The Microsoft Surface Tablet is already starting to be overhyped, after being announced early last week. Meanwhile, the folks of gottabemobile have an excellent piece on why keyboard-based slates are doomed and can’t really compete with the iPad. Before the first iPad was released, I mean months before, people were already predicting it would suck and that people would miss their beloved keyboards.
Now guess what, the iPad sold big time and other companies are still trying to lure people back into loving keyboards. And now Microsoft revealed the new Surface Tablet, with a very interesting keyboard, but will people love it? It they would have, the products pictured above would have really taken off and not be remembered as failures. These are all Windows tablets and the Surface is possibly the only one of them to at least become famous. The first one is the HP TC110, that was loved for its then innovative attachable keyboard.
The second was a mere project/prototype, the Microsoft Origami Project from back in 2006. While other companies are trying to go past touchscreens and into eye controlled scrolling for example or typing in mid air and interacting with a Kinect-like camera, for some reason Microsoft decided it’s time to stick to the roots on this one. They’re basing the implementation of the keyboard accessory on the Microsoft Surface Tablet on the fact that it looks kind of cool, but will that be enough? We’ll have to wait and see the first sales figures this winter…
