30
2010
Microsoft Drops Courier Tablet Project
An article by 
their amazing vision of the innovative tablet device.
In case you are unfamiliar with what the Courier Tablet is (was), take a look at this picture:
Courier Tablet was to be a dual display tablet device. Both the screens were touchscreens. The tablet’s uniqueness was in the fact that it could be closed like a physical diary or journal. Users could simply open it up, use the supplied ‘pen’ to write on it and store notes. It was also supposed to come with a camera and Wi-Fi capabilities.
In my opinion, the tablet would have been an excellent competitor to Apple’s iPad and perhaps even netbooks.
But Microsoft has recently announced that it has dropped the entire Courier Tablet project. No solid reason was given by Microsoft as to why this decision was made. Frank Show, Microsoft’s Corporate VP of Communications, said this in a statement: “At any given time, we’re looking at new ideas, investigating, testing, incubating them. It’s in our DNA to develop new form factors and natural user interfaces to foster productivity and creativity. The Courier project is an example of this type of effort. It will be evaluated for use in future offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.”
While I and fellow technology enthusiasts are disappointed over Microsoft’s decision, perhaps the Courier Tablet idea will not be completely scrapped. Its concepts might be incorporated into future devices by Microsoft or maybe some other company will act quickly and create their own dual display tablet.
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About Umar
Umar is a professional content writer all the way from Pakistan. He loves discovering and reviewing new websites. He blogs at http://www.techcityinc.com
I think the idea was not a successful one. On the one hand, they tried to create smth similar to a book, simple paper notebook, that you can open and close, and then open again. But, on the other hand, it makes the device a little bit cumbersome, not as handy as it could be, because most of web content and other content is “1 page view”. In other words, you will look just to 1 page most of the time, and the other will be needless, the device will occupy too much space in the hands and you’ll feel uncomfortable.
An iPad takes this into account in its design.
I thought that this tablet was a great idea. When you are carrying it around, it would be the same size as the iPad. But when you sat down, or opened it, it would double in size. Just think of all the cool apps that web application developers could think of. I really wish that they would have continued putting this in production.