Microsoft had exactly as much faith in tablets as Apple did, riiiiight up until Apple released the iPad.

It's always been amazing watching Jobs gripe about how that next new thing people are clamoring for is nothing but a waste of time...up until the moment they release it.

MS lost a major opportunity to get their player in the game. Now they're left struggling with WP7. Looking at Windows 8 and the hardware we can expect from next cycle, I'm going to bet against MS gaining any serious marketshare in 2012. It's hilarious how often MS is busy innovating in the background, but doesn't bother to release what would be a major tech coup, choosing instead to play catch-up with last-year's fad.

animal900: Tablets are toys for children and women.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo
so tablets are a GIANT market then ???

and MS is ignoring it yet again

animal900: With that said, even I feel like I want one, but the only reason I haven't gotten one yet is that I can't figure out what I'd use it for that I couldn't do with my phone or laptop. I think I'd have buyer's remorse after a week or so, and would leave it in a stack of magazines gathering dust.

electronic book
damn, might need to get one of these before my next plane trip/vacation.

JinxofSpades: Am I missing something? Was there any freaking reason they couldn't simply add email functionality???

Internal conflict at Microsoft.

bravian: Kuroshin: MS lost a major opportunity to get their player in the game. Now they're left struggling with WP7. Looking at Windows 8 and the hardware we can expect from next cycle, I'm going to bet against MS gaining any serious marketshare in 2012. It's hilarious how often MS is busy innovating in the background, but doesn't bother to release what would be a major tech coup, choosing instead to play catch-up with last-year's fad.

Microsoft creates and developes a lot of kewl things in its labs. What they suck at moving those ideas into a real product. The classic example is that both Apple and Microsoft came up with various touch screen technologies. Apple chose to revolutionize the mobile market. Microsoft chose to revolutionize the table marketsit on their hands.

FTFY

animal900: Yup, and nothing wrong with that. I'm just tired of people preaching about the iPad for productivity. What percentage of iPads sold do you really think are going into doctor's hands to review MRI results?

Not sure, but I'm starting to see more and more news anchors doing their standups with tablets of one kind or another in their hands instead of sheafs of paper. I've recently seen a press conference of some kind, where the person also had their notes on a tablet. I see a lot of potential for them being productive.

Example: Here at work, I keep in touch with my boss using an in-house IM system. He's in Chicago, I'm in Salt Lake. Im'ing is faster and more efficient then constantly calling or emailing. I work in IT, and often leave my desk to go down on the production floor and work with our printers, our phones,m etc. It's kind of a pain to disconnect my laptop from my keyboard, mouse, monitor and power, just to find a place to put it downstairs, but sometimes I need to RDP into a server, or follow up with my boss on the status of a ticket, ask questions, etc... With a tablet, I can grab it, open a new chat session, carry it down, and be available far more easily than if I were lugging around a laptop. I see a lot of potential in tablets, although right now they're really status symbols. As soon as the cachet of carrying one around to look cool wears off, you'll see them primarily in the hands of people who will actually USE them.

They also come in handy for our sales people when they are on location supervising a setup, once again, much easier than a laptop. I can also see them being used efficiently for a QC person at my company, that would do nothing more than wander the plant all day, following jobs from the beginning until they go out the door, and checking them off in each phase of production.

Of course, I'm also the guy that sees that the Segway actually WAS an innovative product, despite what the haters say, so maybe I just do too much acid?

Sorry, you absolutely need an email client on any device nowadays. No matter what you're doing- creating content, consuming content... you're going to want to email people various things instantly. And web email doesn't cut it all the time.

"Here's a draft of my building plans, see attached"

"Here's a link to a funny video of cats on a treadmill"

And so on...

paulleah: Apple: Here is a new tool. Show us what you can do with it.

Sure! I develop in Flash, I assume your new tool supports it?

dustlesswalnut: I think the email/no email thing was this-- if you're a writer, or an architect, or a designer and you sit down to do some work, you don't want your notepad to start beeping and flashing at you with every immediate distraction. Kind of like how when I really want to buckle down and work, I close my Gmail tab so I'm not distracted. It wasn't going to be a consumer device. Too many devices are trying to be "everything" nowadays.

However email would have been integrated, I'm sure there would be a way to turn off notifications. Just like Outlook. I keep it running, and I can choose to have the bubble pop up on new emails or not. Or just friggin' close Outlook.