Incremental Blogger

Not much is known publicly about the next generation of Windows, currently called Windows 7, but we’ve managed to uncover some exclusive rumors about Windows 7 and we’re most excited to share them with you. What’s really got us going is that finally it appears that Microsoft has gotten a clue and understands how to position itself and its products in the consumer market. Much of this is due to lessons learned from Apple. Yes, imitation is the best form of flattery. And there’s no doubt that Microsoft is sharing some love with Apple. The result, Microsoft tipsters are telling us, is to break from the chains of the IT world and make Microsoft a better Apple.

Here are seven ways that Microsoft is planning to out Apple Apple with the Windows 7 product line:

1. Better secrecy. Apple is the king of information control–only announcing products when they are ready to ship. This helps to build suspense and gives Apple the option of making last minute changes without negatively affecting anyone. So Microsoft’s new approach? As Steven Sinofsky has already indicated Microsoft won’t be announcing Windows 7 details early like they did with Longhorn. But this is only the tip of the iceberg We’ve learned that Microsoft is going to take this even further and not release Windows 7 details even after the product launches. How wild is that? Email sources are telling us that by doing so Windows 7 is sure to be the most untalked about product launch ever, leading to some of the best press ever for Windows. So clever.

2. Better naming Microsoft fully appreciates the fact that it hasn’t been very good with product names. They’re often too long, stale, and easily confused. So Microsoft decided to take a page out of the OS X book, and call the next version of Windows….drumroll….OS W. How cool is that!!?? We thought so too.

Rumor is that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is even getting into the act in order to one up Apple CEO Steve Jobs and is legally changing his name to Steve Careers. Not only that, Microsoft’s PR firm has hired an unknown, well-known writer to pen a sharp tongued blog titled “The Fake Steve Careers.” Can’t be more hip than this.

3. Simple by design We never thought we’d see the day, but finally Microsoft has come to its senses and agreed with Apple that single button mice are the only way to go. So the next versions of all Microsoft mice will all only have one button. For all of you Windows fans hooked on right clicking, don’t despair: All one button Microsoft mice will have a special, small button on the single mouse button which you can use for right clicking. That’s thinking different taken to a whole new level.

Now Microsoft isn’t content with stopping there though. No way. We’ve received exclusive details from a Microsoft patent application for a new single button keyboard. You can’t get any simpler than that. How does it work? The keyboard defaults to the letter “A” and then you simply press the key once again to select the letter “B”, twice more for “C” and so on. When you reach the desired letter, number or function key, you simply dwell for four seconds and whala you’ve typed a letter. Rumor has it that the Tablet PC team is all over this and is quite enthusiastic about this new keyboard design because finally it’s going to be faster to handwrite text than type it. Very, very elegant.

4. Better peripherals lead to better experiences Microsoft finally realizes that it needs to provide better support for the latest generation of hardware. Macs have their built in iSight cameras, for instance. Microsoft sees the wisdom of Apple’s way now and is going to require all Windows boxes to include Microsoft’s new XraySight. You don’t have to do anything to get it to work, it just starts xraying you when you first boot up Windows 7. Story goes that there is a tie in with Microsoft’s healthcare initiative and Microsoft will be sending all Xray scans to doctors throughout the world to check up on you. Should they see even the smallest hint of a problem, you’ll get a popup warning on your display. Quite impressive I’d say.

5. Better ad campaigns Microsoft has finally realized the value of a clever series of TV ads and has hired the ad agency responsible for the well known Apple campaign “I’m a PC, I’m a Mac” to style a series of ads for them. In particular, the new Microsoft ads will be geared towards encouraging people to upgrade from Windows XP to Vista. The bulk of the ads will feature two characters, one an aging man called XP, and the other a hipster called Vista. The spots, titled “I’m XP, I’m Vista,” will be running round the clock encouraging people to switch to the new OS.

