Slashdot Mirror
Apple CEO Likens Surface To Car That Flies, Floats
theodp writes "Conceding that he hadn't actually played with one, Apple CEO Tim Cook told Wall Street that Microsoft's Surface tablet is 'a fairly compromised, confusing product' in the company's 4Q earnings call. Cook joked, 'I supposed you could design a car that flies and floats, but it wouldn't do those things very well.' In Apple's 2Q earnings call, Cook also mocked the idea of touch on a laptop or desktop, quipping, 'You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going be pleasing to the user.' Cook added, 'We've done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical.' So, is Cook just pulling a page from Steve Jobs' people-don't-read-anymore playbook, or is he unaware that children happily used vertical touch screens forty years ago on UIUC's PLATO System (more PLATO History)?"
Sounds almost as DOA as a 7" tablet to me....
So, not only do we display such stories as the shocking revleation that Apple was going to live stream its product announcement (only to Apple owners), but now we get stories about what Apple thinks about other products. Is anyone shocked that Apple is less-than-impressed with a Microsoft product? Next we'll have a story about how Mitt Romney thinks Obama has made policy mistakes.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Seriously - don't talk about them, don't mention them, don't respond to reporters about them, and DONT COMPARE YOURSELVES TO THEM. Once you let them into the conversation about a product, you're granting them an equivalence in many people's eyes. Don't give them the sanction.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Apple rubbishes competitor
Apple's walled garden has early mover advantage and gazillion apps.
Android's open nature has attracted dozens of OEMs to make the hardware, and also has gazillion apps now.
The Surface is neither open, nor are developers flocking to i since Microsoft is now screwing over developers like they have done OEMs.
So it is neither open nor low-cost; and bound to be a colossal failure. No need for Cook to break into sweat...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
The only compromised and confusing thing is Tim Cook.
I suspect Apple's dismissal of vertical touch screen usage has to do with muscle fatigue. Try holding your arms out in front of you without resting your hands on anything for 5-10 minutes, and I think you'll see what he's getting at. People want to love Minority Report-style interfaces, but the truth is that there are reasons for not using them. Is it a well-founded argument against vertical screens? I guess we'll see!
A car that flies and floats? Sign me up.
After all, he has no dog in this fight.
Oh wait, he's from a competitor.
Wonder if he has incentive to twist the truth a little bit?
Apple seems desperate these days.
Futurist Traditionalism
I really like the look of the surface hardware. I suspect that most users will end up using the touch screen only in "tablet mode" but so what! This is sour grapes from apple.
I happily used PLATO thirty years ago. The thing had a touch screen, but very few of the programs used it. Those that did I recall as being made for kids for whom it was assumed the keyboard-screen relationship would be too complex. Outside of those programs, touch screens just didn't make sense for desktop work. They still don't.
'I supposed you could design a car that flies and floats, but it wouldn't do those things very well
So the headline should read:
Apple CEO Likens Surface To Car That Flies, Floats And Does Neither Very Well.
A car that flew and floated, lacking other qualifiers, would be awesome.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
SOLD! Two Microsoft Surfaces! NOW!
"Conceding that he hadn't actually played with one..." He was too busy trying to navigate from home using Apple Maps perhaps?
"Conceding that he hadn't actually played with one, Apple CEO Tim Cook told Wall Street that Microsoft's Surface tablet is 'a fairly compromised, confusing product' in the company's 4Q earnings call.
...but to do so without knowing anything other than, "it's a competing product, and we didn't make it, therefore, it sucks balls, obviously," is just pathetic.
In related news, and in keeping with the finest traditions of Apple Corporation's long-standing policy of litigation before innovation, Apple has filed for a patent for "A method and technology for blasting a product we know nothing about, and have never even played with." Also, an App is forthcoming, allowing users to post nasty reviews for products, goods, or services to their social media accounts, for things that they know nothing about, and have never even touched. A brilliant day for Apple Corporation, I'm sure Steve Jobs would be proud.
Can someone explain this comparison to me with a tablet analogy?
