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Ballmer Promises Microsoft Tablet By Christmas
judgecorp writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told an audience at the London School of Economics, that there will be tablets running Microsoft's Windows operating system available by Christmas. 'We as a company will need to cover all form factors,' he told an audience of students and press. 'You'll see slates with Windows on them – you'll see them this Christmas.' Mind you, if he's talking about the rumoured HP Windows 7 slate, he may not be so pleased when it appears. A recent YouTube video showed a supposed prototype which has been described as a 'trainwreck in the making.'"
I earned an undergraduate physics degree and computer science degree using a Windows tablet (several in fact). I'm not in graduate school, and own both a new tablet PC and an iPad. Although the iPad is great for reading e-books, general reference, basic productivity (there's a great scheduling app for students called iStudiez), and casual media consumption (web, photos) I can't actually do much with it.
The general theme of the uses I outlined above is unidirectional. That is, iPad -> me. It's an information consumption device. So more and more when I find something I would like to do with it, I actually can't, whether because of lack of input options or the Apple walled garden.
On the other hand, I do all my serious work on my tablet PC. Aside from taking class notes (which the iPad is terrible for), I grade papers on my tablet, conduct lectures (drawing on power point slides), draw circuit diagrams, mark up textbooks and papers as I read them, and copy sections of textbooks (drawings, figures) into my notes. These are all things that are not possible on the iPad (Well, some are to a degree, but I've found them highly deficient. For example, projecting to the screen is enabled on a per app basis. That means if you have something to show students, the app has to enable it. The solution I've used is to sit the iPad under the document camera, but then you have my hands in the way most of the time.).
The bulk of my work is done working in ROS (Robot Open Source), and writing papers (the kind that get published). These are both no possible with a tablet PC, but at least I can attach a keyboard accessory and then do these (using grown up software). With the iPad, after you attach the keyboard accessory you are still limited to apps written specifically for finger input, and they do not implement the keyboard well (keyboard shortcuts? What are those? Sure you get the standard copy, paste, but that's about it). Also, I would love to see someone try to format a paper to journal specs with Pages for iPad. The iWork suite for iPad is very feature deficient and hard to use. It's best for making small edits to documents.
Also, ctr-alt-del and alt-f4 are handled elegantly by the on screen keyboard. I can tell you haven't actually even used a tablet pc. My particular screen is multi touch, so it's just a matter of pressing ctrl+alt+del.