Posted on 06/19/2012 8:02:28 PM PDT by SmokingJoe
With its new Surface Tablet, Microsoft didn’t just break the mold. It smashed it into a million little pieces, chucked them all into the furnace and set the temperature to obliterate. There really is no precedent for what Microsoft did this week. What was once recognizable is gone. The expected is no more. There are no rules, only supply and the possibility of demand.
Microsoft finally built the tablet it wants to use for its platform: an ultra-thin, superlight, kick-stand-sporting, brainiac-cover wearing, touch screen wonder that elicited dozens of “I wants” in Mashable’s live blog chatter.
Surface is still wrapped in so much mystery (no pricing, no availability, no processor speed) that it remains something of an enigma. On the other hand, the tablet (which, depending on how you look at it, may be a full-blown tablet or a hybrid tablet PC) is no reference design. This is not the pad Microsoft wants its partners to build.
The partners are, at least in this instance, out of the picture.
This Is the Windows 8 Tablet
Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Toshiba and others will surely deliver dozens of Windows 8-based devices this year. Many will sport Intel CPUs. Some, like Asus and Lenovo, are planning tablets and convertibles. These may or may not be well-received. This is no longer Microsoft’s problem.
Or is it?
What, for example, does Microsoft say about Windows tablet design now? Can it point to anything but its own Surface tablet as the epitome of Windows 8 design? Not likely. And what about that very smart cover with the built-in touch or tactile keyboard (take your pick)? Microsoft won’t license that design to its partners. So it’s inevitable that Windows RT partners will always have second best covers.
(Excerpt) Read more at mashable.com ...
Most people would realize that's a big hint there all by itself.
Suppose for some reason you wanted to upgrade to the latest version of IE? Strangely, though firefox will run on just about any computer on the planet, IE9 only runs on more recent versions of MS-Windows. I'm not an MS-Windows user so this is purely hypothetical on my part.
Supporting an OS doesn’t mean the latest and greatest software will run on it either.
The IPad is user friendly because my grandson was able to figure out how to use it and have fun when he was 18 mths old.
He wasn’t able to really use the pc at that age.
He found the interface intuitive wheras the pc’s (Macs and MS OC’s aren’t intuitive for infants.
“Isn’t Microsoft Windows the story of M stealing A’s innovation?”
Not really. They both collaborated to steal Xerox’s technology and created the Mac OS together. Gates knew that MS would probably come out with their own GUI interface, so he made an agreement with them to not release the any MS mouse-based software until one year after the Mac release date. The problem was, the Mac release got delayed, but the date in the contract was a firm date. So, when MS followed the contract and announced Windows first, Jobs blew up and claimed they ripped him off ever since.
Yes.
Yup the Xerox Star from PARC ran Smalltalk and was years ahead of the first Macs. Due to corporate blindness they never exploited the technology.
Apple copied it to develop the Mac. The Mac was designed with a GUI from the outset, they dropped the Apple II OS. MS took years to catch up because they grafted Windows on top of MSDOS.
The Surface looks like an interesting piece of hardware. The pricing will be critical, some of the Ultrabooks are below 1K now with a Solid State Hard drive.
A version of the surface that can run PC programs is very appealing especially if it can multitask.
The PC world has almost caught up to Apple in the Hardware category. The Ultrabooks are almost as attractive as Macbook Air, Apple raised their game with the retna display, nice for old eyes like mine. The Ultrabooks are very attractive however.
Then Dell has a 27in all in one with the same screen res as the 27in IMac and Visio is coming out with some all in ones that are very attractively priced and loaded with Win & without all the preinstalled bloatware other vendors have.
And I personally have never known any of the laptops/notebooks available to be particularly ergonomic in any fashion.
You got a suggestion for a good ergo laptop/notebook?
To give you an idea...I still use a split/ergo keyboard to save my wrists. Straight ones give me wrist pain.
Bookmark
Yeah, but it's a freaking browser! If a browser won't load on the newer version you've got some really screwed up programming practices.
Oh. Wait. We are talking about Microsoft here aren't we? Never mind.
I have, unfortunately, had to use Macs at various times, and I just never found the OS very intuitive to use. The iPad is built on the same Mac-style OS. A couple of Mac features don't make them unusable, but are extremely annoying to me: for example, the lack of a "Delete" button on Mac so you can only delete by backspacing, but you can't delete characters in front of the cursor. I don't know if current Macs still have that limitation, but my iPad does. Other elements of the OS just seem very cumbersome as compared to PC.
I have, unfortunately, had to use Macs at various times, and I just never found the OS very intuitive to use. The iPad is built on the same Mac-style OS. A couple of Mac features don't make them unusable, but are extremely annoying to me: for example, the lack of a "Delete" button on Mac so you can only delete by backspacing, but you can't delete characters in front of the cursor. I don't know if current Macs still have that limitation, but my iPad does. Other elements of the OS just seem very cumbersome as compared to PC.
The usual placement of a finger tracing area or other junk south of the spacebar makes laptops and netbooks clumsy. And the nub in the middle of some other keyboards — ugh it is to throw up. If I were designing it, I’d have a normal-feeling keyboard with a swing-out trackball that could be configured to be on either side.
...makes laptops and netbooks clumsy.
Maybe that's why MS designed their new system the way they did. It looks better to me, design wise, than other laptops.
I like your trackball concept myself. I'd just go with a USB plug-in infrared mouse myself.
Repairs look like they could be costly. A magnesium case?! Owners better hope it doesn't get dinged bad enough to have to replace it!
How so?
Given that IE 9 is more secure than Safari.
The myth of the “safe” OSX has long been destroyed:
Mac Virus Infects Over Half A Million Computer
http://thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu/2012/04/mac-virus-infects-over-half-a-million-computers
Widespread Virus Proves Macs Are No Longer Safe From Hackers
Yeah?
Chuckle!
You mean kinda like how Steve Jobs first of all announced the iPhone on Jan. 9, 2007, but then the iPhone never went on sale until June 29, almost seven months later?
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9007628/Update_Jobs_touts_iPhone_AppleTV_
You may need to have a look at your memory again, mate.
Oh. Wait. We are talking about Microsoft here aren't we? Never mind.
Sigh!
Perhaps you will enlighten us about any Apple support for their 12 year old OS/computers as at now?
If I remmember correctly, Apple first switched from PowerPC to Intel in January 10, 2006, when Steve Jobs announces the first two Intel computers, the 15” MacBook Pro and iMac Core Duo line, both using an Intel Core Duo chip. Does Apple still provide full software updates and support for them two computers, which are not even 12 years old(like XP) but from only 6 years ago?
I’m interested bump for tomorrow....
The reason why Windows OS computers are “virus susceptible” is b/c they are/were far and away the most computers and OS on the planet for the last forever. I’ve been reading that w/ the increased popularity of Mac devices, they are being targeted by viruses on an ever increasing basis.
Thus, Macs were largely virus free (until lately) as the scammers and mischievous makers wouldn’t waste their time on such a small percentage of PC users worldwide. They want the big bang for their bucks when phishing or just generally writing a nuisance program for fun. Plus, their programs get promulgated far faster via MSFT Outlook than the Apple email program.
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