Where'd all the comments go today? Great articles, no commentary? Is everyone on their way home from WWDC?
Everyone was up all night dealing with EC2.
Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
11–20 of 41 posts
Re: Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
#12Designed by Microsoft and made by Nokia? This could be the very reason Nokia opted for Windows phone than choosing Android.
Re: Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if its for 50 bucks and subsidized via ads? Or if it allows you to play Xbox games remotely over the internet? Or if it has great handwriting recognition? Or if you can program on it using any language you want?
50 bucks and subsidized via ads? Then Microsoft loses an epic fortune and only has users without money. play Xbox games remotely over the internet? It's just unfeasible. Control schemes on a tablet do not translate to console games. great handwriting recognition? Then it's going to require a stylus, and many won't care. Not a good enough feature... The world has largely moved on from this desire. program on it using…
You're missing the point that there isn't a single point that will cause a tablet to fail in the market. If it doesn't have a great screen, most people won't care (AT ALL). Those who do care won't buy it.
If it doesn't have a great screen, costs a fortune, has no features and no apps, then it's DOA. Pointing to a single feature and saying "this is the only thing the market cares about" is silly and rarely a useful metric to look at.
Re: Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
#14I bet this is the mysterious project Dave Cutler has been working on lately!
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-confirms-dave-...
Re: Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
#15Finally. One of the major reasons I use Apple-products today is that the hardware and software works together out of the box, which creates the feeling that they were made for each other. With clunky PCs, I've never experienced that feeling. Hopefully Microsoft can get it right this time, and make it feel like a quality product. While I enjoy using my Apple devices a lot, they do need some competition to fuel innovat…
This would burn so many bridges with their hardware manufacturers that some would defect and go with some other platform almost immediately.
Microsoft thinks they're the king of the hill with Windows but it wouldn't take long for vendors to team up together and make Chrome OS, Android, or some other Linux variant into a viable alternative.
All this alternate OS would have to do is everything that Windows XP does. The number of Windows 7 specific applications is shockingly low.
Re: Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
#16I am looking forward to this. Currently, I am using my wife's iPad now and then, and while the display and smoothness of interaction is top notch, I can't say I like the operating system... iOS isn't bad as an application launcher, but I find it too restricting for a tablet. I can't do basic things like configure something like startup script for an app, forward the output of one program to another one, etc. etc... While a lot of people seems to like iOS, something like Windows with touch seems much more appealing to me. Moreover, I could then have one system in both my PC and tablet, which is also (at least theoretically) great.
I also own an iPhone, and there I think iOS is great, since I want my phone to be an application console, and nothing more. But in tablet, I'd like it to be more like a computer, so iOS is not adequate for me here.
Re: Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
50 bucks and subsidized via ads? Then Microsoft loses an epic fortune and only has users without money. play Xbox games remotely over the internet? It's just unfeasible. Control schemes on a tablet do not translate to console games. great handwriting recognition? Then it's going to require a stylus, and many won't care. Not a good enough feature... The world has largely moved on from this desire. program on it using…
You're missing the point that there isn't a single point that will cause a tablet to fail in the market. If it doesn't have a great screen, most people won't care (AT ALL). Those who do care won't buy it. If it doesn't have a great screen, costs a fortune, has no features and no apps, then it's DOA. Pointing to a single feature and saying "this is the only thing the market cares about" is silly and rarely a useful me…
The dominating feature of a tablet is the screen. It's the largest component of the design, and has the most impact on the experience. If there was a single point of failure, that's the one to bet on.
Android, likewise, has not been able to compete in the tablet market... even less so after the Retina iPad. Apple has, unfortunately, set a very high mark for competition.
I had just purchased an Asus eeePad Transformer Prime, the top of the line Android tablet, right before the Retina iPad... I immediately sold it, for a loss, and switched.
Re: Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
#18This feels like PowerPoint-driven strategy. All of the executives in Microsoft are like circling vultures, fighting with each other over the flesh of the Windows cash flow stream, trying to get their organizations funded.
