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The iPad vs. Microsoft's "Jupiter" Devices
harrymcc writes "A dozen years ago, Microsoft convinced major manufacturers to put Windows CE inside devices that looked like undersized touchscreen personal computers. The platform was code-named 'Jupiter' and shipped as Handheld PC Pro, and it flopped — it turned out that people wanted full-strength notebooks. But in retrospect, it was a clear antecedent of what Apple is doing — much more successfully — with the iPad."
It's actually quite funny to see how similar and in some aspects even better it is (and for a product 12 years ago!). Apart from the obvious (larger price and more weight), the older product actually has 12-16 hour life compared to iPad's 8 hour life. There's also dial-up modem (remember how bulky those were?), more apps, syncing software, and multitasking. 640x480 resolution and touch display.
Pretty awesome for a product in the 1998, considering it even beats iPad at some aspects. Oh and Windows CE also let you install any app you wanted (there was a lot of freeware apps too), not just something Apple didn't block from AppStore or where you have to pay for every app you want, no matter how simple task it does. And you also could program your own apps to it.
But what comes to current generation tablets, I'm waiting to see what happens with Courier. The two touch-screen booklike sure is something a tablet should look like. I mean, you're supposed to hold these with your hands and on top you, while laying on sofa or bed. It's a lot more natural to hold them like a book, either for browsing the internet while having a game or IM window on the other screen or just to read an ebook. The non-book feel of tablets has turn me off. I have a bad feeling they will want to go the Apple route and have only App Store-approved apps like with Windows Mobile 7, but I still hope for the best. The ability to have what applications you want or code your own is a really importantant one.
Modern systems like the Ipad(and various replicas using linux & windows) face entirely different issues. Older systems were incapable of most productive features at the time. PC's were used to do "power hungry" things like run excel and word. There was almost no way an older system could run those in anywhere near the same level.
Now even my G1 can read and let me edit spreadsheets. My blackberry as well. Also we live in the age of web 2.0 and cloud computing, most of the crap people do on the internet is pretty processor friendly.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
The iPad has a lot going for it, especially that you can get one for about 1/3 the price of that thing (if you convert the 1998 dollars, see eldavojon's post) and that you have wireless networking (a major plus).
I think a big part of this (and one that Microsoft has run into with their tablet attempts) is that of expectations. If it looks like a PC (because it has a keyboard), and acts like a PC (because the interface looks like Windows 95/98 did), people expect it to operate like a PC. They should be able to install normal software, it should be fast enough to do normal computer things, etc.
Netbooks ran into this too. They were cheap and cute, so people bought them. Then they found out that weren't "real" laptops and had 1 GHz processors, and were never going to edit video or edit 8 MP photos fast. The things looked like normal computers, but cheaper, so why not get it? Then they weren't happy. Now many "netbooks" are full computers that are just tiny. You can buy netbooks that cost $600+ instead of the early $200-$300. They are what people expect out of a laptop, only tiny.
Apple, on the other hand, made a device that is very clearly not a Macintosh. It does look like an iPhone, which is a plus since people see the iPhone as a appliance and not a computer. These two things add up to people seeing the iPad as an appliance and not a computer, which is exactly what Apple intends. It does what it does, and that's what it's supposed to do.
If Apple released the iPad with a fold out keyboard, people would compare it to another netbook or a normal laptop and criticize it for being so inflexible. I was actually very surprised that Apple is even making a keyboard dock, as it makes it look more like a laptop. The flexibility of being able to easily type a document on the road with the dock (or a bluetooth keyboard) must have been enough to overwhelm the worry, and I can see that being the case.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. WinCE killed my father. Prepare to die.
I don't know that you can say that Apple is doing it more "Successfully". The Newton sold like hotcakes when it first came out. Just because it got an initial rush of die-hard Apple fans and "early adopters" doesn't mean the product won't go the way of the Newton, too. I thing it's too early to call the iPad any kind of a success, just yet...
