“It feels like the whole world is holding its breath for the Apple tablet. But maybe we’ve all been dreaming about the wrong device,” Gizmodo reports. “This is Courier, Microsoft’s astonishing take on the tablet.”
MacDailyNews Take: What’s astonishing about it? That it looks to be 1990’s thick, that it’s stuck running some version of Windows, that it’s vaporous computer graphics with a cartoon demo, or all three?
Gizmodo continues, “Courier is a real device, and we’ve heard that it’s in the ‘late prototype’ stage of development. It’s not a tablet, it’s a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers.”
MacDailyNews Take: Blah, blah, blah. It’s not a “booklet,” it’s a “vaporlet.” So, why is this “astounding” CG imagery being emitted right now? Are Microsoft worried that a real device is coming soon from another company? And, careful, Gizmodo: Besides having been PlayedForSure, Multi-Touch™ is a trademark of Apple Inc.
Gizmodo’s full article, complete with more computer generated images and the aforementioned cartoon demo, here.
The concept looks super-cool. But I don’t think MS can pull off the real thing. Probably just vaporware.
Pure vaporware FUD slinging (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) – a staple of Microsoft tactics.
The video over at Giz is kinda cool. But if Microsoft can create something kinda cool – imagine what Apple will do with it. Bad decision to restrict screen fonts to only display Courier though. They’d need to add WingDings to pique my interest.
I use a wacom stylus instead of a mouse and I can tell you that combining the two interfaces in a tablet is an epic fail because the second you pick up and hold the wacom and pretend you are using the courier, you’ll see the massive suckitude of a carpal tunnel causing interface.
The nasty gutter between the two screens is so big you can drive a truck through it.
The cartoon hand is great BS. It uses the same gesture for drag and drop as scroll. vaporware.
Two points about this newest edition of Microsoft vaporware:
When I looked at the picture and video demo, I thought: Wow, that is almost as cool as the “Knowledge Navigator” that Apple (under Sculley) envisioned in the 1980s. For more on that, go here:
Second, for all those who don’t get the difference, the video – of both the Microsoft booklet and the Knowledge Navigator – does NOT show a real device in action. These are simulations. There is no hardware or software in Microsoft’s labs that actually performs this way. As for Apple, we patiently await the next ding in the universe…
Cool. Now we have simultaneous dual Blue Screens of Death.
Of course it’s vaporware, just like the rumored Apple tablet is vaporware. I’m sorry, Microsoft deserves a lot of ridicule for their bumbling things done in the past, but this thing looks pretty freaking sweet! Competition is a good thing. Let’s see what Apple comes up with (please don’t just release an oversized Touch).
I am a mac fan boy.
And I must say, it looked pretty cool.
Too bad it will never exist.
Apple under promises and over delivers.
MS over promises and under delivers.
And the lemmings fall for it every time.
OLPC 2 over a year ago. Was hoping Apple would run with the idea. If Microsoft can produce anything like this, it will take a bite out of Apple. Hope if Apple produces a tablet it is in this form factor. Great for students and business people.
LMAO at the cartoon demo. Could they possibly have stolen any more ideas from the iPhone? Let’s not forget the iPhone OS is not the original Mac OS. Violate its copious patents — as this device clearly does — and Apple will own your ass. GLWT, Microsoft.
Almost as cool as that video of an iPhone mockup that had a three part screen. I’ll look it up.
dual 7″???
ahhhhh… this is why we went with dual 9″ers
this item is guaranteed to fail, I just hope its bad press wont hurt our tablet
Apple hasn’t let out any full blown pictures, videos and descriptions of its mythical tablet like MS clearly did on purpose. Apple only shows shipping products (or near shipping products) nowadays. Once this “concept product” actually has to have a real OS, a real battery, a real screen, a real flash drive, etc. that’s when things start to get dicey, and you wind up with something too flimsy, too limited, too expensive, not enough battery time, etc.
Think about it. Which OS will this thing use? WinMo7? Windows7? Zune OS4? SurfaceOS? Every one of those OSes has serious drawbacks in a mobile device. That’s why MS has completely bungled every product in the mobile space in the last 10 years. It doesn’t have a competent mobile OS. Even if MS somehow managed to create a completely new, super cool OS, then you would have another set of problems: no software, no drivers, incompatibility with current MS products, etc.
This thing is already stillborn.
When you can’t ship, put out a demo.
Real artists ship.
My vote still goes like this……There is no Apple iTablet. Never will be……all these other fools can make tablets or booklets or digital matchbooks if they want. Apple has never promised it, talked about it or even alluded to a tablet. What these companies are vying to imitate is a fantasy that has been fueled my misguided tech analysts. Thanks to them, AAPL will fall hard when no announcement is made. That could possibly be the reason behind the hype. The opportunistic Brokerage firm that started the Apple iTablet rumour will benefit from shorting I’m sure…….
