Microsoft Reportedly Scheduled to Introduce Tablet Today

[HLdan]

I would actually like that! Not that I want to buy MS's product, but this way Apple has to offer more than what has been expected during the last couple of months if they want to be groundbreaking. Competition drives innovation!

I gotcha, but you do realize that regardless of what Microsoft introduces tonight won't change what Apple has already created with their forthcoming Tablet device. So saying that Apple has to offer more won't matter, it's already done now. I hardly think Ballmer will introduce anything remotely as good as what Apple will introduce later this month.

 

[wesleyh]

Why is everyone hating on this so much? This thread is pathetic. Competition is good. The courier concept looked good. I hope it succeeds. And I hope the islate succeeds as well. All the better for us, the consumer.

 

[Winni]

Trying to steal some thunder!

Just for the record, Bill Gates already publicly introduced a Windows-powered Tablet PC in the year 2002 -- LONG before you guys started to dream of an Apple Tablet.

Microsoft actually invented the Tablet PC. Who's the copycat now?

 

[Simplicated]

Coincidence!!! Must be coincidence.

 

[emotion]

Why is everyone hating on this so much? This thread is pathetic. Competition is good. The courier concept looked good. I hope it succeeds. And I hope the islate succeeds as well. All the better for us, the consumer.

I agree. Thanks for a nice balanced post.

 

[ShiftyPig]

But there is some truth behind the rants. Microsoft will throw something out there just to appear like they are still in the game. Apple will get it right and test it before anything is released. Sure there are some exceptions, the cube for one. However, with the cube it proved a computer can be smaller. MS has far more failures than most companies because they want to be in the game. If they would just stop trying to act like they are on top of things and actually create something that is worth wild, then they would have a game changer.

Worst post in the history of MR?

MSFT net profit, 3 months ending 9/30/09: $3.574B
AAPL net income, 13 weeks ending 9/26/09: $1.665B

iMac 27".

Get a grip man. Apple isn't the second coming and there are other companies that, shock, outperform Apple and produce great products.

 

[Vulpinemac]

Just for the record, Bill Gates already publicly introduced a Windows-powered Tablet PC in the year 2002 -- LONG before you guys started to dream of an Apple Tablet.

Microsoft actually invented the Tablet PC. Who's the copycat now?

Actually, no. Microsoft didn't invent the Tablet PC, somebody else did. Microsoft merely modified Windows to use the touch-screen capability. In other words, it's not really a Tablet, it's a laptop without a keyboard.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Way ahead of what? Apple, these days, doesn't really make brand new products, they observe what's out there, how it's doing, what it's strengths and weaknesses are, how it could be streamlined and improved, and then they basically make their own version several years down the line that may not hold a torch to the competition spec-wise, but runs vastly superior custom in-house software. That's how they succeed, not by forging ahead with whole new products.

Tablets have been around for YEARS. I'm a big follower of Apple but even I'm not as blind are you perhaps are. I'm certainly not as juvenile.

Oh so very true. Apple biggest products have been more of a copy of an ideas already in the market just improved apon and changed to work better and time really well to take advantage of the take off of the product

For example

iPod -- It was not the first MP3 player nor first HD mp3 player. Apple saw what was out there and made it better and fixed a huge problem in MP3 players at the time and that was software on the computer side making syncing and organizing the libraries/play list of the music to the MP3 player. Top it off timed really well to match with the mp3 player market taking off.

iPod shuffle- Complete copy of other flash drive MP3 players out there. Just tied it into iTunes with no one else could do.

iPhone -- Not the first touch screen, Not the first smart phone. Apple saw the smartphone sector of the cell phone market was going to grow and they saw touch screens becoming the new thing in phones. So what does apple do. They make a touch screen phone taking advantage of the new multitouch technology they got their hands on. Tied it in to the iPod success in the music. They also took advatage of the fact that everyone else laid the groundwork for them and they did not have the draw backs like they had. They could start fresh and not worry about losing everyone. RIM for example is limited on what they can do to the OS because if they change it to much they would loose there customer base. Apple had no base so they could move straight into it with much fresher ideas and no limitations.
Great way to take advantage of the smart phone taking off in the consumer market.

iPod Touch- iphone spin off. Most of the R&D was already done for the iPhone so it was a cheap easy product to get out the door and people wanted it. Cheap and easy profit.

