Good news! Microsoft is "hardcore" about Windows 7 slates.
More good news! Microsoft already has an awesome Windows slate with an eye-popping interface and the all-important wow factor! Bad news! It was called Courier, and Microsoft cancelled it ages ago!
Oops!
The Courier won't happen, but Windows slates definitely will. Just days after Microsoft canned its half-cocked Kin mobile phone, does its slate plans mean it's heading for another expensive and embarrassing disaster? The pro-Microsoft angel on our left shoulder hopes not, but the realistic angel on our right fears the worst.
The danger here is that Microsoft approaches Windows slate devices from the wrong direction. If Microsoft asks "how can we stuff Windows into an iPad-style device?" rather than "how can we make the most awesome tablet computer ever made, a machine so mind-meltingly incredible that Steve Jobs fills his pants when he sees it?" then all we'll end up with is a bunch of slightly smaller tablet PCs.
Don't get me wrong. I like Windows 7, and I quite like tablet PCs. But I like the iPad much, much more. It's an amazing device, and that's largely because Apple hasn't just sawed the keyboard off a MacBook Pro and jumped around the place shouting "and that's magic!" like a demented Paul Daniels.
It's been designed from the get-go as a mobile, finger friendly device, not a Mac with touchy-feely bits glued on as an afterthought.
The Windows approach
Have you tried HP's touch-enabled Windows 7 PCs? They look great but they don't quite work, and that's mainly because Windows 7 isn't a finger-based system and HP's touch goodies have been stuck on top of it.
Sure, you can flip your photos and spin things around in the obligatory eye-catching manner, but doing something as simple as picking a track in Windows Media Player has you reaching for the keyboard and the mouse. It isn't a true touch system any more than a teenage boy's facial fluff is a proper beard.
Microsoft could easily do this right. With Windows Phone it's recognised that to compete in an iPhone and Android world it needs to start from scratch - something the failure of the Kin only underlines - and it needs to do the same with tablets.
By all means use Windows to provide the horsepower, but create the front end from scratch, creating something so simple a two-year-old can use it. We mean it: two-year-olds can easily use iPads and run up insane bills from in-app purchases. Microsoft needs to emulate that, although perhaps not with the bankrupting-parents bit.
Most importantly of all, Microsoft needs to make sure its OS works with fingers and thumbs. Not fingers and thumbs for most things, but fingers and thumbs for everything – and if anyone says "hey, this would be awesome if it used a stylus" then take them out the back and shoot them.
When it comes to the tablet form factor, Steve Jobs is right and Steve Ballmer is wrong. If your tablet needs more than fingers, you've failed.
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Your comments (9) Click to add a new comment
johnboy30
July 30th 2010
9. Microsoft still doesn't seem to understand that trying to completely blend the normal kind of business-suite applications you get with windows and social media is a) largely pointless and b) virtually impossible. For actually doing work on documents you can't beat a PC and mouse; for surfing the net, writing a couple of emails and playing some games, it's far cooler and for the most part equally practical to have a touch screen. What Apple is so good as is designing their products for the dumbest, laziest and most impatient person around - so anyone can pick their products up and use them instantly. Try doing that with Windows Mobile. Although Microsoft is trying, the hint of doing anything with a stylus - or the news that facebook updates will be incorporated into Outlook for instance, which is entirely pointless in a work application - shows that it's still on the wrong track in my opinion. The only thing non-business related it's done well that I can think of is the X box and to a far lesser extent, the Zune - these were both built with clarity of purpose and weren't trying to be all things to everyone (and weren't *******ised versions of windows)
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garymarshall
July 13th 2010
8. Bradavon: Personally I'd take an Android over iOS or Windows Phone 7 OS any day but I'm a technical user. I love the freedom Android brings.
Oh, I totally understand that. I'm swithering between an HTC Desire and an iPhone 4: I've spent loads on apps but the geek in me wants to tinker. I suspect I'll compromise, get an iPhone and jailbreak it :)
> Why isn't Windows Phone 7 being used for these devices?
That's what I'd like to see. I haven't had my grubby little paws on Windows Phone 7 yet but I'd like to, because I think it's really quite attractive.
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garymarshall
July 13th 2010
7. tfawcett - good point about the Courier's use of the stylus. I'm being a bit unfair. Then again, Microsoft did can it so there's probably some rule somewhere that says I still win ;-)
There is a place for a stylus, but I think there are two dangers. The first is having a supposedly touch-based UI that doesn't really work with fingers because things are stylus-sized, and the second is that stylus input adds a layer of complexity that needn't be there.
