen lack of screen real estate forces you to consciously priority WHAT and HOW MUCH info you show to the user.
The Nintendo DS can use the IMP* metaphor because you have a touch pen. Finger touch-screen needs to use IM** metaphor.
WIMP = window, icon, menu, pointing device
*IMP = icon, menu, pointing device
**IM = icon, menu
Re:Windows 7 tablet, or WP7-based tablet? (Score:4, Interesting)
Android-based tablet, pre-Honeycomb, running 2.1 and with a 2.2 Froyo upgrade in the pipeline
I can just imagine Steve Jobs reading that comment, thinking about all the billions of people who don't understand a single word of it, and laughing maniacally all the way to the bank.
Re:Just one problem: Windows 7 is no touch OS. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm convinced Microsoft hasn't done it for the simple reason that they aren't capable of doing it.
The root of this is Microsoft's business model for the past 15 to 20 years: Do things on the cheap and release the result as a major new product. Usually this means a trivial amount of additional development on an existing product which is then released as a brand new product. Regardless, the model is tiny costs, big revenue.
Whenever Microsoft has attempted to create something from scratch, the result has been failure. I don't want to bother trying to list them all, but Vista is an obvious and fairly recent example.
I don't think they have the ability to create any product from the ground up. Most of their products have been acquisitions. I even remember an interview a while back in which a Microsoft exec used the phrase "innovation through acquisition" ... which a Google search shows has since become a common expression.
Yes, yes, I know there are a lot of intelligent people working there. But the ability to solve riddles in interviews isn't a replacement for knowledge about streamlined architecture or user interface design. Those intelligent people could become masters of those things, but I don't think Microsoft's culture encourages that.
Re:Microsoft can still win (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft still has the chance to beat Apple
I think this is the type of thinking that is why MS is behind Apple. Apple doesn't seem to give a damn about beating MS or Google or HP or Dell. Steve Jobs for years has said he doesn't care that Apple doesn't have a huge marketshare in computers. The fact that they make money and that they have loyal customers is their primary focus. Apple cares only about putting out products that they think are good products and will make them a lot of money. It just happens that their last series of consumer products starting with the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad have taken the market.
MS has always defined itself and its strategy on the market and competitors and not the goal of being the best. They have only wanted to beat everyone else. When they beat Netscape they let IE languish for years until Mozilla and Chrome started to eat their marketshare. They let Window Mobile stagnate until Apple and Google made them almost irrelevant.
Re:Just one problem: Windows 7 is no touch OS. (Score:4, Interesting)
...you can dock the keyboard so it is always on screen.
So the option is to either hit a button every time you want the virtual keyboard, or to always have it up, taking space? Neither option is all that great.
Windows has had a maximize button since version 1! I find it hard to get my users to NOT run everything fully maximized.
How difficult is it to hit the maximize button with a finger tip? And whether maximized or not, how much space is taken up by the title bar? A tablet certainly has more screen real estate than a phone, but it's still pretty valuable.
I think the point is that you have to have different ways of interfacing with a tablet - don't have small elements that could be difficult to hit with a fingertip (especially since you can't 'hover' and fine-tune your position like you can with a mouse) and don't waste screen space.