6. Less is more Not everything is set in stone with Windows 7, however. Microsoft engineers, for instance, are experimenting with a mini version of Windows that takes the idea of min to the max. We’re not sure if it’s going to actually be Windows 7 or not, but we have learned it takes the idea of “less is more,” which Apple is applauded for, to an extreme. In this version of Windows, in fact, the Windows experience is all but trimmed down to a Start button, Notepad and Solitaire. No more archane command line windows. No more tree windowed Explorer windows to topple your layout of files. Just two basic programs. What about the web? Don’t worry, you can always download it later along with all your favorite classic Windows apps. Microsoft is still working on this part will all work though.

7. More frequent updates Of all the new Windows 7 details we’re most excited about this is the one. We already all know that Microsoft is committing to more frequent OS updates. That’s nothing new. But up to this point, we haven’t really learned how frequent, frequent is. Well, now we know. Whenever Apple ships, Microsoft will ship too. That same day. How much simpler can this be? Rumor has it that in fact, the first version of Windows 7 is going to be ready to ship at Apple’s WWDC this June.

We’re still looking to dig up more details about Windows 7 and Microsoft’s new Apple-inspired thinking. Stay tuned.

ComputerWorld writes that Mircrosoft is working harder to ensure that when Windows 7 actually ships that there will be solid drivers for it. Makes complete sense.

Along these lines, I think there’s a very succint “dependability” program that Microsoft ought to commit to this time around.

It’s very simple:

For all notebooks released in the last X number of years (with a complete list of notebook models listed online), Microsoft will commit to ensuring that there will be 100% driver support. People just don’t and can’t swap components in and out of a notebook like they can a desktop, so notebooks should just work. It’s not the components that the consumer worries about. It’s the notebook as a whole.

With more and more people purchasing and using notebooks today this tweak to the logo program is extremely important–and something that should be succinctly communicated.

I realize it’s a pain and a huge potential liability, but this is the state of where things are at. If Microsoft wants to compete effectively against Apple, it has to do it.

The logo program was supposed to signal a level of quality, however, after Vista, the logo brand is too tainted. It’s little more than a sticker now. Microsoft needs to revitalize their commitment to quality and particularly for the ever growing number of notebooks needs to stand up and succinctly make it clear that notebooks and Windows 7 will go together. Swimingly.

Long Zheng over at istartedsomething is collecting up little UI issues within Windows in the hopes that someone at Microsoft is interested in fixing them in the next version of Windows–kind of like what Chris Pirillo did awhile back with the Vista beta at the request of former Windows head Jim Alchin. He insinuates that he has a back door channel with someone who can really do things. That would be cool.

Long’s 48-item list includes one alignment problem in Windows Journal toolbar. Actually, there are a couple other toolbar problems in the program too. One is that the copy/paste icons are effectively reversed.

The copy icon is shown as a clipboard and the paste icon as two text excerpts. These are not the standard icons.

Now you could argue that the copy to clipboard icon which shows the clipboard is correct (though it’s ambiguously close to the standard paste icon which has a clipboard and a text excerpt), but the paste icon (shown as two text excerpts) is clearly something that’s used in most apps as the copy icon.

By way of comparison, here’s what the copy/paste icons look like in Word 2007. You can see that the paste icon at left is a clipboard with some text and the copy icon is two small excerpts of text shown in the middle right column.

Another issue is that the toolbars themselves often disappear when Journal is in use. It’s highly frustrating, particularly when rotating views.

It would be nice to see these little things fixed. I’m not holding my breath though. It’s a little bit late for community feedback in this area. What, you say? There’s not even a Windows 7 beta out yet!!!

That’s right, but that doesn’t mean that Microsoft isn’t on a well-scheduled train to get out Windows 7 by late 2009/2010 as they have publicly stated several times. And by all accounts this train–with a fairly firm date–is not going to sacrifice quality. So in the balancing act between the triad of time-features-quality, that means “features” or feature changes have to go. That’s the nature of the beast–unless, you figure out a way to warp the space-time continuum, which I’m all for, these fixes are unlikely to get added to any to do list at this point.

The problem is that stability and making changes at the last minute don’t go together–no matter how cosmetic the changes may seem to you, me, and the developers themselves. It takes very skilled people to make these “quick” changes, and my guess is the highly skilled people are committed to work on stability or new features. So this kind of clean up stuff, if it’s not already on their list, is unlikely to be added at this point.

