On Turning Windows Into an Optimal Touchscreen OS

Microsoft tech evangelist Joey deVilla responds to criticism that Microsoft just isn’t committed to or doesn’t get the mobile touchscreen revolution. The really good stuff is in the comments, though, where Peter Bright — who wrote the “Ballmer still doesn’t get the iPad” piece for Ars Technica that at least partly prompted deVilla’s piece — writes:

I have heard it suggested that there is an effort to produce such a front-end, a “modern shell” (though I don’t really like calling it a “shell”, because a shell implies to me something that is rather thin; something that can be chipped away to reveal the interior. This is not possible on the iPhone, nor should it be on a Windows slate IMO), that would be a better model for touch devices. However, it is hard to be confident or excited about such a thing — if it even exists — when Microsoft is saying nothing about it.

Maybe Ballmer thinks Microsoft can get away with a thin touch UI “shell” because that’s how Windows itself started — as a thin GUI shell on top of DOS. The problem with that is that 2010 isn’t 1990. Times change.

★ Monday, 2 August 2010