To MS and all the other wannabes……..have fun trying to copy something that isn’t coming……
Excellent for keeping up the sinking morale of the ‘Softies and those poor unfortunate people working for the Redmond Deathstar…
For starters, Microsloth screwed up on the name. They should have called it the “Furrier”. That way, even if the device totally sucks, Microsloth could still say “Our tablet is furrier than yours!”
Come to think about it, perhaps this has been put out by Apple & Google – to help the few good people in Redmond to jump ship before it is too late.
I like this comment: “Ballmer’s been going through Jonny Ive’s trash again”.
Looks like Microsoft has finally figured out how to make windows work with a dual core cpu.
This reminds me of John Sculley’s Knowledge Navigator a bit.
So after seeing this “demo” does that mean I can order a fully functional flying saucer from Industrial Light and Magic? If a photorealistic model and rendering of something can be produced, that means a fully-functional product can be manufactured, right?
Oort Cloud, here I come!
It’s a pretty fantasy, with a few interesting UI concepts, but pure vaporware. Companies churn out this kind of malarkey every day to lure suckers… I mean… impress potential investors.
Making a nice little “demo” and shipping an actual functioning product are two entirely different things. And Microsoft actually producing something like this is even more preposterous.
I work in a similar mode now when I’m hunting for specs.
Open a Safari window on the left. Drag and drop text and images into a Pages document window on the right. Okay, no handwriting recognition or collaborative features, but it all works in a similar fashion. What else you got, MS?
Even in the improbable event that it isn’t vapourware, we’re talking about Microsoft. This thing is guaranteed to be slow, clunky, and frequently crash. As well as feature copious amounts of DRM and proprietary lock-in. It may even spam you with ads, if the ZuneHD is any indication.
Oh, but at least it looks pracical. It’ll be like a 10 inch screen with a giant black strip of dead space running down the middle, and it can only display images at half the horizontal resolution of a normal 10 inch! Wow! And imagine the fun you’ll have trying to balance it in one hand as you use the other hand to tap on it with the stylus on places far away from its center of gravity! Courier juggling, anyone? And not strenuous on your hand, at all.
Seriously, there’s a reason nobody has put a tablet like this on the market before. It’s not like it was technically impossible to pull off until now. It’s an ergonomic nightmare with a display that’s gimped out of necessity by the folding gimmick. The idea itself is a poor one, and the fact that Microsoft is the one trying to bring it to fruition(making a crazy assumption for a minute that it isn’t all vapour) is just the icing on the failcake.
On the otherhand, this might finally be irrefutable proof that Apple’s making a tablet.
I’m voting with Mick James.
If Apple has anything to do with the rumors, then it was created to get MS to spend a bunch of money making another me-too device that Apple has no interest in.
Looks like MS took the bait.
True MS ‘innovatiativeness’. Copying fake Apple products.
Ace said it all ready.
If it really works like the demo, I would definitely buy something like this. The trouble is, I can’t imagine any software from M$ could ever be that slick.
It has “multitouch” screens? MS is going to license the trademark from Apple?
“Wow, that is almost as cool as the “Knowledge Navigator” that Apple (under Sculley) envisioned in the 1980s.”
@RalphM
I haven’t seen that in years! That’s funny. hideous design, too! Look at the size of the video camera lens.
It’s the computer from Star Trek: Next Generation, minus Majel Barrett’s voice!
@Ralph M
Wow excellent fine. Add the new Wolfram Alpha? research tool to Apples ease of use UI and you are getting pretty close there.
iChat video,
easy UI
WolfRam Alpha
apple wifi speakers
Pretty close. ???
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Just a thought
en
This was not a demo. It was a computer graphics concept video. It wasn’t real.
Microsoft is well known for releasing things like this all the time. Like when they kept promising this great new OS Cairo when all they had was Win95. Or when the iPhone was coming out and they trotted out the “Surface” table. This is just another example of MS trying to freeze the market since they have nothing to sell.
@Ronin
There is a big difference when it comes to corporate competence between Microsoft’s booklet and whatever Apple is doing.
Microsoft, through the “leak” of this video, is deliberately creating a vaporware product. This thing doesn’t exist, but MS wants the lemmings to believe it does in order to put FUD into the minds of any potential Apple product. As one poster noted, this is the epitome of MS “innovation” – they are copying a device from Apple that may not even exist.
Apple has made absolutely no announcement, or leaked any details, about a tablet device. It is a rumor, but it is NOT vaporware. As another poster noted, Apple under-promises and over-delivers.
Ewww, stylus driven…. How ’90s indeed!
MDN approach to everything non-Apple is pathetic. I’m a Mac user, I really like it, I follow the Apple/Mac/iPhone news but I guess even the term “Apple fanboys” is far too soft for this site.
The idea of a booklet format is kind of a no-brainer to imagine. The trick is the UI metaphors – which all looked appalling in the video.