But you rightly argue: How can this be? Aren’t alphas and betas all about cleanup? Yep. But I’ve seen no indication from Microsoft that that’s one of the objectives with Windows 7. I’m guessing that if UI cleanup were a strong goal of the Windows 7 team, that that would mean they were all over lists like this maybe six months to a year ago–not a handful of months before they release a beta that’s got to work well, because of the condensed beta cycle being planned.

Put another way, this “beta” is really going to be a beta. It’s not an alpha called a beta or a “community preview” assumed to be a beta. It’s a beta. The features will be locked down. The changes will be kept to a minimum.

Now I have absolutely no internal knowledge of any of this. It’s 100% conjecture. And it would be cool if Steven Sinofsky or someone else managing the effort could blog about this and give us some thoughts on their thoughts about how people could help the most.

Of course, don’t expect too much dialog at this point. Steven Sinofsky has made it very clear that there’s not going to be any back and forth talking till the team is ready. Doesn’t hurt to try though, and that’s what I like about what Long Zheng is doing. It all starts with one.

Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Mary Jo Foley discuss this week’s Windows news, including the multi-touch feature in the forthcoming Windows 7 that Microsoft showed at D.

Their overall reactions to multi-touch were summed up by Leo Laporte, “I don’t think I saw anything.”

I have a fairly long post in the oven that talks about my thoughts on multi-touch, where it makes sense, and my suggestions to Microsoft on how to better make its case.

After scanning through Twitter, blogs, and the like for any commentary on Windows 7’s forthcoming multi-touch feature, I’m coming to the conclusion that many people don’t get it.

Some of us do. I need to put together a blog post that collects up many of my thoughts on multi-touch and why it has value, but for now, a cartoon will have to do:

I’ve been scanning through the various Windows 7-slash-multi-touch news today. There’s too much to link to anymore. Most of it is polite although most reader comments are fairly critical.

crn.com, which is a system builder oriented publication, has one article that I think is typical both in its commentary as well as the user comments.

I can’t wait to see what Apple unvails at its forthcoming developer conference. Wouldn’t that be something if we hear news of more multi-touch?

As I recover from yesterday’s Windows 7 marketing whiplash, I’m contemplating what it means to be a Tablet PC developer as of right now.

Here’s the thing: Microsoft has made it perfectly clear by its Windows 7 silence and now public statements by Windows 7 head Steven Sinofsky that Microsoft is not going to reveal information about Windows 7 until the time is right.

But when is that time? I guess when they tell us, right?

So…did Microsoft tell us anything yesterday when it showcased the forthcoming multi-touch capabilities in Windows 7?

I bet if I were to ask Microsoft, they’d say no. If I were to apply some common sense, I’d say yes.

You see, it’s very important to learn about multi-touch support in the OS early on–especially for us Tablet developers, who are probably some of the most likely early adopters of this technology. Although we can throw just about anything together at the last minute, we want to do more than just “make do,” we want to do something awesome. And for this we need some information and time.

You see, although multi-touch could just be tossed into Microsoft Paint, for instance, it’s not the most inspiring use of the technology. There’s lots more to it than that. Look at Surface or the Office Labs work to see how un-little-windows like a great multi-touch app can be.

Here are just a few of the many developer questions that I think are now before us:

Is multi-touch going to be an equal citizen to mouse events or are these more application-responsible events a.k.a. Google’s multi-touch SDK?

What model are we working with here? Will someone be able to plug in multiple mice and be able to simulate things? Or have two users working within a desktop at the same time?

Is there a notion of clustering or grouping of multi-touch events or IDs or is this all up to the application programmer?

What performance are we talking about? I can imagine that it would vary greatly with the device, but are we talking about some noticable lag or possibly 1/4″ or more of error? This impacts how applications will be written tremendously.

Are we talking COM/.NET like in the Tablet PC SDK?

How many touch points? Again, I’m sure this varies by digitzer, but are there going to be limits, and how do we ask the “driver” what they are? Similarly, how can we tell if a surface supports multi-touch?

