So, there may never be
a Windows 7 Phone tablet, but that device above looks pretty darn close to what one may have looked like. In actuality that's just the tablet that Microsoft has been using at Computex to demo its new
Windows Embedded Compact 7 supporting Silverlight for Windows Embedded, Flash 10.1, and multitouch within the browser. We caught a few minutes with the NVIDIA Tegra 2-powered, 8.9-inch slate and found ourselves drooling over the Zune / Windows Phone 7-like interface that had been built by Microsoft. But before we tell you to jump past the break to check out the short demo, we want to break the news to you that this UI was created
just to show off the capabilities of the new CE platform -- there's no plan to bring it to market as is on Microsoft's end at the moment. Instead manufacturers, like ASUS and others, have to do their own engineering with the preview release and then the RTM build that will come later this year. But we certainly wouldn't object to one of those companies creating something similar to what you are about to witness in the gallery and video below.
posted June 3rd 2010 2:22AM
@TheSeanWilson For MSFT to have its act together it and its hardware partners have to execute first. We're still 7-9 months from seeing that. As for suddenly getting the right idea, it's amazing what can happen when the right hardware comes along and a competitor kicks your arse all at the same time.
@Wesscoast yeah they just became the only company offering an actual slate os as opposed to an upscaled phone os... im guessing reading isnt something you can do?
@SteveyAyo Do you walk around in public in a robe holding a gavel? Because I'm glad that you're here to pass judgement on all tech that doesn't pass your legitimacy tests.
/s
@mlayer hey im glad i could be here for you, to answer your question YES i do in fact walk around in a robe judging everything, people that dont pass my tests are summarily beaten to death on the spot with the gavel and same happens to tech that i deem insufficient...
Dude its a blogs comment section, i never understood why someone would want a phone OS on a device like this and demanded more than just that... only one company is offering a unique platform for Slate devices as of now, i didnt decide that
@TheSeanWilson
MS hasn't ever worked on a tablet, save for the some experimental research that was never going to amount to a real product. What they have done for the past 10 years is provide an intermediate solution to tablet makers in the form of Windows CE, which has been wildly successful in the areas OEMs chose to market them to. There's no reason why a decent hardware manufacturer couldn't have created a beautiful, functional tablet for the mass market with CE 1-6, there was just no perceived market. I seriously doubt the release of the latest iteration of a long running OS has anything to do with Apple.
Neat device, Engadget team over there at computex needs to bring a better camera next time, with some continuous focus!
why is anyone excited about this? unless MS releases their own UI, we're just looking at a multiple OEMs creating different UIs that won't look like, nor necessarily perform like, the "demo version" we've just seen
"we want to break the news to you that this UI was created just to show off the capabilities of the new CE platform -- there's no plan to bring it to market as is on Microsoft's end at the moment. Instead manufacturers, like ASUS and others, have to do their own engineering with the preview release and then the RTM build that will come later this year."
I don't get it. What about selling a device with a beautiful UI in the form factor that people want could possibly hurt Microsoft?
Now I REALLY want this on a headunit in my car!
I still don't see the point of half function slates, give me an exoPC over these things anyday, but god this would make my car headunit awesome.
huh looks amazing?, how the feck can you guys say that?. I saw 20 seconds of small icons and ugly faces. The rest was a movie and ie7 wrapped all up in silverligt... ok meh.
btw. How about you take the beers away from the cameraman...
Seriously, how hard is it to film a static device?
'Ohh a bit of the UI has moved....zooooooooooooom'.
imho an upside down ui, and absolutely not after my fancy, as for me, i like it organized and intuitive.
Dear Microsoft, find a hardware partner and build this... that is all.
Engadget, please let us know if you need a better camera. We will donate money for you to get one.
We love you.
D8 had natal and now ms has revealed ipad 2g. At e3 Sony will anouncw the 3DS! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!
who the hell was filming this !!! Fire that person right now ... how about just hold the camera steady and lets us see the whole thing no need to zoom and get all creative.
Whoever got the great idea to revamp internet slates must be a real genius (.) No great ui nor "Multi touch(C)" features are going to overshine the fact that there's simply NO good/efficient way for user input. If I wan't to make some fancy moves over a mirror like glass I'll start cleaning my mirrors right now.
@joerg83 how about amazing handwriting recognition for text input?
@SteveyAyo Which would undoubtedly be MUCH slower than using just a good touch screen keyboard like the iPad has... The only place I could see it being faster would be if you're annotating drawings- where it might be cumbersome to switch from a stylus to a keyboard constantly (though people already do something similar with a mouse and keyboard).