I'm shocked... during an earnings call reporting a second quarter of missed earnings estimates, a stock price down 20% in a month, and an overall media reaction to your last two rounds of product updates that can be summed up as "meh", and the CEO decides he needs to talk smack about a competitor product?
I. Can't. Believe. It.
Frankly, I think Cook and company needs focus a little bit more on what they can do well in their products, post-Jobs, and a focus a little less on the competition. As someone who would rather not think about how much portfolio value I'm losing every day because of the post-Jobs stagnation at Apple, I can say shareholders are not happy at the moment.
Cook: refrigeratoaster, buwahahaha
luser1: A toaster AND a refrigerator? BY JOVE THIS IS BRILLIANT
luser2: Small freezer, only makes 2 toasts at a time. Lame.
If I'm to go by Apple's past behavior, expect the iRefrigeratoaster on Q2, 2013.
"So, is Cook just pulling a page from Steve Jobs' people-don't-read-anymore playbook, or is he unaware that children happily used vertical touch screens forty years ago on UIUC's PLATO System (more PLATO History)?"
This sentence should have been left at the bottom of the barrel where it was scraped from. And please for-the-love-of-god how the fuck does an article from 40 years ago about a bunch of kids playing on an early touchscreen evidence in favor of vertical touch screens? They're kids! They will pay with anything shiny and interesting, especially if its some newfangled technology that looks like a television.
The real answer is no one wants to work with vertical touch screens unless its minimal interaction like kiosks, HMI's, POS systems, etc. To sit in front of a monitor, have to reach out and diddle it all day is not at all ergonomic or healthy. Not to mention maddening.
You'll probably lose your warranty for holding it wrong.
I for one am not much for anything that doesn't have a keyboard, that's the primary reason I am attracted to a laptop over a tablet. When you're going to spend money you might as well get a banana AND a peel.
...but to do so without knowing anything other than, "it's a competing product, and we didn't make it, therefore, it sucks balls, obviously," is just pathetic.
...but that is not what he said. He pointed out the obvious weakness of Surface, Its a confusing device. Almost everyone agrees with that assessment. Now by stating this he may have acknowledged Surface as a competing product.
Where Apple is the British:
First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you (we've reached this stage)
Then they fight you
Then you win.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
"Conceding that he hadn't actually played with one ...
Stop right there.
Personally, I just want to see an MS advertisement where they drop the original Surface (the coffee table) on an iPad. Something like the old Bambi Meets Godzilla clip. They can then morph it into the tablet version or something.
The Sham Wow guy can narrate it, "iPad?!? Check out the Surface! Bam bitch! They stuffed an entire fucking table into this mutha fucka. You're gonna need two hands to hold this bitch . Can somebody get a Sham Wow and sweep that maxi-Pad off my set?"
That would make me buy one
Sues Tim Cook for defamation. :)
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
"or is he unaware that children happily used vertical touch screens forty years ago on UIUC's PLATO System?""
You had to dig up an example from forty years ago because apparently nobody has bothered to do that since. Your forty year old exception proves Apple's contention - people generally prefer horizontal displays. There have been vertical displays in computing history but they are the negligible exceptions. For a reason.
Much as agree strongly that Pluto is a particularly good example; Vertical screens have always been my preference for certain tasks. [Miss my rotating Monitor]. Today on My large Widescreen monitor. I normally work in two vertical windows [Text Browsing], and Play in Widescreen. On my TV I want it Widescreen, and as large as possible to fill my vision. On my 7" tablet like everyone else I read vertically...ans watch movies horizontally. On my smartphone, almost everything is vertical, apart from 3D gaming, and interestingly web pages that resize badly, but again reading ebooks vertical.
Basically I think I like vertical for text, and Widescreen for 3D gaming and Video. In a 16:9 ratio.
While I prefer to use a slate (use a Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4121 Tablet PC as my main machine for web-browsing, writing, editing, notes, drawing, sketching, drawing up wood-working plans, LaTeX typesetting and some light programming), a convertible literally is the ``Best of Both Worlds'' (for those who're willing to carry the extra weight of the keyboard and deal w/ the hinge mechanism). I'd be glad to be able to run Mac OS X on the Intel version of the MS Surface.