Window scaling and rotation make a lot of sense wtih multi-touch. Is this going to be supported like in the early Longhorn demos? Or does a WPF app, for instance, need to own the screen and manage its own rotation?

I can think of a dozen more questions, but I’ll leave it at this for now.

I hope Microsoft is going to reveal more multi-touch developer details at the forthcoming TechEd event. PDC, which is the last week of October, is getting on the late side–particularly if Windows 7 is going to be shipping before the end of 2009. Let’s say Microsoft tries to hit the holiday season, which it missed in Vista. That would place a launch date around October. That’s one year to digest the new technology, get the hardware to develop for it, (is Dell going to work with developers to do this? So far I see no indication of any community efforts on Dell’s part) come up with something phenomenal, implement and test it, and get it ready for Windows 7 launch. It’s doable, but come on. In terms of the information developers need does it really make sense to wait so long? You’re already talking with the hardware manufactures, so why not us developers?

Update: I don’t see on the TechEd site any indication that multi-touch will be discussed there, however, PDC looks like it will have at least one multi-touch session. From the PDC site:

“WINDOWS 7: TOUCH COMPUTING
In Windows 7, innovative touch and gesture support will enable more direct and natural interaction in your applications. This session will highlight the new multi-touch gesture APIs and explain how you can leverage them in your applications.”

My suggestion to anyone contemplating multi-touch development: Don’t wait. Get started now, simulating what you can. You can port things later. The hands-on experience with multi-touch will more than make up for the time lost in having to port your code to whatever multi-touch model Microsoft will make available. That’s my two cents worth, anyway.

I’m both elated and confused by the last 24 hours. First, I’m elated because it appears like Microsoft is taking the next step with multi-touch by adding it to Windows 7. I’m confused, however, but I can’t tell where Microsoft is going with all of this. Let me explain.

It started yesterday morning with a CNet interview with Windows 7 head, Steven Sinofsky, who explained why Microsoft was being more mum about Windows 7 than with its prickly predecessor. Sinofsky went on to say that Microsoft had learned from Vista and was going to be more reasoned and measured with its release of information about Windows 7. The reasoning goes that Vista hurt Microsoft’s hardware and software partners because they were unable to keep up with the various changes Microsoft had to make as the Longhorn OS transformed into what we now call Vista. This time around Microsoft would only say what needs to be said, when the time is right. Of course, this all beggs the question: who is going to get the information and when. Are we going to wait for the Windows 7 launch to hear about what it contains? Apple style?

Over on the Vista Team blog, Chris Flores explains the reasoning further and clarifies that we need not be concerned about Microsoft just thrusting things on the marketplace and that it’s already working with hardware and software partners and revealing to them details about Windows 7.

Hold on.

Sinofsky is saying that they have to be careful what they say so partners don’t get led down the wrong path. But Chris is saying that Microsoft is already indeed talking with partners.

Which one is it?

I’m guessing there’s a simple explanation for this: 1) there are partners and then there are partners. or possibly 2) Sinofsky is politely trying to say he doesn’t want to tell us.

And then to add to this paradox, no sooner had Sinofsky set the record straight that Microsoft wasn’t going to say anything public, that later that same day Microsoft revealed the first glimpses of Windows 7 as it demoed multi-touch in 7.

Talk about a turn around.

As a developer, particularly of Tablet technologies, this is beginning to get a bit confusing. So let me now get into the developer aspects of all of this in my next post.

Update 4:It’s official: Windows 7 is expected to have multi-touch. The Vista Team Blog has more, including a video Looks like it’s going to be at least two touch. Here’s the video:

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

Update 3:Ina Fried live blogs: “inafried - Here’s a scoop just for our readers. What Microsoft is going to demo is a new multitouch interface for Windows 7.” Waiting in anticipation.

Engadget has some screenshots of multi-touch in Windows:

Loic Le Meur tweets: it’s “an iphone like multitouch interface.”

Other news: Windows 7 is scheduled for late 2009.

Update 2: CNet is live blogging the D6 announcement here. According to their blog the doors just opened to the event.

