Why Microsoft have lost the Tablet race

My take as a user

When Apple launch the very first ipad back in 2010, I thought this was going to be a game changer. The dream of working from a tablet has finally come true. It was no surprise then that I bought one immediately and was not disappointed.

So fast forward to 2014, we now have 5 generations of the ipad. The device have evolved into a thing of beauty with a retina screen and a super slim design, it would beat most laptop hands down in terms of speed and portability. The fact that Google also launch it’s own tablet for Android have opened the playing field ever wider with the likes of Sony, Samsung and LG joining in the chase.

So what happened to Microsoft? Unfortunately, they have gone into the game way too late. I suppose with Windows 8, Microsoft was hoping to introduce the touch base form factor into their latest OS and translate this into tablets and desktop. Somehow it is not working out and here are my take as a windows 8.1 tablet user.

I got myself a 8" tablet running windows 8.1 (not that RT crap), hoping to use it for both leisure and work. What I found was it does both rather poorly thus giving the user a bad experience. Let’s start with the Modern Interface or start screen. This I have no issues with, in fact I thought it is quite well done, the App tiles which replaces icons for both IOS/Android is a good alternative and can also provide live updates which is a great.

The apps however, are poorly done, even the major apps from Facebook, Twitter, google etc are poor in execution. Firstly it is not optimised for 8" screens, the buttons within the apps are too small, it takes multiple presses to register an entry making the user rather frustrated. Also, the whole app layout are not poorly designed and inefficiently spaced unlike their counterparts for Android/IOS.

The main gripe for me is the lack of quality Apps, this I truly belief is what will kill Windows for Tablet. When I look my most commonly used apps (other than the usual ones mentioned above) on Android/IOS, they are not on Windows and I could not find a good alternative either. When I say Apps, I mean “made for windows Tablet” and not the browser version as these are not optimised for touch. One example are magazine apps, the ones I subscribe to do not have a native window tablet version, which makes it difficult to navigate via the browser on a tiny screen.

I can see why developers are not willing to invest in the windows platform as there are already 2 fantastic platform that caters for 99% of all tablets. There is no real gain or incentive to do so therefore Microsoft will need something special to entice developers to work on Windows. Perhaps they need to consider giving all revenue back to developers maybe in the first few years, take a hit on some losses and hopefully gain more support on building up the app store.

I won’t bother explaining the desktop for an 8" tablet as it is not meant to used that way. The good thing about having full windows is that I can always connect a keyboard/mouse/screen to give it a desktop experience (one of my main reason for getting a windows tablet to begin with). Other than that there is no real reason for getting a windows tablet in it’s current state and form.

So now I need to start saving for the new ipad mini, I’m hoping it will be more than adding the finger print reader.