It's similar in some respects, but not in several that really matter. One, don't take 3G/WiFi for granted, because that feature (obviously nothing unique to iPad) is a game-changer compared to wired networking. Two, 1024x768 is another game-changer, compared to 640x480, as anybody who is old enough to witness that transition should remember. Three, the content that you can consume, starting from music and video to the Internet itself, has also changed dramatically since 1998. Not to mention that the PV-5000 is also more than twice as heavy, twice as thick, and twice (more if you consider inflation) as expensive.
Geeks have a tendency to look at specs and see quantitative differences, but often it is more important to see if the quantitative difference is big enough to become a qualitative difference. For example, a laptop is not just a lighter all-in-one desktop with a battery.
Sure WinCE is used in millions of devices but none of them work very well.
Windows CE had ONE major problem it was never designed around a multi touch interface. It was basically a mouse touch which means you "click and drag" with your touch finger. WinCE and the related Applications held promise but failed to deliver a consistent user interface, designed for small screens, allow for mutli point touch and gestures, Oh and Not look like s standard desktop shrunk to a screen that a Command line interface would have a problem with usability on.
I repeat this over and over again a Tablet is not a desktop OS. you can't use a desktop application on a tablet and expect it to work well. You must shift the interface design away from desktop if you want your tablet to succeed. it is why Palm worked so well. it had a new interface. Windows CE, Mobile, all strived to look like windows Desktop and it was skinned horribly to hide that fact.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Making it a small fraction of the price in inflation-adjusted dollars might have something to do with it.
Nothing could ever compel me to spend $1000 in in '98 on a touch-screen computer (with a non-touch OS).
But $500 in 2010? Shit, I think I could dig that kind of cash out of my couch cushions.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The Toshiba had a 129-MHz Toshiba TMPR3912U CPU which is something like 2 to 3 orders of magnitude slower than the 1Ghz A4. Sure it functioned but would you use it? Value s not just what you pay but what you get.
You could say that in principle one could have made a Victorian mechanical turing machine into an ipad too.
Apple is what is known as an early settler. ("pioneers get the arrows, settlers get the land."). Apple is also an early adopter. (e.g. see Gui, mouse, postscript printing, .... ) Thus they tred right at the line between pioneer and settler.
How do they know when it's time to settle a market? Steve tells them the wine is ready now. Till then they make fun of the pioneers.
Apple and Jobs sometimes jumps the gun too ( see NeXT or Newton or apples game console if you even remember that).
Apple has more success lately, because it avoids the pitfall that most pioneers have in converting to settlers: undercapitalization. Apple has the resources to design things right and to set up ancilliary markets (see itunes) that an undercapitalized firm cannot. So for apple the wine is ready to serve early than the competition.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Well, the base charge for developer license and a Macintosh system limits freeware authors. They also need to submit it to Apple, pay their fee and hope it gets approved. If Apple rejects their app they have no way to give it to users. Is that the kind of closed computer systems you want to live with?
The argument is that Apple wants control over the user experience. As so many have pointed out the hardware of the iPhone and iPad is hardly revolutionary but the way you interact with these devices is, it is the distinguishing characteristic. So they want native apps developed with the platform in mind, not programmed for common denominator meta-platforms like Flash or Java.
And they certainly don't want to get into the position where they can't change or deprecate APIs because some third party layer would break and a whole host of applications would stop working especially in this stage where they are still working out where they're going with this touch thing. It's been claimed (read that article it's quite good) that Apple has been forced to alter their plans for OSX in the past because vendors had them over a barrel :
"This isn’t some perceived risk, I can think of incidents where Apple reverted OS changes, dumped new APIs, or was forced to committing massive engineering resources to something it did not want to do because a Must Not Break app vendor told them to."
Clearly Apple is bitter over some past goings on and is planning some insurance that won't happen again now they're still top dog.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Who said it was better, and how? Specs alone do not "better" make. Plus it cost $999 back then which is like $1300 now. If the iPad, as it is, cost $1300, it would not be selling that well. If the iPad had a flimsy folding keyboard AND had an OS that was even MORE limited than what it has now (WinCE is MUCH further away from Win98 than iPhone OS is from OS X) AND required a stylus it wouldn't sell as well.