Engadget has live coverage as well as Gizmodo. Engadget appears to be the best blog for pictures at this time.

Silicon Alley Insider is there too.

Michael Arrington is trying to use Qik and broadcast live video here. Pretty choppy here. Not very watchable. He’s trying again with Qik:

Loic Le Meur has a pre-event video snippet, not sure if he will have more.

D6 has their own live blog here too. Uhm. Where’s the live video folks? Or where’s Robert Scoble and his Nokia N95 when you need him??

Update: CruchGear/TechCrunch says they have Windows 7 screenshots. The more I look at these, though, the more I’m convinced they’re simply UI concepts. Some look interesting, but….

John Paczkowski on the D6 blog posts:

“So those rumors about Microsoft Windows 7 making an early debut at D6?

They’re true. During tonight’s interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates, Microsoft (MSFT) will demonstrate Windows 7’s all-new user interface.

Check back here this evening for exclusive all-access coverage of the announcement.”

There you have it. We’re going to learn something about Windows 7 tonight.

Unfortunately, I don’t see where or if this event is broadcast live. Maybe someone sees this. I imagine if Michael Arrington or Engadget is covering it, they will live blog the event.

Update: Dan Farber says “Ballmer told me they would only show a little bit of the user interface.”

Silicon Alley Insider says they will have live coverage.

In a post about what to expect or not expect in Windows 7 Arstechnica summarizes a statement by Bill Gates: “Windows 7 will be about performance as Windows Vista was about security.” This got me thinking.

Improving performance at any level will be welcome, but is this really where Windows should be primarily focused? I don’t think so. Here’s why.

To me “Windows 7 should be about mobility as Windows Vista was about security.” Here’s the thing: 64-bit Vista runs exceptionally well on my 8-core Mac Pro with 10GB of memory and a fast drive. Everything about it is a terrific experience. Improving the performance isn’t going to mean much on this machine. However, where I think Vista was not well timed, was in terms of the transition to notebooks. Vista would have been perfectly fine 3 years ago when most people used desktops or even on a workstation today. If people had kept buying desktops, I bet the comments on Vista would have been far fewer. Driver problem? Swap out the hardware. Easy to do on a desktop–not so easy on a notebook. Anyway, yes, improving performance will help things on a notebook, all of which have pretty much capped out in terms of performance. But as we all know, what’s good for performance is not the same thing as what’s good for mobility, or better put, notebooks.

For instance, here are the things a mobile notebook user thinks about: How do you connect to WiMAX or EVDO? What if you move about and WiFi drops yet WiMAX is still there? Is the transition effortless? What if you put your notebook in your backpack and for some ridiculous reason your computer powers back up? Will it melt? Or is there a safe mode it would switch to? How fast can I get the system up and running? Or shutdown? How do I connect and share something with someone else? Is it effortless? How do I keep things synched with other machines? What in the OS is going to help me the most with battery life?

Taking this further, many notebooks come with a built in webcam. That’s fine. But what does Windows offer webcam owners? Nada. There’s Messenger which you can install and I guess you could use Windows Movie Maker. But is this really a pleasing experience all around? You might as well use a Flash app in the browser. (By the way, forget another Microsoft technology here, Silverlight, it’s not going to allow you to connect to your camera either.) Compare this to the Mac OS. The out-of-the-box “camera” experience is much more seamless and pleasant.

I can go on. I think there are lots of notebook scenarios that across the board should be the focus of the next version of Windows. It’s not performance. The needs of users is primarily driven by the affordable hardware that we can use–as it has always been.

Someone is saying something somewhere, because there’s plenty of blog chatter this morning about “will Microsoft saying anything about Windows 7.”

The talk started with this CNet interview with Steve Sinofsky of Microsoft where he said Microsoft was taking a measured approach with Windows 7 communication.

I think Robert Scoble’s response sums up the thoughts of many on this: If you’re not going to say anything, I’m going to look elsewhere for something interesting.

Then on the Microsoft Windows Vista Team Blog, Chris Flores explains Microsoft’s lack of Windows 7 talk further, by explaining that indeed Microsoft is talking with software and hardware partners and that they simply didn’t want to overpromise.

