Microsoft Courier Tablet PC – Courier vs. Apple Tablet?

Posted in editorials on Sep 25th, 2009 | one response

If you haven’t seen Microsoft’s Courier, the “secret” tablet they’ve been working on, then let’s start this by showing the video that’s been going around that has a mock-up of what it may look like to use the device:

A quick summary of the Microsoft Courier tablet PC might follow as such: it’s a dual 7″ screen device with built inWiFi and camera that allows input via the pen (stylus) or multi-touch (including the now-infamous pinch and expand movements). This big catch? This is a prototype device and we don’t know if it’s something that’ll ever reach the market, let alone function how the mock-up shows (really, you should watch the video if you haven’t).

I have to be honest and admit that when I first saw the pictures of the Microsoft Courier tablet PC my first thought was to scoff and, possibly, laugh. My previous experience with Microsoft powered (software, of course) tablet PCs has been okay at best, and downright infuriating at worst. Windows, regardless of the version, is clearly not a tablet PC OS and even though it has become more usable through the years, it’s still a keyboard and mouse OS first.

However, with the Microsoft Courier tablet PC, it looks like Microsoft’s secret team has taken cues from those who know how to make usable interfaces and might even be running some sort of custom OS for the device, or else a highly-customized version of Windows (if it is Windows, which no knows at this point, I’d liken it to Apple’s version of OS X that runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch).

Ultimately, the software powering the Microsoft Courier tablet PC is going to be what makes it a success, should it ever come out. Apple has proven that a touch interface can not only be usable, but actually be a damn good way to interact with a device. I’m reminded of that every day I use my iPhone and don’t even have to think about how to do something on it because it’s so seamless. Even browsing the web on it works well and is easy to do with a finger, and actually might be preferable to using a mouse.

So, here’s where I get a little worried about Microsoft’s offering. Even though it looks like it has multi-touch capabilities, I’m not sure I want to have to use a pen. I don’t think there’s anyone out there that believes that the Apple tablet, whenever it comes out (we all agree it’s a real, unannounced product now, right?), will use a stylus, and my previous experience with a stylus in Windows was even worse handwriting than I usually have, not to mention severe lag time between writing and seeing it appear on the screen.

And yet I find the idea of two screens intriguing. While I don’t necessarily need to have multiple windows of things open, I’m sitting in front of a MacBook Pro right now that is also plugged into a 28″ monitor, so multiple screens is how I normally work. Taking things a step further, I’m wondering if it’ll be possible to have Word (or some variant) open on one screen while annotating on the other, and to have the two screens “locked” that that each side corresponds to the other.

In the demo, we seen the “user” dragging information from screen to screen, so it certainly seems like this should be a possibility. I think the dual-screen option actually opens up a lot of possibilities for use that we would normally only expect to have on a desktop with multiple displays, and possibly even more uses thanks to the input style.

Whether Courier ever pans out or not is unknown right now, but I’d like to throw out a few questions/thoughts just for the sake of conversation.

What’s the superior input method, pen or touch? Or is both ideal?
Will each device have an onscreen keyboard? Can the Courier be turned sideways to make one screen a keyboard?
Can Microsoft get the resolution high enough to make using a pen something that isn’t painful and looks like scribbling?
Is Microsoft aiming at the business market? Is Apple going for the consumer market?
Which would you rather use, the Courier, or the long-rumored Apple tablet?

With some luck, both products will reach the market, and we, the consumers, will be the winners here because competition is a good thing.

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