Why can't people accept that Apple makes great products AND markets them well? If their products truly sucked, across the board, they wouldn't sell as well no matter WHAT the marketing. In fact, they HAVE had products that sucked AND tanked, like the G4 Cube. That thing was advertised just as much as anything else but it cost $200 more than a comparably-specced, more-expandable PowerMac G4. The Cube's failure is PROOF that Apple does not operate outside the laws of economics. They don't *actually* serve drugged Kool-Aid; their customers are NOT ad-absorbing, check-writing, brainless zombies. But geeks seem to resent their success because they make things that people want to use, not what kernel-compiling Slashdotters think is cool.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Flash content on the web represents a very large and significant portion of contemporary web experience. (And I can't believe anyone needs to state this.) The developing web standards are adopting most of the features presently provided by Flash. If a portion of the web experience is omitted, you know it is missed.
Some people will admit it when they made a buying mistake. Others will defend their purchase decision until the bitter end. In this case, yes, he cares. Others will not say so. But it definitely matters.
Whem Microsoft "breaks" the internet with its intentionally wounded implementation of HTML and CSS support, most of us understand the harm it causes. And when Apple holds functions and features back for ransom or just so that they can be a hero when they finally enable or allow them, their character is clear and obvious.
Once again, it's not the coolness or slickness that makes "us geeks" jealous. It's the harm to the consumer and to the technology marketplace as a whole that bothers us.
Flash content on the web represents a very large and significant portion of contemporary web experience. (And I can't believe anyone needs to state this.) The developing web standards are adopting most of the features presently provided by Flash. If a portion of the web experience is omitted, you know it is missed.
I've had ClickToFlash on my computer for months now and am only rarely forced to view the Flash content to use a site. As it turns out, Flash is used mostly for needless embellishments that add nothing to the content and ads. I don't miss either one at all.
Comparing Microsoft's intentional damage to actual Web standards to Apple's refusal to include proprietary additions is specious.
This ain't rocket surgery.
I repeat this over and over again a Tablet is not a desktop OS
One example I've been thinking about: pressing a button with a mouse vs. touchscreen. Mice are much more precise. It's a little arrow and the point is only 1 pixel wide. If the arrow's point is over something when you click on it, it can have accuracy down to the pixel. That's impossible with a finger. Instead of being able to hit a target the size of a pixel, you need the target to be at least... 1cm^2? Something in that neighborhood.
On the other hand, it's pretty hard to seek the button out with your mouse cursor. I mean, it's not really hard, we're all used to it, but it's more complicated that you probably recognize. Just the first step, which you probably took for granted: you have to find the mouse cursor's current location. Then you have to guide the cursor to the desired location, which means calibrating the motion of your hand to the motion of the cursor. It used to be that if the location was far away, you'd have to move to the edge of your pad, reset the mouse to the other side of the pad, and then move it again. So that was annoying. They've overcome that by putting some kind of acceleration variable in the mouse's motion-- the faster you move it, the more your cursor moves for moving the mouse the same distance. (If that last sentence doesn't make sense, this might help.)
So in both cases, before acceleration and after, it means that it's harder to hit a precise point with your mouse that is far away from your current mouse position than to hit a button that's close. That's part of the reason we have toolbars that cluster all the controls into a tight area, because seeking around for buttons that are spaced far apart is relatively hard.
On a touchscreen, however, the situation is much easier. Touchscreens aren't precise, but they're as easy as pointing, and you're much more coordinated with your finger than with your mouse. This means that while the buttons need to be bigger, you can exercise much more freedom in their positioning.
The difference in pressing buttons alone is enough reason why touchscreen application UIs should be designed rom scratch, and not just pulled over from desktop applications.
If it were possible to make them so they were suitable for mom don't you think that might have happened by now?
Yes, it happened about 25 years ago.
Complete and utter rubbish. For the vast majority of individuals who do not have the luxury of tech support (formal or informal) you have shiny machines that start well and then decline as bit rot takes its toll. Maybe slightly less for Macs if you have easy access to an Apple Store when inevitably things start to go wrong.
Even a perfectly running general purpose computer is far more complex than most people really want to deal with. Of course there is a subset of the general population that is quite happy with them but the point is that it is a small subset. You may not believe that but it will become increasingly clear as better products become more generally available.