Apple should remember this from a time when they marketed a laptop (PowerBook Duo) and a docking station which swallowed the portable unit as if it were a VCR tape and allowed one to use external keyboard, mouse and monitor on one's desktop.
Similarly, Sony's Tap 20 ( http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/tablets/sony-vaio-tap-20.aspx ) is an all-in-one w/ a 2 hour battery and a stand which allows one to move it around and lay it flat for a more flexible usage. If we could get an option for that sort of thing in an iMac, we might be able to get our proofreaders to buy into soft-proofing jobs on-screen.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
"Touch screens don't want to be vertical"...
So, you're saying that a desktop HAS to be vertical? What happened to thinking out of the box? Disappointing, Tim!~
I can fully imagine a 20-24" touch screen lying on my desktop, facing up (maybe angled 10-15 degrees towards me), where my keyboard is right now. That'd be a pretty natural interface. If it had finger touch, plus a more accurate stylus for finer work, it'd be very useful.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
'I supposed you could design a car that flies and floats, but it wouldn't do those things very well.'
Or you could design a smart-phone that cannot make phone calls, but it wouldn't make phone calls very well.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Tim Cook floats. Floats like a turd in the sewage of Apple. Tim Cook flies. And like most flies, is attracted to shit. Tim Cook is like the convergence of a toaster and a refrigerator. A wretched abortion that accomplishes little.
..so that in a couple of years when Apple announces its competing product we see what he has to say. Apple has a history of dissing other products and then quietly incorporating those very features into their own ones later.
2007 - iPhone launches without the ability to install apps. According to Jobs, web apps should be more than sufficient. Same goes for cut n paste - 'Who needs it anyway?' until it appeared on the next model.
And most recently, 'Who needs a 7" tablet?' Voila - the iPad Mini.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
Microsoft does have to be congratulated on a better choice of materials than Apple. Using a magnesium alloy chassis with vapor deposited coating makes a lot of sense. It is lighter than aluminum and the chipping problem on the iPhone 5 should not happen. Having seen the demos, I might even buy one, and I am a serial Microsoft avoider. It looks as if it has some real advantages over the Asus Transformer line, and avoids most of the bad features of the iPad.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Naah, they'll sell you the upgrade tech. The project is called iHoldItWrong but the product is the iHold.
"Wall mounted keyboards... it must be THE FUTURE", quoting MST3Ks riff of Space Mutiny.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Voice recognition is less and less of a joke every year. If they don't achieve it, then keyboards will remain more important than vertical-ness, and the laptops will outlive the pads fads. If they do achieve 99.9% voice (and I'm blown away at how good my Android voice recognition is compared to a few years ago), then I doubt vertical-ness will matter. Who would have predicted the longevity of QWERTY? QWERTY will probably die when China passes USA in device demand, which is very soon, because the Chinese characters have no loyalty to QWERTY.
Gently reply
The ARM Surface isn't really designed to be a real product. In true Microsoft style it's job is two fold. First, to waste time and keep the M$ faithful from buying an iPad or Android tablet unti the Intel Version of the Surface is ready for production. Secondly, and even more importantly it will allow Microsoft to force ARM tablet manufacturers into paying the famous Microsoft Tax on all tablets they produce or face the wrath ans usual sanctions.
The developers, and "consumers" that buy Windows RT are just cannon fodder.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
It's needless bashing of the competition from CEOs (not just Apple, Microsoft and a shit-ton of other tech companies are guilty as well) that gives me such a headache. It does nothing but rile up the fanboys and push out crap "stories" for the media to get giddy over.
Seems like everyone is trying to out-do each other in terms of being negative, and it's very off-putting. Plus it's dangerous - you might find yourself trying to sell something later which is curiously familiar to the very thing you bashed in the past.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
I am really struggling with this tablet phenomenon or fad. I do have one but I still do understand them. Sure they are good as a (bulky) personal media player and web surfer. Yup, they can work well enough as big PDA.
