“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.
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: