blogs.zdnet.com

My source said that Courier is an incubation project, meaning it’s further along than a Microsoft Research project, but still not in the commercialization pipeline. That said, he heard the  delivery goal is mid-2010. That seems pretty darn ambitious to me, but he also said Microsoft is currently leaning toward using the Xbox model — in other words, making the device itself, and not relying on its current Tablet partners — so that could speed things up a bit.

I can’t verify any of what my source has told me. But I figured I’d put it out there, as it jibes with what Gizmodo has unearthed.

I find it hard to imagine that a product “still not in the commercialization pipeline” could be slated for mid-2010, but one is allowed to dream.

Meanwhile, the latest rumors reiterate that the Apple tablet will just be a larger iPhone or iPod touch, basically a media player and basic communicator running iPhone OS. And here’s me hoping that Steve Jobs watches the Courier’s demo videos, and decides to halt and reboot the tablet project entirely, once more, even if that means the release is postponed again.

Let me repeat what I wrote recently: I absolutely do not want an iPhone OS tablet anymore. The iPhone still gets away with its drab, monotonous interface because the mobile phone space was such a dreadful mess three years ago that consistency was the most important thing Apple’s software design could bring to the table; that doesn’t to the netbook form-factor. On a ten-inch screen, we now need sophisticated, not streamlined.