They are fairly useless at document creation meaning they are really only a consumption device and that's what puts them in the ranks of flying boat cars. How so you fill the gap between the smartphone and the desktop? I don't think it is the tablet.
Apple is currently working on a 10" tablet that runs on MacOS with a touch screen overlay.
Do you mean to tell me that an organization, even a for-profit business, might not be completely unbiased in criticizing its competition if doing so suited its best interests? I find this deeply troubling.
Actually, Mr Cook makes a valid point about vertical touchscreen interfaces. Back in the 80's when they first came out, you got a lot of them in, e.g., kiosks and whathaveyou. And while they work for short periods (e.g., look something up real quick), for any extended period of time over a few minutes the arms get very tired, very fast. They're not meant to be held out like that for any long time, so you wind up with arms sore and fatigued, and feel like, yes, gorilla arms when you're through.
Usually an ideal angle for touchscreens is at an angle, preferably one which has a sweet spot for viewing, and some sort of support for the touching arm.
(Fun fact: the 'gorilla arms' problem is considred one of the main examples of what happens when you don't take real-world user experience into account. It's why companies that do extensive end user testing put out products that work better, and companies that just follow along with the trappings fall by the wayside.)
Chalkboard?
In other words, change the ergonomic equation and it could work.
Frankly I'd like to try the surface to make my own decision, but I don't want to use Windows. I prefer my 2009 MacBook Pro.
However if the display converted to a drawable surface with pressure-sensitive pen like a wacom tablet I would seriously consider it. It might be okay if you can pick the display up off the stand easily, but for everyday use and anything harder than pushing a play button will scream for a mouse, or a horizontal surface, or an arm.
Anyway, FWIW the words are silly (my touchscreen android phone works fine vertically) but there is a bit of truth there (probably I have my elbows close to my body or otherwise am reducing strain unconsciously). Imagine trying to type on your house's doorbell, with your wrist bent back like that it will hurt.
IANA ergonomics expert, but it would seem (based on shooting pains I get from near-carpal tunnel sometimes) that anatomical truths and normal desktop usage position mean some weak muscles are going to get overused when you continually reach over to press or drag across a screen tilted away from you on the other side of the keyboard, without having your arm behind it for leverage even. I can almost feel the pain..
- It would be different if it was a chalkboard / wallscreen. There are a number of nice whiteboard systems out there. the deal is you are standing not sitting, basically you are built to do this kind of gesture. And letters can be big.
- If you held it like an ipad of course it would be fine
- If you could sit back in your armchair and draw on the screen with a 3d pointer it would be fine. Might be awkward though.
- if you have a sit and stand desk that you stand behind, um well it would still suck. But if you put the machine on a cantilevered clamp of some sort so that you could hold it like a baby in one arm while drawing (imagine touching baby's nose) it might not be a strain in any position short of lying on your back.
Honestly, Microsoft is placing the product for the people like me who won't buy a tablet because I already have a laptop and the iPad keyboard is complete shit for anything I want to do. For typing a complete keyboard (not some crappy slow screen thing) is necessary and I type a lot, and I type fast... I can't stand the interface. Thus, it is a more hybrid device close to what I want that will do a little more than iPad but much much lighter and more portable than said laptop. They made a product for a market that isn't being addressed, and honestly.. I think it was the best place to put it out -- right between androids & iPads, and laptops. If you can give me a full blown laptop with the portability of an iPad I no longer care about iPad.
Is this the apology? Doesn't read like one. Bring on the sanctions.
Apple wasn't ordered to apologized, they were ordered to tell the truth. Deal with it.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I kind of actually like the idea of a refridgeroaster. You could even redirect the heat from the fridge coils into the toaster for added efficiency!
What I'm waiting for is a full, wall-sized replacement for the humble whiteboard, where instead of drawing with a smelly, messy dry erase marker, we just draw with our finger and erase with a wipe of our hands. I want my screens in two sizes: small enough to carry, and large enough to fill a wall.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
just thinking about constantly reaching for my monitor to do anything...
