Origami Revealed: It’s a 7-Inch Tablet PC Platform. How… uh… expected. Okay then, let’s review the implications:
The latest Mac mini being a bunch of Intel chips thrown together, there’s no reason why Apple wouldn’t release a tablet mostly based on the same Intel platform as the Origami.
But the Origami will be too associated with Microsoft (and why? it looks more like an Intel than a Microsoft platform), so it’d have to be ostensibly different. Basically, you can expect any screen size but 7 inches.
If the Origami gets any kind of success at all, that’s additional incentive for Apple to finally come out with a tablet. (There’s no point in wondering whether they did develop such a product — it didn’t bother them maintaining an Intel version of OS X for years just in case it’d come in handy — but just when they’ll decide to release it.)
If Apple doesn’t, it’ll only be a matter of time before someone works out the drivers for Origami to run OSx86, with Inkwell handwriting recognition and everything. (Did I miss something or the supposed Microsoft Origami ad doesn’t even hint to handwriting recognition? I gather it’s an older video, but the official one won’t play on a Mac.)
And that’s yet more incentive for Apple to make its own tablet.
You’ve got to admit, it totally makes sense for Steve Jobs to postpone the iTablet launch, let Microsoft try itself at product buzz a bit, and come out with a cooler product a few months later.
Said cooler product will be twice as expensive.
The Origami isn’t that much more yet than a prototype, and Jobs doesn’t like to announce products (long) before they’re available.
I’m sorry, it looks like I couldn’t help but make it all about Apple here. Thing is, I’m a switcher, and there’s no way I ever want to put my digital life in Microsoft’s hands again — so, for me, the most important feature of this platform is that it’s supposed to run all sorts of operating systems. (Though I can’t imagine an Origami-specific Linux distro ever being usable enough for me to consider using it, either.)
Oh, and I wasn’t the only one. Gizmodo:
More baffled reactions which we anticipate regretting once Apple decides to use this as a Newton revival platform after the jump.
And it’s scary not because the OS isn’t powerful and flexible (both XP and Windows CE are perfectly capable systems, despite what the Linux crowd says), but because Microsoft has demonstrated, time and again, that it can’t design a mobile/PDA UI worth a damn.
And that’s exactly why I coudln’t care less about Origami except for the implications on the Apple world: it’s not about integrism, politics, or voting with my wallet; it’s the utter impossibility of having faith in Microsoft’s designers to produce a functional, ergonomic software platform and make it evolve in the right direction over time, too.
How ironic is it that the only thing Microsoft can do right is hardware? (I mean peripherals — I know nothing about consoles, have no opinion.)
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