Microsoft Windows 7 News |
- ExoPC Slate in Depth Review: Pt 3, Windows 7 on a Tablet
- Windows 7 Now Owns 20% Of Global Market Share
- Windows 7 Gaming Device at CES?
- ExoPC Slate in Depth Review: Pt 2, The ExoUI
| ExoPC Slate in Depth Review: Pt 3, Windows 7 on a Tablet Posted: 04 Jan 2011 01:56 AM PST
For now though I found myself dropping down to Windows 7 itself and I made reference yesterday to how this wasn’t actually as bad as I’d thought. Let me explain why as there are several reasons. Now it’s true that the main venom people reserve for Windows 7′s interface on a tablet is down to things like the minimise, maximise and close buttons and for context menus and the like. I have to say all these really are as hateful as I’d expected. Some other parts of Windows 7 quite surprised me when used by touch. Windows have a nice bounce to them when you swipe up and down and reach either the top or bottom of the page, and almost all panels in windows are already touch sensitive to a degree, accepting simple swipe gestures to scroll up and down lists, and simple taps to highlight multiple files and documents. It’s already much more accomplished than I’d expected. The biggest surprise came in the form of the ribbon UI. I’d installed Windows Live mail and the ribbon lends itself well to a touch interface with it’s large buttons. As this UI type finds its way into more Windows 7 programs, this will certainly help people who want to use the software with touch. The real revelation though is one that many of us have already experienced before on our smartphones. While it might be difficult to use Windows 7 sometimes browsing the web is a truly awful experience. I wrote last week about the touch web, and the lack of touch support on websites which still insist on using small hyperlinks is something that needs urgent attention. I’m not just talking about small websites either, this applies to Amazon, eBay, Facebook and all the major websites. This helps level the playing field for Windows 7 on a tablet somewhat as much of the time, no matter what tablet we’re using we’ll be browsing the web. This experience will be equally awful on an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Those tablets have a distinct advantage over Windows 7 of smoother zooming, but who really wants to have to zoom into and back out of a web page every time you want to click on a link. So I found that using Windows 7 on a tablet isn’t anywhere near as bad as you might expect and it was surprising to me just how quickly I adapted to it. So now all that’s out of the way what is the ExoPC like to live with on a day to day basis? I’ll be writing about this tomorrow. Related posts:
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| Windows 7 Now Owns 20% Of Global Market Share Posted: 03 Jan 2011 12:12 PM PST I don’t think I need to go into much detail at how fast Windows 7 has managed to grow since its release just over a year ago. It’s staggering to think that Microsoft managed to ship over 240 million licenses within a year of its release. This symbolic milestone for Microsoft and Windows 7 sees that it’s on just over a fifth or 20.87 % of all computers on the web. Windows 7 has been stealing the majority of it’s market share from Windows Vista and Windows XP ever since its release. Windows Vista has fallen from nearly 18% at the beginning of 2010 to a mere 12.11 % by December. Windows XP also saw a dramatic drop from approx 66% of the market in January 2010 to 56.72% of the market by the end of the year. However, while Windows 7 is rapidly gaining, Microsoft’s overall Windows share was down to an all time low with 90.29% of the over all market. But it didn’t lose out to Mac or Linux who both remained almost flat, no in fact it was iOS which seemed to be snatching up the market. This uptick for Apple was probably caused by the large number of iPads and iPhones purchased for the holidays.