I don't understand why they don't use hard chrome or even nickel plating.
Both materials stand up well when used on firearms and the wear and tear resistance on barrels, breeches and chambers is outstanding, especially hard chrome.
I swear word processing and web design (wysiwyg) *could* be much easier with a touch-optimized interface. I say that because moving a picture (or object) around with a mouse really sucks sometimes. There are probably other things, those are just the two the come to mind.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
If having a car that files, floats and drives gets me a date with Truly Scrumptious I wouldn't mind dealing with some of the oddities.
>children happily used vertical touch screens forty years ago on UIUC's PLATO
Children will jump through all sorts of hoops to learn something new and cool. There was also nothing else like it at the time either.
I mentioned in an earlier post that the only places where you see touch screens these days are in environments that are hostile to keyboards and mice, POS systems, and portable devices, because keyboards and mice are too bulky. It's not like touchscreens haven't been around for decades. If there was a demand for them on desktops, we would have seen them being used. But they don't get used, because touch on vertical surfaces sucks.
Tim Cook is just saying what a lot of us have already said about Metro and touch on the desktop and laptop. It's fine for tablets and small portables like phones. But on the desktop?
Come on, who in their right mind wants a 27in touch interface?
--
BMO
What's so confusing about it, Tim? It is a tablet with a magnetic cover not unlike an iPad. It can be held in the hand and operated no differently than an iPad.
Having a tangible keyboard and flip-out stand built-in aren't really a huge compromise. I see enough iPad users with keyboard/stand accessories for typing large bodies of text that I think Microsoft is making a smart move by incorporating this non-invasively.
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But... touchscreens make an awesome secondary input device.
Navigating a map, arranging windows, drawing, positioning and resizing objects, touchscreens have advantages.
Positioning a text input cursor, highlighting text, scrolling through a document, a regular pointing device is faster and doesn't obscure the screen.
I think Apple is wrong here, but time will tell.
(And by "touchscreen", I mean in a desktop or laptop comptuer context, not a tablet or phone)
I'm sorry, but Tim must not have tested the right user base. My company issues employees iPads with the ZAGG case with the bluetooth keyboard and we love them, all they way from our gray haired senior management to twenty-something whiz kids. We use them to the point that we complain when our laptops don't respond to touch gestures. While it lacks precision, the fingertip is more intuitive than sliding around a mouse. Even with a touch pad, the pad interface represents an intermediary between the finger and the movement seen on the screen. My bet is that a not very far future version of the MacBook sports a touch screen when Tim realizes how wrong he is on this.
Well, those are criticisms of Windows 8, not Surface.
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Nice to hear Cook pointing out the fact that vertical touchscreens really don't work. Not just in their testing -- this was a thing, pre-PC, in many of the 70s and 80s CAD workstations. There were touchscreens, light pens, and other "directly interacting with the monitor" input devices. They all failed. It wasn't expense (not in dedicated CAD, prices were so high, paying $1000+ for an interface device would have been lost in the noise), it wasn't functionality (they worked fine)... it was people. We don't like repetitive stress, but particularly on large motor functions. Reaching up, away from your normal comfortable seating position, to touch a large monitor -- just not something that's good for you.
Of course, they wouldn't be Microsoft if they didn't entirely not learn from the past, and actually do it worse. Touch-with-finger screens are inherently a compromise. You wouldn't choose to smear greasy fingers over your viewing device if you could help it.... it's a compromise some are willing to make in order to have an easy to use pocket computer. On the desktop, we use off-screen, horizontally mounted control devices.
But it's clear Microsoft didn't have any cognitive psychologists working on any part of the mess that is The-UI-Formerly-Known-As-Metro, either. This will make one hell of a cautionary tale, though -- hopefully we can stop trying these same kind of stupid ideas on mainstream Linux distros...
-Dave Haynie
It's like combining a frapuccino with a pizza. You could do it, but you wouldn't know if you were supposed to eat or drink it. We've done a lot of testing on this, and users don't like cheese in their coffee.
