the tablet war is heating up

[IronWolf]

Those are a lot of assumptions. Microsoft hasn't been able to develop good performance tablets since....well, since they were developing tablets running Windows, with short battery life, before the iPad was a gleam in Steve Jobs' eye.

Yeah, we used to have several models of Windows tablets at work back in the day and they were horrible. Very much a gadget with very little real functionality because of their poor performance.

Now granted, now that Microsoft has something to model their new tablets after they might have better luck. They seem better at following and sometimes improving than they do leading often times. So maybe with the successful iPad and Android tabs they can finally figure out what makes a successful tablet.

The other thing with a Windows tablet is how they are going to address battery life. I guess they have been able to dabble in that area with Windows 7 mobile, maybe they have learned a bit there that can carry over to Windows 8 tablets.

 

[Felon]

Those are a lot of assumptions. Microsoft hasn't been able to develop good performance tablets since....well, since they were developing tablets running Windows, with short battery life, before the iPad was a gleam in Steve Jobs' eye.

I just threw out the "appeal to tradion" fallacy in another thread. Don't make me do it again so soon.

MS has always tried to slap vanilla Windows onto a tablet. Windows will be 8 touchscreen and tablet-friendly from the get-go. The pre-release candidate has been available to play with for some time now. It's the real deal. They even got it running on an iPad's hardware.

 

[Janx]

I just threw out the "appeal to tradion" fallacy in another thread. Don't make me do it again so soon.

MS has always tried to slap vanilla Windows onto a tablet. Windows will be 8 touchscreen and tablet-friendly from the get-go. The pre-release candidate has been available to play with for some time now. It's the real deal. They even got it running on an iPad's hardware.

I have seen windows 8 on the tablet they gave away at MS BUILD last year. I've held it in my hands and it was responsive.

It was actually a laptop. Reshuffled into a tablet form factor with no keyboard and a touch screen.

Battery life was about 2 hours, because it was an intel system, not arm.

Win8 will cure the UI sux as a tablet problem. The Arm. Version of the hardware will cure the battery problem.

Metro mode takes care of performance, because of how the ui is engineered to be responsive (any event taking longer than Xms must be an asynchronous call).

 

[JoeGKushner]

Yeah, we used to have several models of Windows tablets at work back in the day and they were horrible. Very much a gadget with very little real functionality because of their poor performance.

Now granted, now that Microsoft has something to model their new tablets after they might have better luck. They seem better at following and sometimes improving than they do leading often times. So maybe with the successful iPad and Android tabs they can finally figure out what makes a successful tablet.

The other thing with a Windows tablet is how they are going to address battery life. I guess they have been able to dabble in that area with Windows 7 mobile, maybe they have learned a bit there that can carry over to Windows 8 tablets.

Sometimes.

Zune and their whole media experience tried to build off iPad and Apple store and failed to the point of death.

 

[John Crichton]

I'll believe Windows 8/Microsoft is a player in the tablet game when they actually get in the game and not a moment sooner. Way too many failures outside the PC/Desktop arena to go any other way.

 

[Fast Learner]

To be clear, that was a tablet-specific comment. The tablets will have a full-featured Windows OS option. Smartphones won't.

That's how I read it. "Windows becomes the premium OS of choice" on tablets is what I am predicting won't come true.

Yes, but they don't pay for the license, and that's s surcharge that gets passed along to the cutomer when they buy a computer with Windows pre-installed.

I don't think we're talking about the same thing, unless you mean "buy a mobile device with Android pre-installed". Manufacturers who produce Android mobile devices -- Samsung, LG, HTC, etc. -- pay Microsoft a license for every device sold due to Microsoft's patent ownership.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Here's a thought..

Duel boot Windows 8 / Android.

You could dev then test on an android device without an emulator.

 

[Fast Learner]

Here's a thought..

Duel boot Windows 8 / Android.

You could dev then test on an android device without an emulator.

Such a device would have to be dual-processor as well, ARM and Intel x86, which would make it somewhat goofy, though I suppose not entirely.

The alternative would be full Windows 8 running on ARM, the status of which is currently unknown; some believe Microsoft's ARM-porting statements imply that it will, while others read them as implying that ARM devices will run the Metro UI only and won't be a full Windows port.

Even if they do port and support full Windows 8 on ARM, it would mean that your existing Windows applications wouldn't run under it, as they'd need to be recompiled for whichever ARM processor the device ran (likely A7).

For development purposes I think separate devices is ultimately better, both because you wouldn't have to reboot (or do some kind of suspend and reawaken) in order to swap environments and test, you'd have the ability to separately upgrade either device, and most Android devs I know have to/want to test on multiple devices and multiple OSes.

Microsoft would likely be completely against the idea so the swapping wouldn't be supported natively in Windows 8: they want users running their OS exclusively. While they make money from Android, they're poised to lose a ton of money as Windows becomes less and less important. No need to hasten it.

(One of the things I love about developing for iOS is that the IDE, Xcode, compiles natively to x86 and to ARM6 an ARM7, such that when testing your app on your Mac it's not running in an emulator, it's running in a simulator. On the downside, newbie devs can make the mistake of believing that because the app runs well in the simulator it will therefore do so on a mobile device: your dual- or quad-core high-speed Intel chip is a whole lot faster than Apple's ARM-based mobile chip.)

 

[Rabulias]

How do you like your Prime? I've got the first Transformer, and had briefly considered upgrading. But I've heard some people have had issues with weak WiFi reception, due to the aluminum body interfering with the RF signal.

Banshee

I am loving it so far, but it's my first foray into android and tablets, so much of this could be the "new shiny" factor for me.

I have had no issues with wi-fi, and I have used it on 4 different wi-fi networks (home, public library, and two friends' homes). My usage has not been very bandwidth intensive though; some YouTube vids might be the highest.

 

[drothgery]

Such a device would have to be dual-processor as well, ARM and Intel x86, which would make it somewhat goofy, though I suppose not entirely.

Intel's doing a lot of work with Android on x86, too; the latest system-on-a-chip version of Atom looks like a pretty competitive cell phone/low-power tablet CPU.