I’ve no doubt that we will get more sales figures from Microsoft at CES next week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if nearly 300 million licenses had been sold by then. Related posts:
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| Windows 7 Gaming Device at CES? Posted: 03 Jan 2011 08:52 AM PST Just when you thought you’d seen every possible way to implement Windows 7…here comes CES and a company called OCOSMOS. Engadget is reporting that an unknown company who made a vaporware splash in last years Consumer Electronics Show is getting ready to preview a handheld gaming device that runs a version of Windows 7. That’s right, not Windows Phone 7, Windows 7. Details right now are scarce, but Engadget notes two revealed details about the coming device:
It’s not a surprise that I favour Windows 7 as an operating system, but I’m very wary of Windows 7 on any tablet-like devices and especially a gaming handheld. I just don’t see the point of this, but I guess I’ll wait and see before making any negative judgements on their device. For right now, the picture above and the scant details are all we have to go on. What are your thoughts on using Windows 7 on a portable gaming device? Source: Engadget Image Credit: Engadget Related posts:
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| ExoPC Slate in Depth Review: Pt 2, The ExoUI Posted: 03 Jan 2011 07:05 AM PST Yesterday I published part 1 of my in-depth review of the ExoPC where I looked at the hardware, and we’re off to a cracking start as it’s extremely impressive. The most noticeable thing about this tablet however is the custom interface that ExoPC have provided to make working with this Windows 7 tablet simpler and more enjoyable. Before I look at the UI let’s have a look at exactly why it’s needed. With Windows 7, Microsoft have continued with their philosophy of merging the consumer and business versions of their core OS that, only a few years ago, were seperate entities with different development teams. The upshot of this is that we now have a Windows that’s much more stable and secure than anything else before it, but where the business-focus has taken precedent over any consumer considerations. There have been attempts with features such as Media Centre to simplify and consumerise the Windows UI, but even Media Centre has always felt like a type of lost bolt-on. Now we’re in a situation where Windows simply cannot cope with the demands of a touch interface but in some ways it doesn’t matter, and I’ll come to why in the next part of this review.  click to view full size The main UI is based around a series of pages on which there are 80 circles. These circles on each page are customisable and by default the UI comes with links to settings, games, a web browser (which is a skin on top of the installed copy of Internet Explorer 9), a files browser, mapping software and more. You can add additional icons to these panels which at the moment requires modifying an underlying file to add a web link but is much simpler with programs, even ones not designed for the UI (I had it launching the Live Essentials Suite). There are also other apps supplied with the ExoPC that you can install or download from their website. Already there are quite a few but the quality varies. The best selection though are games and it’s here that a tablet will excel if they’re a good and useful selection.  click to view full size Now it’s worth pointing out that, as with just about every other piece of software out there at the moment, this UI is still in beta. ExoPC tell me that the plan is to tap into Windows 7′s APIs and create an interface that people can stay in “90% of the time”. They’re working on this actively too and intend to be able to deliver much of this in the next four months. There’s consistency in the UI as well with an attractive brushed metal effect set against a black background. All in all there’s been as much attention to detail gone into this UI as has gone into the hardware, and this is very important as it could so easily have been overlooked.  click to view full size The browser is a good example of the in-development nature of the UI software, as there’s currently no bookmarking or tabbed browsing support, but these are coming soon I’m told. Also the pinch zoom falls prey to relying on IE9 and isn’t smooth like you’d find on other tablets, in fact it’s quite jerky and only has a few settings. This is a very well laid out and organised UI with a home button permanently in the top right and a Windows key in the bottom left should you need to drop back to the Windows 7 desktop. The running apps appear on the right side and you can simply slide them off the screen to shut them down, which is a lovely touch. Removing icons from the UI is also simple, you just slide them to the left and a recycle bin appears.  click to view full size These problems aside there’s a lot to like about this UI. It’s very polished already and the guys at ExoPC are very excited about the ways they’ll be improving it in the next few months. It’s very simple to update too, and can be done with just a few clicks. It will be very interesting to see how this UI develops. It reminds me, fairly obviously I suppose, of the work HTC did to mask the horror that was Windows Mobile on my HTC Touch HD. At first the Malina interface they added was only skin deep, much as things are here. They persevered though and that UI then won universal acclaim and ended up being ported to Android. For myself I found I was using the standard Windows 7 interface on the tablet more than the custom UI because there’s still work to do. I can easily see myself enjoying using it though in a few months when it’s been upgraded. Coming next : Windows 7 on a Tablet Related posts:
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