This signature intentionally left blank.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was great at flying, floating and driving!
And being fictional.
Though the Caractacus Potts character was one of my first inspirations toward engineering, as little kid.
-Dave Haynie
Tim Cook. He's analogy challenged.
Windows 8 is more like thong underwear, that are also used as dental floss!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Them is fighten words coming from a CEO who just missed his projections. It is now time for the abused to become the abuser.
Which is why Apple has a rich library of user gestures and large glass trackpads on laptops and external trackpads for desktops. Same idea - in a horizontal plane.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
what if the paradigm changes and instead of the tablet being vertical they are horizontal? It could be a big flat surface built into the desk where the touch interaction is done there and the results displayed on a vertical monitor. Kind of like how it's done on CSI or Hawaii 5-0. Whatever you want to have displayed on the monitor you simply flick it towards the screen with a touch gesture, similar to how applications are closed on WebOS. Maybe the display is actually your big screen TV that is connected to your tablet via WiFi or BluTooth. Now THAT would be cool.
But if it's the current configuration of the horizontal monitor then holding your arm up like that all day is going to get tiring.
I'd settle for a car that starts.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I can't root for either of them. I find Apple and Microsoft equally annoying. I think Tim is dead wrong on principle, but perhaps right in detail. In that: A vertical touch screen is very much a viable idea, but if Microsoft botches it, we need to remember that implementation is not necessarily an indication of whether the concept has merit.
Besides, an ipad with the magnetic keyboard/cover is almost exactly the same form and function as the Surface. Why is it cool when it's an Apple and "not pleasing to the user" when it's a Windows appliance?
(Or is that a loaded question?)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
...aaand a two button mouse doesn't work either?
Tim offers a stark choice. On the Apple side a lineup of little computers with touch screens. On MS side of the equation we have flying cars.
I just wish MS would ignore Apple and innovate in their own space rather than trying to copy Apple.
For as badly as MS abused the world with their monopoly of the past at least the consumer had full control over the software they installed, control over the hardware to install other operating systems if they chose, control of their hardware choices neither did developers require permission, signoff or payment of tax to the vendor to deliver new product for a platform.
A future overrun with all these truly closed vendor lockin devices scares me more than haunted houses with flying witches.
It's completely orthogonal.
"Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical" absolutely completely obviously true to anyone who's used one for any length of time.
After 15 seconds you're already thinking "uh oh" and after five minutes it become torture.
I hear Chuck Norris uses one while hanging completely inverted suspended only by his toenails.
[FrLz]
The judge is about to 'deal with it'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The LCD monitor can be mounted at any height and at any angle. I don't understand why large-screen touch can't be easy on both the eye and the hand.
PLATO, which I developed lessons for and which I used extensively in course work, did not generally use the touch screen for anything more than simple target selection by pointing and single-clicking. It was a fairly coarse-grained pointing system, as well. I doubt that most smartphone or tablet users would consider it usable at this point.
Nor does it make what Tim Cook said about vertical screens incorrect - dragging and multi-point operations on a vertical screen are not only awkward feeling, but have a severe chance of causing RSI, given the odd geometry of the hand needed to do such things.
Try it on your own non-touch screen. Do you think holding your wrist canted at 90 degrees for more than a few seconds for multi-point gestures is comfortable? Do you think the motion of a multi-click, using the hand muscles, is less fatiguing than doing it on a horizontal surface, where a smaller finger muscle is twitched? And don't even get me started on relative accuracy...
I don't see the summary for the article as much more than Apple-hating flamebait.
That is all.
A car that flies and floats? that would be AWESOME!
The judge is about to 'deal with it'.
So what is he going to do exactly? They did exactly what he ordered them to. And quoted him.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
(7.9/7)^2=1.27. . . So if the iPad mini has the same aspect ratio as a 7" tablet, that sounds about right.
And to think that Chitty was cooler than any car he (Desmond Llewellyn) turned over to 007.