Mac Book Air -- not the first unltra light computer. Just saw that is what other companies were doing and people like them. Apple did the same and look for ways to cut even more weight and make it smaller. Changing the battery was the biggest help and offering Solid state hard drive helped as well.

In 2001, Bill Gates predicted that the pending Microsoft Tablet PC would become "the most popular form of PC within five years" (EDIT: source). Microsoft have not only been in this market for years but if they're at all sensible then they've had an opportunity to learn some serious lessons. I therefore wouldn't write this off.

That said, until they fix their idiotic backwards approach to typography there's no way I'm using one of their devices for serious reading. They need to at least kill the aggressive hinting and learn to pair kern. Though hopefully their device will be of the 160+ppi range, at which point at least the former stops being so much of an issue.

If you know much about Microsoft R&D you learn pretty quickly they are really good at out pacing technology. They hardware requirements for what they want to do just are not up there yet. A good example is WinFS. Microsoft came up with the idea and had a lot of the research done on it way back in 1995. Problem was the processing power was no were close to what was needed to make it work well. Hell when Vista came out the processing power for it was not even there yet. That puts an idea from microsoft well over 10 years ahead of hardware and that is just one of the more well known ones. I have talk with people who have met some of the R&D staff at private presentations of the projects they were working on and they told me that some of the stuff is jaw dropping at the time and is years a head of its time. The problem they run into is hardware limitations. That had PDA ideas that we see now days that back then we just lack the battery power and CPU power to make it workable and marketiable.

It been describe to me that Microsoft R&D department is more like a University than a business R&D. that mains big budget projects that might will be years long and decade to more before it is even feasible for it to be put into production. You have people with Doctor degree working on pure research and nothing more.

I think back in 2001 the tablet idea was well a head of its time and really only now are we getting to the point were the hardware to make it work well is becoming economically feasible.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

Actually, no. Microsoft didn't invent the Tablet PC, somebody else did. Microsoft merely modified Windows to use the touch-screen capability. In other words, it's not really a Tablet, it's a laptop without a keyboard.

So are you saying that Apple copied Microsoft because they used touchscreen technology first?

 

[arkitect]

Competition is good — and end users are the winners

Hmmm.

Apple's late January event has not yet been confirmed, has it?

Which tantalisingly leaves the possibility that should Microsoft come out with something that beats Apple's product, Jobs just might pull the plug (Kind of like taking his toys away… ) and send everyone back to the drawing board.

I am no fan of Jobs… but he does have a highly developed sense for what is a show-stopping/industry changing product.
If his ego feels he has been trumped by Microsoft he will not release the Apple tablet.


Just a thought.

 

[darthraige]

Actually sounds completely logical to me. Why not get your product out ahead of a competitors?

Because Microsoft knows that if they were to release their Tablet AFTER Apples, no one would care. Look at the hype Apples Tablet is getting. We all know that this thing will blow any other competitor away.

Microsoft products are a joke.

 

[AidenShaw]

Consider USB -- Before Apple, USB was created as a new connectivity standard that was essentially ignored by users and manufacturers alike. Apple made it the standard and default connection on the iMac, and everyone scrambled to manufacture devices and adopt it for the PC market in general.

Mainstream PCs had USB ports before the Imac - and the industry was preparing for the Windows 98 release with native OS support for USB (Win95 had some add-on drivers, but support was, shall we say problematic.)

It should be obvious that the USB devices depended upon silicon controller chips that were already being sold when the Imac was announced.

Apple definitely kick-started the USB era, but the main "scramble" for manufacturers was to change their existing plans to use translucent plastic instead of beige plastic for the injection molding.

 

[Vulpinemac]

Worst post in the history of MR?

MSFT net profit, 3 months ending 9/30/09: $3.574B
AAPL net income, 13 weeks ending 9/26/09: $1.665B

iMac 27".

Get a grip man. Apple isn't the second coming and there are other companies that, shock, outperform Apple and produce great products.

Hmmm... let's think ratios for a moment.

Microsoft: Roughly 90% of the computing market all-told. $3.574B. That's roughly a 2.51:1 ratio, market to money.

Apple: Roughly 10% of the computing market all told. $1.665B. That's roughly a .60:1 ratio, market to money.

Who's really making the better income for effort? It looks like Apple is coming out 4x better than Microsoft in this comparison.