You’d think they could just leave and found their own companies, but no, they’d have to make something people wanted relatively immediately, instead of being able to mouth platitudes about being “strategic” and “building moats” to “protect” Windows and so on and so forth.
Or if you prefer, there is a Windows Tax, and these divisions are like government projects, each trying to justify their existence and draw upon the tax revenues. Like government projects, they are not accountable to the people who pay the taxes, just faceless mandarins at the top.They only lose if they are silly enough to cause a scandal with their foolishness and embarrass the company into firing them and defunding their projects.
Building Kin, then killing it, then getting into bed with Nokia, then building their own tablet... Reminds me of the way the city contractors tear up my street, then pave it, then tear it up again, then pave it again, and so forth. As long as the bureaucracy is in control, and as long as the tax dollars keep flowing, it’s a game of who has the best PowerPoint.
Re: Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
#19Finally. One of the major reasons I use Apple-products today is that the hardware and software works together out of the box, which creates the feeling that they were made for each other. With clunky PCs, I've never experienced that feeling. Hopefully Microsoft can get it right this time, and make it feel like a quality product. While I enjoy using my Apple devices a lot, they do need some competition to fuel innovat…
This would burn so many bridges with their hardware manufacturers that some would defect and go with some other platform almost immediately. Microsoft thinks they're the king of the hill with Windows but it wouldn't take long for vendors to team up together and make Chrome OS, Android, or some other Linux variant into a viable alternative. All this alternate OS would have to do is everything that Windows XP does. The…
Disagree. The hardware manufacturers aren't exactly rolling in high quality operating systems to choose from. What are their other choices? Linux. Many will of course argue that Linux is great and is an obvious choice, which would be a fair enough argument, but for the larger majority of the population who know Windows and don't want to learn something new, the manufacturers will need to stick with Windows or risk alienating those potential customers.
Also, the argument is predicated on the assumption that this is a zero sum game. Microsoft's value proposition isn't suddenly going to be so amazing that no consumer will purchase a non-Microsoft PC. In the same way, I find it highly likely that if Apple's OS were available for licensing, a lot of PC manufacturers would license it without regard for the fact that Apple's hardware is probably superior.
Re: Microsoft Expected to Introduce Tablet
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're missing the point that there isn't a single point that will cause a tablet to fail in the market. If it doesn't have a great screen, most people won't care (AT ALL). Those who do care won't buy it. If it doesn't have a great screen, costs a fortune, has no features and no apps, then it's DOA. Pointing to a single feature and saying "this is the only thing the market cares about" is silly and rarely a useful me…
The dominating feature of a tablet is the screen. It's the largest component of the design, and has the most impact on the experience. If there was a single point of failure, that's the one to bet on. Android, likewise, has not been able to compete in the tablet market... even less so after the Retina iPad. Apple has, unfortunately, set a very high mark for competition. I had just purchased an Asus eeePad Transformer…
> The dominating feature of a tablet is the screen. It's the largest component of the design, and has the most impact on the experience. If there was a single point of failure, that's the one to bet on.
I disagree with all my heart, soul, brain and everything in the universe. The dominating feature of a tablet is the software.
> Android, likewise, has not been able to compete in the tablet market..
[citation needed]. Android has been slow to pick up but is slowly commanding more and more of the market. Android started from behind on tablets but is working to catch up; i.e., they're competing.
> Apple has, unfortunately, set a very high mark for competition.
I would consider that fortunate, not unfortunate. When is a high bar for competition a bad thing?!
> I had just purchased an Asus eeePad Transformer Prime, the top of the line Android tablet, right before the Retina iPad... I immediately sold it, for a loss, and switched.
That's fine. I find the screen to be the least important part of a tablet. I'd take 800x600 running Android any day over a high res iPad. You and I are different people with different preferences. The market is made up of many people like us, and the tablets that fit the most of us the best will do the best in the market. You cannot take your personal preference and impose it on the market. You will be wrong.