4 ms·

>They could have been Apple. Not really. What we called apps/smartphones/tablets before the iPhone/iPad was not really the same thing.

zbyte64 10y ago
Bingo. To Microsoft tablets were just larger PDAs meant for answering emails.
- josteink 10y ago
  On what planet does this statement ring true? Microsoft were the first to release Windows as a full on tablet-OS, at least half a decade before before even the iPhone existed. Forget about the iPad. That was at least 10 years later. Microsoft delivered a full version of Windows XP (which was what was current at the time), capable of running all Windows software. No emulation. No limitations. The problem was that most Windows software weren't really nice to run on a tablet, so the platform had limited appeal. Besides that you had the hardware issue: A "tablet" at that time was at least as heavy as a laptop. It was way before its time, and as such, was doomed to fail. But don't come and claim Microsoft foresaw tablets as a platform for limited capability computing for answering emails only and such. That's what Apple delivered. Microsoft had the right vision, and they were willing to execute. It's a shame it didn't turn out better.
rmason 10y ago
I had a Palm phone in 2001. They didn't call it a smartphone back then, but I had Internet and some small apps for weather and news. It was sort of like the Internet before the web, it was something only a geek would love. Weighed five pounds, ran hot and you needed a stylus to interact with it. Palm should have owned the smartphone era but they didn't have a vision where it should go. Steve Jobs did, he set standards and didn't ship until they were reached, end of story.
tostitos1979 10y ago
Did you ever use .net compact framework? It was actually decent from a functionality standpoint (especially coming from a J2ME background). While it was way better than what was out there, it was designed for corp usage. It didn't have the design flare required to be a mass consumer product.
- flukus 10y ago
  The UI toolkit was awful, lot's of fixed positioning makes supporting different resolutions and aspect ratios almost impossible.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    So... just like iOS?
    - flukus 10y ago
      I haven't done anything with iOS so I don't know if it's been resolved yet. But for a long time iOS had the advantage of only running on a single device. I believe the iPad had the same aspect ratio and could simply upscale the UI at first too.
      - kalleboo 10y ago
        Yeah these days it's all fine after they got AutoLayout working, but developers got lulled into "there's just one device size" that threes was a minor panic when they expanded the line (and now with iPad multitasking you need to handle basically any size)
        tostitos1979 10y ago
        At the outset, there were a few devices with generally consistent screen sizes ... the compaq ipaq was very popular for instance .. so not too bad.
    - rimantas 10y ago
      Nothing like iOS. You've got autolayout, view classes and stack views on iOS.
      - kalleboo 10y ago
        It does now, but we were comparing to platforms that existed when the iPhone came out. Even J2ME was designed to handle variable layouts. AutoLayout wasn't usable until iOS 6

zbyte64 10y ago

Bingo. To Microsoft tablets were just larger PDAs meant for answering emails.

josteink 10y ago
On what planet does this statement ring true? Microsoft were the first to release Windows as a full on tablet-OS, at least half a decade before before even the iPhone existed. Forget about the iPad. That was at least 10 years later. Microsoft delivered a full version of Windows XP (which was what was current at the time), capable of running all Windows software. No emulation. No limitations. The problem was that most Windows software weren't really nice to run on a tablet, so the platform had limited appeal. Besides that you had the hardware issue: A "tablet" at that time was at least as heavy as a laptop. It was way before its time, and as such, was doomed to fail. But don't come and claim Microsoft foresaw tablets as a platform for limited capability computing for answering emails only and such. That's what Apple delivered. Microsoft had the right vision, and they were willing to execute. It's a shame it didn't turn out better.

rmason 10y ago

I had a Palm phone in 2001. They didn't call it a smartphone back then, but I had Internet and some small apps for weather and news. It was sort of like the Internet before the web, it was something only a geek would love. Weighed five pounds, ran hot and you needed a stylus to interact with it. Palm should have owned the smartphone era but they didn't have a vision where it should go. Steve Jobs did, he set standards and didn't ship until they were reached, end of story.

tostitos1979 10y ago

Did you ever use .net compact framework? It was actually decent from a functionality standpoint (especially coming from a J2ME background). While it was way better than what was out there, it was designed for corp usage. It didn't have the design flare required to be a mass consumer product.

flukus 10y ago
The UI toolkit was awful, lot's of fixed positioning makes supporting different resolutions and aspect ratios almost impossible.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  So... just like iOS?
  - flukus 10y ago
    I haven't done anything with iOS so I don't know if it's been resolved yet. But for a long time iOS had the advantage of only running on a single device. I believe the iPad had the same aspect ratio and could simply upscale the UI at first too.
    - kalleboo 10y ago
      Yeah these days it's all fine after they got AutoLayout working, but developers got lulled into "there's just one device size" that threes was a minor panic when they expanded the line (and now with iPad multitasking you need to handle basically any size)
      - tostitos1979 10y ago
        At the outset, there were a few devices with generally consistent screen sizes ... the compaq ipaq was very popular for instance .. so not too bad.
  - rimantas 10y ago
    Nothing like iOS. You've got autolayout, view classes and stack views on iOS.
    - kalleboo 10y ago
      It does now, but we were comparing to platforms that existed when the iPhone came out. Even J2ME was designed to handle variable layouts. AutoLayout wasn't usable until iOS 6