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Why Windows 7 "Slate" Tablets Won't Happen
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Galen Gruman questions the viability of Windows 7 on tablets in the wake of the news that HP will use Palm's WebOS as the foundation for iPad rivals, rather than follow through with the previously hyped Windows 7-based Slate. 'The iPad proved a tablet shouldn't be a portable computer that happened to have its screen always exposed. Even though technical components are shared between the Mac OS and the iPhone OS, the irrelevant Mac OS functions aren't gumming up the iPhone OS, and Apple's development environment doesn't let you pull through desktop approaches into your mobile applications. You're forced to go touch-native,' Gruman writes, adding that, when it comes to touch capabilities, Windows 7 leaves much to be desired. 'Sure, a few Windows 7 slate-style tablets will ship — Asus and MSI are said to have models shipping later this year. But those products will go nowhere, because Windows 7 is simply not the right operating system for a slate.'"
You may know me for my work on an Open Source operating system, but I have a life outside of the computer too, and living as me can get very weird. People recognize my face and hold up stuffed penguins, but I am a quiet Nord, so I nod and smile and drink my beer and am admitted to the secret places of the computer industry without much ado. It is odd the things I have seen; it is odder how it all runs together, like a gigantic cycle between my quiet self and whatever motivated me to write an operating system.
One such odd event occurred at last year's MacWorld Expo, where I went to see the new Macintosh systems that ran a competing UNIX-like operating system. At the front door they waved me in, because my face is entry to many things, as I was to find out later that night. It was pure chaos. Thousands of Macintosh computers stood around, rebooting and crashing and running Puzzle randomly, while people talked about their lifestyle accessories. When you buy a Macintosh, you buy an identity, and it was wading through the identity that became the struggle of the evening.
Finally I made it through the crowd of people comparing New Age crystals, anti-war stickers and ethical products to the keynote address. In a large auditorium, Steve Jobs gave a presentation amidst video screens and rock stars with hair transplants. I was awed. This was UNIX-like living on a big scale, and he was taking home some insane profit from back-dated stocks, so he was a rock star in our view. He got to be both the good guy, and the profit-taker, which makes him a hero to most of us developers working for $70,000 a year in cubicles decorated with Dilbert and World of Warcraft art.
Steve Jobs looking very Apple Gay"The future," Jobs said, unconsciously mimicking the "1984" ad Apple ran back in 1984, "is not the faceless corporations, but a corporation with a face: Apple!" The crowd cheered, and I found myself caught up in it. After the presentation, people drained from the auditorium like wound seepage, and I went to the back of the stage. The security guys were both Linux early adopters and so waved me in. Jobs was banging back a glass of something that looked like water but ran more thickly, and I immediately suspected vodka.
"I can't believe the damn thing crashed," he was muttering. When he saw my face, he said, "It wasn't the OS, it was the GUI," and I relaxed immediately. I began to like him. He was such a modern masculine presence, not violent or assertive at all, but always working for his own best advantage. I knew here was a guy who would ask a girl what kind of condoms she preferred, would always vote Democratic, and would never be cruel to another person, knowing that they would someday be his customers. I put down my beer and broke out the bag of Israeli ecstasy I got from the guys at the IBM "Eclipse" table.
Jobs -- Steve, "call me Steve," a real man of the earth like Bill Clinton, he was -- ripped a bag of exciting white powder from his waistline, in the process nearly dropping his pants. An aide wearing one of those vintage Apple rainbow tshirts, now worth about $170 on eBay (the same price as an Apple keyboard in the year they were printed), came running to resurrect the pants. "No worries, we're solid," said Steve, catching his acolyte by the shoulder and propelling him into a prone position where he proceeded to defile him anally. The aide expired with a sigh of deep pleasure, clutching a sweat-and-semen stained iPod as he passed into the next world.
Jobs and I then smoked cigars while the police team, coming from subdivisions where over 89% of the owners were Apple employees, cleared away the wreckage of the Accidental Death, Horse that previously occupied him. "You know the thing is," Steve said, "When you run a multi-billion dollar company that is the only sane corporate alternate for liberals opposed to the corporate products coming from Redmond Washington, it's hard to ever slow down. I can drive our stock price up when I fart, I can shit out a new Macintosh that millions adoringly purchas
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