[Intel Executive Vice President Dadi Perlmutter] basically said (and I paraphrase from memory here) that Microsoft has a long ways to go on the tablet software front, and that an ARM port will help them get there. And, by the time they get their tablet software sorted—a fresh, tablet-centric UI and much-needed power optimizations—Intel will be ready with an Atom-based chip that can compete directly with ARM in the milliwatt power draw range.
Right now, Atom is significantly more power-hungry (and more high-performance) than the ARM Cortex A8-caliber hardware that’s showing up in Android tablets. But Intel will continue to close that gap with each new process generation. So, by the time Moore’s Law delivers an Atom SoC with the same power profile as A8- and A9-based SoCs, Microsoft will either be ready with a tablet-worthy OS, or it will be further along than it would’ve been if it had been waiting for Intel to catch up.
The overall share of Internet traffic from Windows PCs has dropped slightly in the past two-and-a-half years, from 95.4% to 91.1%. But that’s true across the board for competing desktop OSes as well. Linux usage is down dramatically in 2010, to 0.85% from an all-time high of 1.08% in early 2009. Interestingly, OS X usage is also down, dropping by roughly a quarter of a percentage point since a year ago, from 5.26% to exactly 5.00%. In relative terms, that’s almost exactly the same overall drop as the Windows platform has seen in the same period.
It is clear that all desktop OSs are under attack from mobile OSs.
The mobile Internet is growing at an astonishing rate. This was the most fascinating set of numbers to me, and they’re also the ones that should have Microsoft most concerned.
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Not surprisingly, Apple’s iOS-based devices are the leader in the mobile category, as measured by usage, accounting for 42% of the total traffic from mobile sources. The very close runner-up, at 37%, is a big surprise: Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME), presumably running mostly on Nokia feature phones. Symbian is a distant third at 11%, with Android in fourth at 8%.
42% for iOS versus 8% for Android really puts recent device “activation” claims from certain quarters into perspective.
Windows Phone 7 currently has what is effectively a 0% share. And it’s a few years behind both Android and iOS in every way.
And a hardware button to get the on screen keyboard to pop out!?!
This is the antithesis of Samsung’s Tab. If we had wanted to try and artificially contrive a text book example of how some people get it, and others don’t we could not have done a better job than Samsung and HP have.
I thought we learned that you cannot put Windows on a portable device 10 years ago…
Today we’re making available a preview of Adobe® Flash® Player that we’re calling “Square.” This preview includes support for two new areas, namely enhanced support for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Beta and native 64-bit support for all major desktop operating systems including Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Arty, yes. But utterly useless at selling their phone.
I am not sure whether to laugh (maniacally) or cry.
The very worrying thing, of course, is that Microsoft have unlimited funds dedicated to making more of this stuff in the coming promotional onslaught that will be Windows Phone 7′s slow public death.
As you may know, Parallels currently offers an iPhone/iPod touch app to access files and such remotely, but according to the back of the box, it works with the yet to be released iPad app as well. It also appears (we may get this one wrong) that the iPhone/iPod touch app will be enhanced for greater file access. We’ll have to see and we’re still wondering when this thing’s getting announced for real.
The computer that’s easiest to use is typically the one you already know how to use. While some may say Macs are easy, the reality is that they can come with a learning curve.
There are some things you simply can’t do out of the box with a Mac like watch, pause, rewind, and record TV like a DVR.
If you use Apple’s productivity suite, sharing files with PC users can be tricky. Your documents might not look right and your spreadsheets might not calculate correctly.
Macs don’t like to share.
At least half the fun of having a computer is sharing the stuff that matters to you with other people. This is harder to do on a Mac.
Plain and simple, if you’re a PC user, lots of your favorite stuff just might not work on a Mac. With PCs outselling Macs 10 to 1, the reality is that most computer software is developed to run on PCs.
You can get the PC you want, in the size and color you want, with the features you want. You just don’t have as many options with a Mac.
The term “Beta” is understood to mean that things are close to being finished. Well, that’s what we mean anyway. This Beta release represents the near final version of the tools for building applications and games for Windows Phone 7.
Development handsets are set to start shipping next week.
Is it really a leak when all it does is confirm what we already knew. Microsoft will be copying Apple’s successes again… because they have no ideas of their own.
The yet unreleased mobile operating system doesn’t look like the most intuitive platform out there, but it’s still in the works and getting cleaned up. Microsoft was careful to tell us that the OS was running on pre-production hardware, and we did notice that it was unbranded, so we didn’t focus on the device itself as much as the platform.
Overall, we came away neither impressed nor disappointed, but curious.