But that’s not the end of it. No sooner had Microsoft said it wasn’t going to say anything, than some are suggesting that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer will be presenting some features of Windows 7 at the D6 Conference, which starts today.

Mary Jo Foley runs with this rumor and predicts that Microsoft will be talking about aspects of Windows 7, including touch.

Larry Dignan chimes in too with a bucket load of skepticism about Touch and Tablet PCs.

My take? Who knows what we’ll be seeing at D6 tonight (6:15PM Pacific Time). With both Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates on stage at the same time, I’d expect to see something very, very cool. Maybe a prototype of the consumer version of a Surface computer? Hmmm. Or maybe something that’s incrementally grown over the years within Microsoft? We’ll all be tuning in. From the D6 website it doesn’t appear that there will be a live video feed (where’s Scoble and his N95 when you need him???), but there is a page on the conference website for videos, so this is probably a good place to monitor.

Well, I’m guessing the Robert would be interested in talking with the Windows team, it’s just that the Longhorn marketing pendulum is in full swing and Microsoft doesn’t want to say anything about Windows 7 yet–other than the name, rank, and serial number.

For the umpteen time I have to say I think Microsoft learned the wrong lesson from the Longhorn marketing confusion. It wasn’t the fact that they said anything that was the issue, it was that marketing got way ahead of engineering. It’s a classic mistake that everyone has to make every now and then for no other reason than to realize that engineering doesn’t happen with a snap of the finger. Oh, and the fact that the ultimate product dribbled out didn’t help things one bit either. But never mind. Maybe will take a deep breath and get it right next time. Here’s to 2013 or 2015 or whenever the next version of Windows comes out. Whoohoo.

I do have to say the obvious: At some point–who knows when–Microsoft will begin to market Windows 7 and Robert, myself, and the rest of the tech blogosphere will be hanging on every word–well, in between the times we’re hanging on Steve Jobs’ every syllable.

If you’re intersted in the rationale behind Microsoft’s silence, check out CNet’s interview with Windows chief Steven Sinofsky.

There’s more speculation today over the launch date of Windows 7. Uhm, folks, aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves? Think about it from the engineering perspective–we haven’t even seen a beta yet. This “marketing-and-business-focused” think is what got things into a pickle with Vista. Let’s not do it again. Sure it’s always a business decision as to when a product ships, but come on, there are tens of millions of people relying upon Windows, this isn’t a game where you can say “oops, my bad” if you make a huge release blunder. So stay calm and watch for the real tell-tell signs of a product launch.

First things first. A beta needs to make its way out into the wild. If there’s no widely available beta, then don’t spend too much time on thinking about release dates. The beta will reveal its secrets in time in terms of its readiness and so on.

Second, we have little idea how much Microsoft is adding/augmenting Vista, if anything. Let’s all wait and see what the official word is.

Till then, no word at all means either of two things: 1) Windows 7 isn’t ready any time soon or 2) the changes to Windows 7 aren’t going to be that great so a condensed schedule will work fine. Either way, it means we’ll have an appropriate amount of time to adjust.

Now for me, I hope that Microsoft does a good job of communicating with developers what’s going to be forthcoming in Windows 7 if there are going to be substantial changes. Surprises are fine for the breaking-news-oriented media, but for people like me that like to write leading edge code, well, not so much.

Of course, we’ll all adjust no matter how Windows 7 is launched–whether it’s tomorrow or 2 years from now. The sun will rise, the world will go on. It’s just software.

One thing I will say is that in terms of product delivery and communicating roadmaps within Microsoft, Scott Guthrie’s .NET and tools team is showing how it’s done. Quite impressive–especially from a C#/ASP.NET perspective. (C++, well not so much, but that’s another story.) I’m not so sure if it would be a wise move to manage Windows the way .NET is, however, in terms of the web side, it sure looks to me like if Scott Guthrie has anything to do with it, that Microsoft’s forthcoming web-based dev tools are going to be timely, valuable, and impressive. I’m giving them a 3 1/2 out of 4 stars right now in terms of execution.