Windows 7: Like the iPhone but too big to fit in your pocket
May 28, 2008
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer unveiled “snippets” of Microsoft’s new mouseless technology vision which is set to revolutionise the PC.
They were being interviewed at the Wall St Journal D6 Conference and the highlights are here along with a video showing a demo of the new user interface in action. It looks like they have taken Windows and bolted on the Minority Report style touch interface from their Surface project.
It’s not that new. Again adapting someone else’s innovation but trying to “do it better” and leveraging their market muscle. It’s the same as Surface or the iPhone but averaging out the scale to get something PC screen sized.
If they can develop a truly intuitive and usable Windows interface that makes the best of touch technology that would be something to give them credit for, particularly if they can actually get it out the door in less than 5 years.
If they succeed Vista might be seen by history as nothing more than an enabling step. The touch technology is only interesting in conjunction with a proper 3D graphic display.
