tl;dr

can i play poker on this thing?

Nope

I was not aware that socks came any other way

touch-e

I'm starting to think I want one of these.

Don't know why but after not wanting it at all I want one now...

Sucker!

Pre-sales in the states starts next Friday, available for pick up in stores April 3rd.

meet Microsoft's Courier:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/m...ctures-and-de/



though i dont know if this is meant for direct competition with the max(iPad), something along these lines is what apple should have been doing rather than just cramming the iPhone UI down our throats

after watching the video i am completely amazed that something this creative came from microsoft

The courier truly looks awesome. The biggest problem, I think, is the UI. Almost nothing I have seen done in the videos looks even remotely intuitive and no one will know how to use this thing without some serious instruction. This is in contrast to the literally millions of people who will be able to use the iPad as second nature.

I also am guessing that price will be an issue. I don't see this thing being $500.

It looks pretty much unbeatable for creatives though. I too am amazed that M$ made something so unique and apparently well done.

It's been around since at least last year and hasn't shown up at any of the big trade shows so I don't see it coming to market before the Windows Phone does.

I'm pretty "meh" about this darned thing. I'm sure it'll be cool, and hopefully I'll be eating a good dose of crow saying this since it's not out yet, but this thing is basically a big-ass iPod Touch that you can't put in your pocket. The iBooks thing is a cool idea and all, but you're reading a friggin LCD backlit screen, so it'll hurt your eyes after extended period of time like reading a PDF on your laptop or desktop screen. The one thing that it does have working for it is the illustration/animation features for things like textbooks. Stevie Jobs always seems obsessed w/ the education market for some reason, even tho that tactic didn't work w/ his attempts at "habituating users/kids" with both Apple and Next computers (LOL @ $5k computers in like 1987).

Apple is the only multi-gazillion dollar corp. that the captain really does control the helm. What computer and electronics company can make 300-500$+ machines w/o a friggin SD/microSD card slot? So you wanna look at your vacation pictures on your iPad straight from your digital camera? Nope, you're gonna have to hook it up to your 'puter and there's an extra step. Pretty silly if you ask me... I'm sure some of the motivation is to prevent hacking (like that has ever worked, every version of the iPhone and iPod Touch is jailbreakable thus far).

Also, seems like Apple is leading the iPhoneOS down the Macintosh path. I think they are squandering their position/lead. They have the best UI of all touchscreen OSes. If anyone has used Windows Mobile/WinCE knows what I'm talking about; that thing has been a disaster from a UI perspective for a decade. Who the heck wants to use a stylus for everything? I'm sure the new version of Win Mobile will copy/emulate a lot of iPhone stuff. What I don't like about the iPhoneOS is that there's no way to install apps by downloading files then installing them w/o going thru an "app store"/iTunes unlike Android. I understand they need to make their store nice but it sucks that users can't assume responsibility of using the device (i.e. taking the risk of installing virii and malware).

So this leads us to another thing: Apple is scaring a lot of developers away from their platform w/ an arbitrary approval process. Why the F would you wanna work on a piece of software for a good chunk of a year only to have it rejected, or worse, sitting in the app approval purgatory (altho most are approved relatively quickly). This on top of the fact that if you're not an Apple developer, you have to learn a proprietary development environ. and programming lang. (i.e. Xcode, Interface Builder, Objective-C, etc.) as well as purchase proprietary hardware and buy into the 99$/yr development program if you want to install code to a device. With Android, most modern programmers already know Java and Eclipse and can just use a cheap PC, etc... (I'm ignoring QA costs so it might be more expensive with Android since iPhoneOS devices are homogeneous, so it could actually be more expensive.)

Seems like Google Android will be the new MSFT Windows of the mobile computing market, and iPhoneOS the new Macintosh IMO. I think there's going to be a lot of tablets coming out that cost much less than the Apple variety, and more feature full. I do think that the tablet thing will eventually overtake normal laptops (e.g. within 5 years) because what you really have is the notion of a modular computer: If you want a normal laptop experience, you could put it in a shell w/ a tactile keyboard and then pop that bad boy out when you want to read the NYTimes, for example.

Anyway, just felt like nerd ranting...

That courier looks pretty awesome. Basically I take notes all the time. I make to do lists, shopping lists, jot down ideas, etc. I have a conversation with someone, they give me an interesting idea, I want to jot it down. My work involves research on mathematical topics, so I have an idea at a random time, I jot down a few equations and try to see if it makes sense.

The problem of course is that taking notes on paper is a pain and everything gets disorganized and it's hard to find things later. I'm sure that tons of people have this problem. Seems like a device which is basically like a digital pad of paper, which you can jot notes on and save as pdfs or whatever and organize in a sensible file system and ideally convert to text if you want to and which has some form of internet access so you can share/email these notes would be so useful to so many people.

I know you can already do this on many tablet computers, but I want something the size/width of a pad of paper that I can carry around wherever. I had thought the iPad might be this device, but it's not. Seems like the courier might be, and would be happy to pay $4000 for it if it did the job, honestly just couldn't care less what it costs.

Now available for preorder and in store reservation

Pickup/delivery April 3rd.

Also, there is an iPad connector to VGA

so you can connect it to projector, monitor or HDTV

My tablet PC does that without an adaptor. Holla!

I also strongly disagree with this. I think he's wrong about the iPad but his blog postings reveal that he is usually quite bright. Of course, there is some luck involved in becoming filthy rich but luck favors the prepared (and the bright).

I must admit that does look good.

apple rules.
why would you buy anything else?
microsoft.. pfft... none cares...

If by "no one" you mean "The majority of computer users," then I agree with you.

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune....00-ipads-sold/

Estimated that Sold sold 120,000 pre-orders for the ipad.

Thank God for uninformed early adopters. Pissing money away so that we don't have to.

FYP

Had one of these from work for a couple of months. It was F-ing awful. I don't think I have ever had a computer that crashed as much as this.

Wait there is no headphone jack on the ipad? There has to be; no way apple can expect people to use an adaptor.

That graphic while somewhat misleading is a little telling for how far below epectations and potential apple came in with this design.