Be Excellent To Each Other

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"Harder than Vista -> Win7 but easier than Win7->A N Other OS" would be my estimation at this point. Same dev tools, same .NET libraries, but going Metro or accessing tablet-specific features would require recoding, or at least UI redevelopment.

Windows 8 on ARM.

'Windows for Tablets' essentially. Think of the relationship between Windows RT/Windows 8 like the relationship between iOS/OS X.

What does the R stand for?

It's watch-sized? The pictures make it look bigger.

I'm even more confused now I've Googled.

RT not to be confused with Windows Runtime... but it runs Runtime... wtf?

That's the whole problem though. It's Windows for ARM tablets. Windows for x64 tablets will be Windows 8.

UI changes I'd expect, yeah; but if it was just a case of mapping input actions to different application behaviours (i.e. swipe left = next page rather than left-mouse click or whatever) then presumably you could change all that at a pretty high level without having to delve into the guts of the code? Depends on the application itself I suppose and how much you want to tailor the UX of course.

What a fucking mess they're making.

Heh, yeah. WinRT is Windows Runtime, which is sort of a replacement for the Win32 APIs. Windows RT is the Windows 8 OS running on ARM tablets. CONFUZZLEMENT!

I'd expect that sort of stuff to be built in behaviour of the new UI objects, to be honest. So unless you want to do something non-standard for the platform, you'd be good.

Aye, true; when your 'tablet' is just a proper PC with a touchscreen on the front then you can shove full-fat Windows on there and it'll happily work won't it? Fair point, this RT idea is pretty stupid isn't it?

Can I port WinRT to a Windows 8 tablet? Can I dual boot on one Surface between Windows RT and Windows 8?

No



No. You can probably run it in an emulator though.

Nope, each will only run on the CPU type(s) it's designed for.

The same way you can run iOS in OS X (sub please check).

Yes - like that.

So you write all your apps for Windows RT then supply an emulator for people with Windows 8 tablets. Problem solved.

Only if you have the SDK and the source code for the app in question though, before anyone gets excited.

Yes.

Doesn't....work like that.

It's too late, I'm already excited.

Erect?

Calcified.

Sure it doesn't stand for Rank Toss?

By its nature, .net tends to be easily portable so long as theresva .net runtime. So long as the power is there and you dont have a team of chimps coding

Although I still don'treally see the need for a tablet for myself.

The technical demands are only one part though. A 10" touch-based interface makes very different demands of the UX compared to a 15" screen operated with a mouse.

Edit -- note that WinRT isn't .Net, though. It's a native COM-based API: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Runtime

I guess that their problem is that they want to keep hold of the advantage that decades of Windows for desktops has given them, whilst at the same time wanting to make competitively priced, small tablets too, which basically means using arm chips.

I could be wrong on this, but I was under the impression that "Metro Apps" will run on any version of Windows 8, whether it's Windows RT running on an arm chip, or Windows 8 running on an x86/x64 processor. This way even if their tablets aren't particularly successful, people will still have a popular platform to make it worth developing on (Windows 8 desktops/laptops), possibly sidestepping the chicken and egg situation.

It's bold, whilst at the same time conservative, and a bit of a fudge. No idea if it will work.

No. For a start they'd need to be compiled for a totally different target instruction set. The other concern is that your app shouldn't behave the same way on the same platforms - because of power considerations, battery life considerations etc.

You could write an app and compile two versions, one for each tablet version, so from a coding point of view they're pretty much fully portable, of course.

I would expect Microsoft to produce a toolchain that generates both sets of binaries side by side in the same package. Otherwise the Windows Live SuperHappyFun Store is going to be a clusterfuck of overlapping incompatabilities.

I'm a little concerned that if all of these tablets come with a keyboard then unless they rigidly enforce some standards you'll end up with a hotchpotch of apps, some of which will be borderline unusable without the keyboard folded out, so the thing will cease to function properly in tablet mode. At least with an iPad although you can get a keyboard developers are unable to take it for granted that you'll have one.

Bear in mind that the name Microsoft Surface has also existed for a long time, as part of a large touch-enabled screen built into a table or desk.

I've wanted one for ages.

Yeah. The original Surface was pretty ace.

Next week they'll announce the Courier.

Wasn't it originally called the Microsoft Table?

I had a play with the Microsoft surface in the lobby of a hotel in Seattle. Very nice bit of kit, but pretty big. I gather it basically had a desktop PC inside the table, that everything was running off.

I think they've made a new version of it since the one I played with.

I am the table.

No way, really?

Still to this day the best thing I have used Google maps on.

Presumably they now have bing maps instead.

Hmm, I'm not sure that "table" is the optimal form factor for a map.

BUT! Microsoft could do a deal with Boston Dynamics and have a version attached to a BigDog.

It worked well in a hotel lobby. I meant people couldn't take it with them.

Except no-one wants to touch you.

I want to smear my fingers all over Zardoz's smooth surfaces.

Although I have seen the MS table at their campus site....

You love my haptic feedback.

The original Surface was a bloody awesome piece of kit.

This new Surface is interesting. It is Microsoft to a tee, though - it looks very nicely designed, powerful, interesting piece of kit that has some great ideas and a lot of potential - that has already been ruined by the botched launch (never, ever do something like this and not give price and availability) and the compromise between versions.

Yeah, pretty much agree with that in its entirety.

Microsoft just announced that that Windows Phone 8 will share the Windows 8 kernel.

"When we say shared Windows core, it's a set of components including kernel, networking, filesystem, multimedia, graphics support, etc. With a shared common core Windows 8 developers have an easy transition to Windows Phone. And vice versa."

Windows Phone 8 is also going to support Direct X, and they said that they're going to make it very easy to port iOS/Android stuff.

Ongoing here:
http://live.theverge.com/windows-phone- ... mmit-2012/

There was a Microsoft Surface demo unit in a local Comet a few years back.

It was OK.



I bet they don't use it for this on the new series of Hawaii 5-0 though.