Microsoft Feels "Urgency" for Tablets

Another feature I hope they include is the ability to use a normal stylus. I don't know if the iPad has it or not, but I know the iTouch/iPhone does not allow you to use a stylus. Some people have told me they make a special stylus for it but that still seems ridiculous. I can use almost anything as a stylus on my DS, which I find convenient.

I'm waiting to see more product information once these are available. That should reveal what most of the options are.

For some things you may discover addons will be coming afterwards for things like tweaking display settings and may see the stylus option with certain models only rather then being included in all. Since IPhonies and IPads seem to lack some things you can see where MS can jump in and take the advantage of seeing some extras included.

lets not forget "windows 7 phone". when it comes out this holiday year i belive some manufacturers will take advantage of that. so the "windwows" phone/mobile os can definatly be ported for tablet devices.
--just wanted to mention.

Petey7 said:

Another feature I hope they include is the ability to use a normal stylus. I don't know if the iPad has it or not, but I know the iTouch/iPhone does not allow you to use a stylus. Some people have told me they make a special stylus for it but that still seems ridiculous. I can use almost anything as a stylus on my DS, which I find convenient.

Steve Jobs would call it a failure product if it had a stylus. However, Microsoft Research has been working on getting Pen (Stylus) and Touch (Fingers) to work at the same time: YouTube - Manual Deskterity: An Exploration of Simultaneous Pen + Touch Direct Input Getting one or the other to function is easy enough. But at the same time? Now that is something.

I don't mean that you'd have to use a stylus. i'll use the DS as an example again. I can use my fingers all day long if I want to, but certain tasks are hard to do with my fat fingers, so a thin stylus works quit well when I need one. On the iPod Touch I spent so much time having to go back or rewrite everything, I sold it for half of what I payed for just so that I could buy a decent off brand mp3 player again.

Petey7 said:

I don't mean that you'd have to use a stylus. i'll use the DS as an example again. I can use my fingers all day long if I want to, but certain tasks are hard to do with my fat fingers, so a thin stylus works quit well when I need one. On the iPod Touch I spent so much time having to go back or rewrite everything, I sold it for half of what I payed for just so that I could buy a decent off brand mp3 player again.

I know, a stylus is always great. People argue that it's bad because they don't care about productivity. Styluses are always productive.

The thing with the iTouch devices and the new HD2 (with WM6.5; aggh I still can't get over not being able to use a stylus with this) is that they are capacitive. They have to depend on current being conducted, which your fingers can do and an avarage stylus can't, unlike traditional Resistive screens that will work solely on touch alone.

HTC was working on a capacitive screen stylus before, which is awesome since it looks and works like a traditional stylus and doesn't need fluffy balls in the tip or some other thing. Whatever happened to it, I don't know. But in the end they came up with this crap. Both are ugly and hard to use in my opinion.

We'll see what technology MS will use in their screens. But assuming they're desperately playing catch-up, they'll go with capacitive. :|

slighty off topic, but since i have t
e htc hd2, the ''offical'' stylus is a must have.
@arkhi --i actually like the stylus desigh, iTs pretty cool and stylish, at least for me.

UI Centric hits a homerun with potential Windows 7 tablet interface (neowin)

Although Apple has been the dominant player in the recent tablet market, many manufacturers have been spending R+D dollars playing catch-up. Although many agree that a fully fledged operating system like Windows 7 would be difficult to adapt into a fully touch-based interface model, the designers at UI Centric are currently developing a promising looking solution.

User Interface for Microsoft Windows 7 tablet devices

Everyone I know that bought an iPad did so because they felt it would be a "fun" thing to own & use.

I have a tablet PC that runs Win7 already, and while it's 5 years old (came with XP on it), it's still quite useful.

But not once, have I though of it as a "fun" thing ...

Maybe it's because I primarily use it at work, but seems to me that the two markets ( a tablet I can use for fun vs. a tablet I can use for work) are different enough that one device is unlikely to serve both markets equally well.

Which may be why so many companies have recently announced dropping their plans to produce a device that will compete with the iPad.