I would suggest that we shouldn’t knock Microsoft’s effort too much.
Afterall, it was probably conceived and produced on a Mac–just like most of their recent anti-Mac ads.
Even if M$ can’t deliver, the whole concept is pretty awesome. If this was Apple’s new tablet, everyone here would be gushing….
How to make an innovating device nowadays:
1) Steal the best ideas around
2) Have enough $ to convince skilled manufactures
3) Show your thing as new
Can you say VAPOR_BRICK?
There is another review of this non-existing item that does a direct comparison to Apple non-existing product. Talks about how apples product screams entertainment device and msft screams productivity.
What a bunch of horse crap.
A little help,
Can anyone tell me anything about Apples WIKI server?
Is htis similar to SharePoint?
SharePoint is all over corporate America, and for some things it works well, although it does not offer an integrated feel and has plenty O bugs.
Is there an alternative?
Another thing about this vapor crap,
I can type a lot faster than I can write, and writing hurts my hands. I need to be able to type.
A vaporware product versus a merely rumored product. “Journalism” is going to a whole new level.
Next: I will do a product comparison of what I think Microsoft should produce in the next 5 years against what I think Apple should do over the next 10 years. Based on that I will come to a conclusion as to who has the better product.
I think the foldable concept would strongly appeal to some users, if it can be made to work fairly smoothly. (I suggested the folding idea almost a year ago on one of these Apple forums, and probably others have done so ages ago.) But it should be smaller, because its greatest selling point (for guys anyway) would be its “pocketability.”
Anyway, even if Microsoft’s version is flawed, at least it will get people thinking along the lines of, “Here’s how it SHOULD have been done,” so eventually someone will get it right.
Because it looks like a book (it folds like an actual book) some of you think that it is a good thing? What if it looked like a beer bottle? Would that not even make it more desirable?
I know, M$ could make a whole line of them, all in slightly different sizes and you could put them all on a big book shelf in your office. You would just pull out the one you need at any time to do a specific job.
While this is a really cool looking prototype, the real question is when will the actual product ship and what’s the OS and tools side of the equation, as Apple has pretty much shown this to be the bar for success.
Clearly, Apple learned this lesson from Microsoft (in PC 1.0) but MS feels long removed from those days (i.e., cultivating and growing a software centered ecosystem), especially in light of all of the legacy that they have to support.
Btw, here are some thoughts on where Apple’s Tablet and the e-Book is headed:
Rebooting the Book (One Apple iPad Tablet at a Time):
http://bit.ly/zOoEu
Check it out if interested.
Mark
@ ElderNorm
Wolfram’s Alpha is just like Wolfram’s ego: bloated Microsoftian marketing. Alpha isn’t nearly what it (or Bing either) is hyped up to be. I’ve tried a number of serious enquiry projects with both. The results were no better than (and usually not as good as) Google, but there were pretty pictures in the background.
Credit where credit is due: Looks cool as a notebook, possibly a surfing machine. Have to be cheap to lure me in, though.
Oh, and real!
I’d hoped Apple would do this with the 10″ iPhone Huge tablet thingy, and think it’s still possible to see the MacBook morph into something like this with one screen dedicated to keyboard/mirror view. Mockups for that have been around for two years – probably where someone at MS got the idea.
Someday.
I come across this headline:
“Microsoft working on ‘Courier’ booklet device?”
My response:
I can’t find a single reason to care, and I quickly continue scanning more headlines until I find a story worth reading.
I like what I saw in the “concept” video.
Now if only Apple would build a tablet that included that type of functionality and more.
All of a sudden, all those speculative pictures of the much-anticipated Apple tablet are looking like some clay tablet unearthed at an archeological dig. This prototype looks like a sci-fi creation that is decades ahead of an over-sized iPod touch. If this is the future of the PC, the I’m a Mac guy needs to return to class – real fast!
…This prototype looks like a sci-fi creation that is decades ahead of an over-sized iPod touch. If this is the future of the PC, the I’m a Mac guy needs to return to class – real fast! – Joe Computer
It not only looks like a sci-fi creation, it is one! It is a video not a product! In the fantasy product world, I am holding out for the NCC-1701; there was a great product-features demonstration video released for it a few months ago. My iPhone has neither phasers nor photon torpedos, and I want them–one never knows when one might encounter time-travelling Romulans.
If it’s a “real device”, why just the CGI demo?? I’ll admit, it’s a good idea, double the screen space with a booklet concept, but I trust Apple to do multi-touch better. I trust Apple to do the operating system better as well.
Let’s wait until 1Q 2010 and see which product is real. Keep in mind, Apple has NEVER SPECIFICALLY SAID they are making a tablet, this so far has all been rumor and speculation.
BTW, the article that links to has the funniest image EVER:
LOL MDN! Eat ya hearts out!
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Steve Jobs better bring his A game come 2010. The Apple tablet had better be all that and then some!