Ballmer (and Microsoft) still doesn't get the iPad

The message was clear: Microsoft still doesn’t understand why its Tablet PC concept has repeatedly bombed over the best part of a decade. Apple sold more iPads in its first three months of availability than PC vendors sold Tablet PCs in the whole of last year; in fact, the number of iPads sold in that period is likely to eclipse the number of Tablet PCs sold both last year and this. But still the company is persevering: stick a regular PC operating system on a laptop, give it a touchscreen, and then take away the keyboard and pixel-perfect pointing device. Ballmer even reiterated the company’s position: slates are just another PC form factor.

The iPad is a neat package. It’s not a device for everyone. There are lots of things the iPad doesn’t do well; there are many things the iPad doesn’t do at all. But it’s not trying to be these things; it’s a conveniently sized, highly portable, long-lasting media-consumption device. It’s ideal for browsing the Internet, reading e-mail (with the occasional short reply), looking at photos, playing music and videos, and casual gaming. It doesn’t need much in the way of configuration. It doesn’t run Mac software. Every single piece of software on it is designed to be used with fingers. In no way is the iPad striving to be a PC, but it isbecause of this—because it’s not running software designed for keyboards and pixel-perfect pointers, because it’s running software that’s simple and restricted, because it uses a slow, but low-power, ARM processor—because of these things that it is so good at the things it does do.

Tablet PCs, on the other hand, have had all the size and weight of conventional laptops, with all the software of regular laptops, but without the human interface devices to make them useful. They contained the compromises of the iPad—touchscreens are never going to be as good for text entry as physical keyboards, touchscreens, even with styluses, are never going to be as precise as mice—but without any of its benefits, including the light weight, impressive battery life, and purpose-built software. They made sense in some vertical markets, but as mass-market devices, they’ve consistently failed.

And so it is set to continue because, as Ballmer said, the operating system is called Windows.

From Arstechnica