Page-turning 'Macallan' UI will hit a Windows 7 tablet this year (video)
By Sean Hollister 
posted August 1st 2010 12:37PM
posted August 1st 2010 12:37PM
posted August 1st 2010 12:37PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Good job MS, your on a roll.
@mailbox01 - *you're
@mailbox01
Except it's not MS.
I wonder what this will be like in reality. Like the Courier, concepts are very nice, but anyone can make a video of a concept UI. I have yet to see anyone other than Apple to actually make a super-responsive and useful touchscreen UI.
I hope they pull it off, but with Windows 7 underneath I think it's unlikely. Not because Windows 7 is bad, but because it's still just a re-skinned desktop OS. We've been there before.
@
From the look of the tape around the sides, it looks like they've got the antenna problem licked.... Not sure about the acetate peel though. How about a simple page swipe?
@mailbox01
You must mean good job UI Centric.
Microsoft has nothing to do with this interface.
Looks like it has a very similar to widows mobile 7 and or the zune. I'm diggin it.
@shocklat
To be fair it is in the style of MS's Typography based design...it looks very zune like. MS also has something to do with windows 7 running well on that kind of hardware.
@mailbox01
The need to halve the amount of time that the "press & hold" gesture took for the menu to come up. The 1 or 2 seconds was too long.
Also, it graphics when things were didn't seem very fast .. i think the graphics refresh rate was sucky. Probably the fault of the GPU?
@mailbox01 pretty cool concept, though needs some improvements to blow other tablets, and i wish it includes real MS windows 7 OS.
@mailbox01 Why doesn't MS just develop a tablet version of Windows phone 7?
@Worm in the Apple
Because they need something on the market sooner than that.
@shocklat Funny it looks just like Media Center with extra touch features.
@Lundmark , this wasn't a concept video. This was a prototype. Big difference!! A concept video is usually a Flash video with no implementation at all. A prototype is real code, with the corner cases not all plugged in. And given a Q3 release, this probably is more than a prototype even, but a technical preview build.
Very impressive!
@Worm in the Apple
You ask why they don't develop a touch-centric W7. Look at the history of W7 and how many times the project was rebooted before they achieved a stable product that didn't make end users run away screaming. It took years of work and the torture of Vista before W7 was released. I suspect plenty of um "compromises" and special, hidden tweaks were needed to get the product we see today. Jumping in the middle and trying to make a lean, fluid, tablet OS out of vanilla W7 is probably not an easy or simple task.
@Lundmark
Yeah, this isn't a concept. This is a real working prototype. Obviously they still need to optimize the code, but this is definitely impressive! An intuitive UI that uses the power of Windows 7 while separating the user from it sufficiently that they never have to go to the default view. And it's certainly an original way of getting rid of applications: just peel away!
@JS
Your right. That's hardware. Just stick in a mobility 5850 and we're set.
@Lundmark
"I have yet to see anyone other than Apple to actually make a super-responsive and useful touchscreen UI."
Wait, what? Have you never *used* Android? Specifically current versions of it? Statements like this are astounding. I used to own an iphone 3g (iOS 2) and I can tell you that I am positive than Android 2.1 is better.
@Ed T
You're right Ed T.
Look, we all know how bad ass a tablet with a 100% fingerable w7 OS would be. I'm an OSX person but for the rest of the crowd it would be great. But I don't think MS would put out a 100% fingerable OS for the tablet format. I don't feel they have the desire to go down that road.
@Lundmark
"I have yet to see anyone other than Apple to actually make a super-responsive and useful touchscreen UI"
I bet you have never used a Zune HD, its one of the best UI out the, the Metro UI on WP7 its kinda based on it.
@MRCUR
It's so gimmicky and laggy.
@Lundmark
You're very right. No amount of Windows 7 skinning is ever going to amount to any shred of competitive advantage over the iPad. Windows 7 will still be a bloated desktop OS with all its DLLs, registries, viruses and soup if drivers.
@r00tcause
I think he was talking about UI's on tablets and lets be honest, everyone has basically made Android look pitiful at this point on the platform. As much as I love Android, everyone dun goofed up. It's going to take Google to step in again with Android and make a tablet, just like they made the Nexus One to show all these goons how to do it right.
@HighestRanked1
Bloated? You mean it's a real OS as opposed to a smartphone OS that was shoved into a larger form factor?
You can't even begin to compare the functionality of the iPad to a full fledged Windows 7 tablet.
@mailbox01 The ExoPC skin is much better than this and it's coming out next month. I hope they start doing preorders soon at www.exopc.com
@gom99
Good point. I guess credit does have to be given to Microsoft and Windows 7. UI Centric simply created a beautiful skin. Which I believe might be the most important feature concerning usability on a mobile device like this though.
I'm curious as to weather or not UI centric might have had something to do with windows phone 7 and Zune.
If not, you're absolutely right in saying that this is where their inspiration came from.
Sorry, no. In the year 2010, no ui should be that choppy. The zune transitions and scrolls fluidly, so why can't this thing?
@r00tcause I've used an android with 2.1 and the iPhone 3GS or 4 is much more responsive and smooth ( with ios 4)
@Mike10010100 Exactly my point.
@shocklat Until they buy them.
@Lundmark I agree that this UI isn't the best, looks like a poor knockoff of a Windows Phone UI or the Zune UI -- Microsoft has it wrong there.
You should look at the Thinix Touch 6 UI for Windows touch devices -- vastly improves touch in Windows. http://thinixtouch.com
so many gadgets so little money... :(
@Kelso I so agree....
@Kelso "I wanna be a billionaire , so freakin bad"
@Kelso so many gadgets, only two hands!
@HansImGlueck You don't need a hand for the Fleshlight!
Nice!! Will it see the light of Day though? I want a WebOS Tablet but this has sparked my interest bug.
@Pookiewood
also eagerly awaiting the hurricane/palmpad
Really cool interface...hope this sees the light of day!!!
interesting..... seems gimmicky though
Very neat!
Looking forward to Win7 Tablets...
Certainly not bad looking, but I wouldn't call those transitions "smooth" as the narrator did.
@MRCUR It's like turning a page in a book with the source of light being a strobe. Other than that, it seems to be pretty nice. I always did like the idea of a Windows 7 tablet.
You can see where the Samsung Tape got its name at 0:54
Looks sluggish and unresponsive
@VanNorden
How does it look sluggish? If you want sluggish play with the iPad.
@VanNorden
of course it is, it's not the final product nothing looks responsive right off the bat.
It looks pretty good to me except for the page peeling which i'm sure they will iron out the kinks
@stevenwill You must be joking. Don't even know how you could possibly be serious.
@stevenwill iPad is sluggish? Let me guess, never actually touched one irl.
@VanNorden It's not that unresponsive. Besides, it's not optimized at all. This is exactly how much WP7 lagged the first time it was demoed... now look at it. But that was MSFT, they know how to make stuff lag-free. I hope these guys do too.
@VanNorden
I'm in a agreement with you; the UI looked sluggish. They claimed it was fast and responsive on their test hardware, but that lag during page "peeling", even with the demonstrator's slow movement, isn't what we expect in today's standards. The bar is FAR higher than that.
Unresponsive and sluggish.