Comments on: Windows 8 Tablet, developer preview

By: Daemon

Daemon — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:04:58 +0000

Tablet computers are not supposed to replace laptops. Without real keyboard it is impossible to type long texts. Without mouse your “pointer” is not so precise. Tablets serve a different purpose, they are finely placed between a mobile smartphone and laptop. As such, in order to make them good, you need to sacrifice some options.

We will see. My prediction: trying to mix up everything into tablet, trying to be both laptop and tablet at the same time will result in failure.

By: Jarvis

Jarvis — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:05:54 +0000

I hate it when people fail to understand the true potential for a tablet.

W8 is a massive step forward in bringing proper PC power to the tablet environment. Just because it has a fan does not mean it is a failure. Quite the converse. A fan has nothing to do with it. I just hope W8 does not fall into the trap of replicating idevices.

I am not content with an underpowered, non-functional consumer content device. I want a tablet I can do real work on – not just check email, surf the net, etc. That is stuff I can do on my iphone or any other smartphone, every bit as efficiently as my ipad.

The true benefit is mobile computing that can go anywhere (more than a laptop) and is more focused on providing high end solutions.

My understanding (and hope) is that the W8 philosophy is a hybrid / two pronged approach. The W8 metro interface is great for simple “apps” as defined by Apple – content and consumer driven content. Behind this is the traditional windows environment with the full power of full scale applications etc.

Why people do not understand the benefit of full scale applications, I do not understand. Just because Steve Jobs said that you should’t need a stylus or external input, and freedom in developing applications doesn’t mean he is right. We have all been blinded by iMarketing.

The Asus 121 is annother great example – laptop power in a tablet (I can run anything I want!).

All the above aside, I love my iphone and ipad :)

By: Haris Čusto

Haris Čusto — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:44:33 +0000

As you already know Microsoft will not sell Win 8 Tablets, only Win 8 OS. Same as with WP7, they will have OEMs who will sell different tablets. So there is no way to exactly feel on any device how your app will run on all devices.

By: Daemon

Daemon — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:33:05 +0000

The trick is that early iPad developers used real iPad to develop first bunch of software. Win Tablet developers will use some proxy, some Frankenstein. They will not know how will their app look like exactly, feel like, behave like, when it lands on real machine. That’s just stupid.

By: Haris Čusto

Haris Čusto — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:31:05 +0000

I’m not talking here about serious work (like developing whole app on tablet), I’m talking here about testing and debugging the app.

But to be clear, if this was win 8 tablet (not dev. thing) this would fail. But if you are win 8 developer, you will find this thing exciting just as much as regular users find iPad exciting :)

By: seven

seven — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:49:08 +0000

I think the point was there but not stated enough.

Tablets in general are #fail for any kind of serious work. I know Deamon is using iPad for typing articles. I use iPad for surfing and some gaming. Both can hardly classify as real usage. :) And all that not because we cannot connect tv or keyboard to ipad (because we can), but because we have real computers for hard work – at work.

By: Haris Čusto

Haris Čusto — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:17:15 +0000

First of all this is dev. tablet, it’s basically a PC with a lot of sensors, so it’s not a real Win 8 tablet as you call it. It’s used as (hardware) simulator (which is – as far as I know – the first device on which you can debug in your Dev Studio your app without software simulated sensors). Instead of transferring your app from Dev. machine to user device and test it, you can test it right away.

Besides that it can be extended with tower, which offers you to connect even more devices to it (mouse, keyboard, external Monitor..). With it, there is no difference between dev “tablet” and real PC.

So your whole post is gone in wrong direction!