@darksharpie with swype you wouldnt have to switch from stylus, just use that input method or just write it, Msft's handwriting recognition software is unparalleled
@SteveyAyo I know their handwriting recognition is good, but do you think you could write a paragraph of text faster than you could type it? I guess it depends how fast you type ;)
@darksharpie on a touch screen key board YES... on a regular keyboard no
@SteveyAyo i'll have to take you up on that challenge then... It's not hard to do 60-80+ words per minute on an iPad (in landscape mode, where the touch screen keys are the size of physical keys).
@SteveyAyo Dude, you must have something wrong with your hands if you can't type faster than you can write on a touchscreen keyboard like the one used on the iPad.
Either that or you write super fast. If that's the case, the computer would not be able to keep up.
@Liquidmark not really once you factor in the ergonomics of typing on a flat touchscreen for an hour or so, you really cant do that for too long before carpal tunnel sets in... its better to write
@SteveyAyo Hilarious. 2 months into owning my iPad, several long text writing sessions with the touchscreen keyboard and so far no hourlong carpal tunnel onset. WTF are you talking about?
To the people worrying about the name: don't be silly. The only name the average consumer will ever see is the name of the device itself, which is separate from the OS.
MS had better get moving on this fast, though ... they don't have a very big window to work with before Android tablets flood the market.
You all need to cut them some slack. They've only had a couple of months to cobble together this UI demo, heck, after 20 committee meetings they couldn't even come up with a proper name for the OS. So give them another year or two, remember great artists don't copy, they steal.
Thats looking really good!
@Radar11c
That's right, all you need for a successful product is the tablet thingy and some pro-fesh-uh-nul looking icons. Who cares about all that back-end stuff. Apps? they are sooo overrated.
Maybe they'll do one of those UMPC viral ads - now that would be so awsome! Chant with me, O-ri-ga-mi! O-ri-ga-mi!, O-ri-ga-mi! Oh yeah, and a big effin' black motor home bus to tour the country with "Windows Embedded Compact 7" written around the sides. It's a plan!
@Ed T I cant tell if your trolling or not but i was referring to the Ui so calm down plz. :/
This is the first step towards a tablet pc that is actually useful as a netbook replacement. The second and final step is to allow pen writing capabilities while resting ones palm on the screen in addition to fluid multitouch interactions.
Gee, another prototype tablet demo from Microsoft that will never go into production… yawn.
@snebold
I am getting really sick of watching all these reference designs at trade shows get demo'd and then we never see a real product come out of it...tegra had so much potential but no one used it. I remember NVidia's demo unit from CES 2008 -- it was dual booting wince and android, playing 1080p and doing HDMI output...needless to say it's 2 years later and we still don't have a tegra based phone or MID.
the zuneHD OS is the best thing to come out of microsoft in years. they are smart to basically use it in windows7phone and now in the tablet form. its fresh looking and its different. keep on this track and Microsoft will be switching spots with apple..
remember microsoft was the boring safe software co. and apple was the fresh looking co. this has switch bc of the basic look of iphone OS and this new ZuneHD OS...
I'm no Apple Fanboy or a Fandroid or anything like that i don't have a Mac just PCs, but to me, when i see this stuff it makes me angry 'cause i feel is like MS sayin "this is the kind of stuff we COULD do if we wanted, but since we don't really give a fuck about what our costumers want we are just going to show them and keep selling them old outdated software" ¿why? i really don't know all i can say is i'm using my Gmail more often, i bought an iPhone a few months ago i went back to google after using Bing for more than 6 months and stopped using IE8 and feel happy with Chrome, so if im an average costumer MS is in trouble.
They just love to fuck with us don't they?
"Here's Windows Phone 7, check out how cool and innovative this interface is, but we're never bringing this to a tablet even though all our competition is doing that for their mobile OSes. Oh but here's Windows CE 7, an OS that makes up half of WP7, and here's a UI skin that looks just like WP7 for it, but we're never going to actually use this. We're just fucking with you."
I'm somewhat of a MS "fanboy" but drooling is a tad much wouldnt you say? Its nice but nothing ground breaking. Also whats up with multitouch "within the browser" thats the first I read of that I think..
Like most are saying this UI looks awesome. I mean its a shame they just put something together for the show and think nothing of it. Like "Oh yeah, this... this is for the Computex show, its really shitty and half assed but it looks sort of nice anyway we're scrapping it after the show. Gonna give the OEMs a chance to make something WAY better." Thats probably what they did before debuting it. >_> This UI if more honed could be what Microsoft needs to get into the tablet race. I mean Win 7 is too full featured and requires to many stilts to hold it up on Tablet hardware. People want response and a dedicated experience.
Microsoft. You scrapped our beloved Courier. You at least owe it to us to release this!
This looks incredible! They should ship this!