 

[Flavioparentiq]

hilarious

I find hilarious that microsoft is announcing a tablet that's already an "slate-killer".. without having any slate to look at... let's call it an anticipated kiss of death

 

[darthraige]

Hmmm.

Apple's late January event has not yet been confirmed, has it?

Which tantalisingly leaves the possibility that should Microsoft come out with something that beats Apple's product, Jobs just might pull the plug (Kind of like taking his toys away… ) and send everyone back to the drawing board.

I am no fan of Jobs… but he does have a highly developed sense for what is a show-stopping/industry changing product.
If his ego feels he has been trumped by Microsoft he will not release the Apple tablet.


Just a thought.

It's been confirmed. Press releases have gone out already. Also, Microsoft is years behind Apple's technology. (Except gaming, at the moment.)

 

[*LTD*]

Just for the record, Bill Gates already publicly introduced a Windows-powered Tablet PC in the year 2002 -- LONG before you guys started to dream of an Apple Tablet.

Microsoft actually invented the Tablet PC. Who's the copycat now?

ZZZzzzz . . . .

Apple isn't copying here. They're taking something poorly implemented and doing it right, giving it mass appeal and very likely ushering in a new phase of computing. And the Newton existed long before 2002. Its development started in 1989.

Current tablets are ****. Bet on Apple to change all that.

iPod, iPhone, now tablet. It's pretty simple.

 

[JMax1]

1) The Zune HD does actually look pretty good
2) The XBox is a decent console
3) A bit of competition is good (and badly needed) for Apple
4) Windows isn't the train wreck it used to be
5) Macs aren't necessarily more reliable than similarly-priced PCs

I agree with these points. I think MS is still a viable competitor in the market. Granted, I don't think the devices will be terribly different, but it's nice to offer choices to the user. In fact, I hope that it turns out to be a nice little product. That way more people will get it, and then my iTablet will still be a nice little rare gem. Kind of like my iPhone was the day it came out. Now that the market is flooded with iPhones, it's not quite as novel as it was (read: i don't feel as special). But in the end, it's competition.

 

[arkitect]

It's been confirmed. Press releases have gone out already.

Where has it been confirmed?
Apple's last Press release : Apple’s App Store Downloads Top Three Billion


Hmm. Then it might be up to the Apple HiFi Mk II.

I Microsoft is years behind Apple's technology.

We know that how?

 

[darthraige]

I find hilarious that microsoft is announcing a tablet that's already an "slate-killer".. without having any slate to look at... let's call it an anticipated kiss of death

Yup. Once again, another cookie cutter company trying to beat the best.

 

[zacman]

Apple isn't copying here. They're taking something poorly implemented and doing it right

We don't even know what Apple has to offer yet. So that's a pretty tough statement. It could be a new iPhone, iPod class product or it could be a new AppleTV, MacBook Air or (remember that?) QuicktimeTV.

 

[ChazUK]

iPod, iPhone, now tablet. It's pretty simple.

For the sake of fragmentation, please say it aint so!

 

[NT1440]

Uh, wasn't the rumor that Steve Ballmer was going to into HP's tablet today? How did this get turned into MS releasing its own tablet?

 

[Vulpinemac]

We don't even know what Apple has to offer yet. So that's a pretty tough statement. It could be a new iPhone, iPod class product or it could be a new AppleTV, MacBook Air or (remember that?) QuicktimeTV.

How many of us are using Quicktime TV now? Ummm... does your video programming come down from a satellite? Odds are you're using Quicktime TV right now.

 

[kdarling]

Wow.

Anyway, I wonder how much MS actually had to do with whatever this thing is.

HP is the one who's been doing a lot of touchscreen app development on their own.

HP is to Windows desktops and laptops, as HTC is to WinMo and Android phones... they add value by actually creating nicer user environments on top of the base OS.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

ZZZzzzz . . . .

Apple isn't copying here. They're taking something poorly implemented and doing it right, giving it mass appeal and very likely ushering in a new phase of computing. And the Newton existed long before 2002. Its development started in 1989.

Current tablets are ****. Bet on Apple to change all that.

iPod, iPhone, now tablet. It's pretty simple.

I suggest you test an HP 2730P with Windows Seven. Again, I don't believe for a second that you even give fair comparisons to the products you bash. Its my job for a living to QA and test everything from Android phones to Mac Computers, Avid Bays, and other Technology for a Major Conglomerate so I see a lot of the technology and how its implemented. You just look at the damn labels.