If there is one company that has tablets in its history it’s Microsoft, they have a full mini-site devoted to trying to sell their XP tablet to students in Hong Kong (yep, Hong Kong) and as far back as 2001 Bill Gates previewed a line of Tablet PCs live on stage. But something went wrong, many journalists have stated that the world simply wasn’t ready for the Tablet PC, it wouldn’t be unreasonable however to suggest that the Tablet PC wasn’t ready for the world.
As the touch phone market has so ably demonstrated, we don’t need a full operating system controlled only by touch, in fact we don’t even want it. When it comes to touch devices less is more, there is only so much you can do with a few taps, swipes and flicks before the whole thing becomes, frankly, rather awkward. It is for this exact reason that Apple, Google. Palm and Nokia have kept their mobile operating systems simple, too much flexibility is, in fact, a bad thing.
So will Microsoft have any luck with their latest tablet offering? Have your say in the comments.
Yes, there is potential.
The current UI model from Xerox Parc and exemplified by Mac OS and MS Windows, though a huge leap forward from MS DOS and other Command Line Interfaces, has reached its zenith.
Adoption rates have fallen away. Yet there are still many people who do not have a computer and those that do, often do as little as possible with them. What will lift the game another notch? UI’s such as iPhone OS are another leap forward in user friendliness.
Apple have shown the way: iPad is a computer for non-geeks. It’s for people who want to easily send email, browse the web, do their internet banking, watch a bit of telly and see their family photos.
The Gizmodo Microsoft Courier videos look promising and goes along way to making everything so natural.
Two screens mean twice the battery drain but then there is enough volume to have double the battery storage. Dual screens also mean there is potential for a leap in productivity. Look at how many people have dual screens on their desktop workstations these days.
I hope the hinge will be really strong as it will get a lot of twisting and bending forces.
It’s going to be too big to use “out in the field” because it won’t fit in anyone’s pocket. It seems to me to be a good candidate for a laptop replacement. I wonder if MS will be canny enough to simultaneously release a new version of MS Works optimised for the new UI?
If it’s output was compatible with MS Office file formats then we could be on a winner here.
Pen input with HWR will make it ideal as a meeting/lecture notes taker. I hope the Courier has a good sized pen and a safe and convenient place to stow it.
Maybe Courier will end up being what the Tablet PC concept had always meant to have aspired to.