An example of what I mean: I've been mucking about with Korg's iElectribe app. It's brilliant, it basically turns your iPad into a drum machine and synth and it's all twisty knobs and push buttons, so to make it work you do a twisty gesture or push the buttons. It wouldn't be half the fun with a stylus.
Another example is my wee girl, who's two and a half. She can unlock an iPad, find the Toy Story digital book, bring up the colouring in bit, select colours, draw, shake to start again, exit the app, launch Drawing Pad or Talking Carl or MouthOff or... there's nothing between her and the apps, and it's really quite extraordinary to see. With a stylus she'd have become frustrated, or eaten it, or stabbed me with it.
Ultimately I think it comes down to the iPhone philosophy versus the Android philosophy, simple and perhaps missing a few things versus more complex and a bit more confusing. But I do think in the case of Microsoft the firm has been pushing various permutations of tablets since the millennium - tablet PC, UMPC etc - and every single one of them has bombed. Whereas Apple has got it right first time. It does seem as if Apple is doing a better job of learning from Microsoft's mistakes than Microsoft is.
I really want Microsoft to make great tablets, btw. Good kit is fun no matter who makes it :)
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bradavon
July 13th 2010
6. Yes it is but I don't believe Apple intends people to draw on the iPad. Good point about the Courier though.
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tfawcett
July 13th 2010
5. I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again... Why don't Microsoft find a way to use the Metro interface (as I believe the Windows Phone 7 calls its interface) as a surface layer for Windows slates.
I know that still leaves a lot of config screens and other things beneath the surface that need tweaking, but it would get a long way towards it. It would at least get us to a multimedia consumer device like the iPad.
As a long time user of pocket PCs, I love the finger touch direction everything is going in, but I do miss hand-writing recognition and my stylus sometimes. The courier used a stylus for hand-writing because it was a journal device. People traditionally write in journals. They also draw in them.
The other day I was trying to explain to a HTC Desire user why they couldn't draw on their shiny new device with pointy items (or at least things with no capacitance - sp?).
They thought it odd that this was not possible and their fingers were not precise enough. Isn't this a problem on iPads and other slates that are being made with capacitive rather than resistive technologies?
I might have invented a few words - apologies if terms aren't correct ;-)
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bradavon
July 13th 2010
4. When tablets get as powerful and can do everything PCs can do, a desktop OS can be put on them. Until then it's crazy.
I actually find this amazing. How many Windows XP Tablet Edition tablets did Microsoft sell? Not many I imagine. Why? Because Windows XP is again a desktop OS.
Apple have done with the tablet what they did with the Smartphone, forced Microsoft to take the form factor seriously.
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garymarshall
July 13th 2010
3. I think you're right, scaling up the phone OS is the way to go for tablets. It's definitely worked on the iPad.
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bradavon
July 13th 2010
2. "It's been designed from the get-go as a mobile, finger friendly device, not a Mac with touchy-feely bits glued on as an afterthought."
Exactly! Windows 7 is excellent but it is NOT a touchscreen or tablet OS. Why isn't Windows Phone 7 being used for these devices?
I see Windows 7 tablets getting a lukewarm reception at most. As this looks to be Microsoft's tablet approach (I wonder why?), I see Android being Apple's biggest tablet competitor.
"As to if it is as good or better than iOS for the iPad, well I think it has more of a shot than the current Android 2.2."
From a user perspective, you're probably right. Both iOS and Windows Phone 7 OS seem to be designed with the newbie user in mind, creating a rich experiance. Android 2.2 is made with the developer in mind and whilst it's more powerful than iOS (and probably Windows Phone 7 OS) it's interface is lacking.
Personally I'd take an Android over iOS or Windows Phone 7 OS any day but I'm a technical user. I love the freedom Android brings.
The Courier used a stylus. Immediate fail!
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slaguru
July 13th 2010
1. I think the only way to get Windows on a 'Pad' will be to try and make Series 7 to scale up.
Playing with the development Beta for Series 7 phones, I think it would be relatively easy to make this upgrade to tablet devices for new apps developed for the mobile platform.
As to if it is as good or better than iOS for the iPad, well I think it has more of a shot than the current Android 2.2.
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