Intel Relying On Ice Cream Sandwich For Tablet Push

An anonymous reader writes "Intel thinks tablets live and die by their software, not their hardware. So as they get ready for a big push into the mobile device market, they're relying on Ice Cream Sandwich to provide competition with Apple's products. From the article: 'The company has largely watched from the sidelines as mobile device makers have used processors based on ARM's microarchitecture to power their products in recent years. This despite the fact that Intel actually predicted the rise of what it called "mobile Internet devices," or MIDs, several years ago, and built a chip, Atom, for such gadgets. For all that [Intel CEO Paul Otellini] touts the software over the hardware when it comes to tablets, Intel knows it's got a lot of ground to make up to wrest design wins away from ARM. The Medfield System-on-a-Chip (SoC) is a promising but still uncertain step in that direction.' Otellini thinks the tablet market will get much more competitive over the next year as ICS devices mature and Windows 8 devices arrive."

Re:Yes it's totally software, but

[ogdenk]

Microsoft didn't wait and see.... Windows CE was around on tablets (including ARM and MIPS-based ones) for a long time before Android ever existed. They were typically called Handheld PC or Palm-size PC devices. Windows CE 2.1 was actually pretty tolerable on the HP 320LX and Sharp Mobilon HC4100 I had. Never liked releases much past that.

Apple also had "tablets" long before Android, iOS, etc. The Newton MessagePad of which the 2100 was actually really nice and the eMate 300 bit slow but cool nonetheless. NewtonOS 2.1 certainly didn't suck.

Linux and NetBSD have also been capable of running on such devices for a long time as well. I owned a few WinCE devices over the years and a couple of Newtons.

There have also been x86 tablets since the early 90's. Dauphin DTR1 and there was a tablet Thinkpad as well.

Did they have goofy oversized widgets for sloppy finger-based simple computer usage by retards? No. They were pen based. You know..... for functional useful software in a professional environment instead of a web browser on steroids for morons that can't type or write legibly anyway.

Re:Yes it's totally software, but

[GuldKalle]

And this is exactly the attitude that landed MS on last place on the mobile market. Calling its potential users morons and retards for wanting a sloppy dumbed-down UI, when in reality they were just average users who wanted a simple interface.
It doesn't matter when WinCE was around when it didn't deliver what people wanted.

Re:Yes it's totally software, but

[engun]

Thanks for that clear answer. Sounds pretty bad to me although I think non-technical users might not care, but what interested me most was the bit about the 30% cut with the Metro App Store. All of this serves to highlight why Microsoft shouldn't dominate the tablet space. But my fears that they will, are I I believe, legitimate. Android very badly needs to think of itself as a proper OS, not just a mobile OS running toy applications. It needs to rethink of itself as being able to run serious software - everything from a full fledged word processor, to Photoshop to Crysis.

Re:Yes it's totally software, but

[SuricouRaven]

They were also all based on resistive screens, as capacitive screens weren't around then (I think - at least I never saw one). Resistive screens are rather uncomfortable to use due to the need to apply considerable pressure, but they do have the advantage of allowing for greater precision with a pen than a cap screen and a squishy finger.

Re:Yes it's totally software, but

[ogdenk]

No I'm just tired of having to pay double for a machine useful as a tool instead of a locked-down funnel for paid entertainment content.

Re:Yes it's totally software, but

[unixisc]

Not only PC vendors, but even most Android manufacturers ain't gonna prefer Intel to ARM, unless Intel can demonstrate lower power consumption AND greater performance @ the same time. And they'll have no reason to - all the apps already there for Android are Android on ARM. Plus you have a rich ecosystem of ARM manufacturers - Qualcomm, Freescale, TI, et al.

If you're not going to consider a Wintel tablet, there is really no reason to look @ Intel. The only thing Intel brings to the table is w/ Windows 8, where there is at least the theoretical possibility of running legacy software on it.

Re:Medfield

[unixisc]

Problem for both Intel & Microsoft is that software for PCs are still pretty pricey, while software for tablets is really cheap, thanks to the repository stores. People who would mull over whether to spend $30 on a game would have no hesitation spending $1.99 or even $4.99 on it. Since the tablets have such inexpensive software, people can get a whole bunch of them, and Wintel can't have as many to offer there. So their trump card would be to offer Windows 8 tablets based on Medfield, and hope that it sticks. That's the only thing I can imagine bailing out Windows 8 from a fiasco in the tablet marketplace.

Tablets ain't gonna replace office laptops or servers, so there, both Intel & Microsoft are safe. But as far as home usage goes, tablets - particularly once they go head to head w/ PCs in price - will be seen as more and more attractive. As it is, the elimination of VGA and DVI from monitors is going to make a lot of monitors outdated, even though they are functioning just fine, while there will be so many affordable software titles available that at least on the home front, it has a good chance of heavily eroding the home PC business.

Re:Yes it's totally software, but

[Anne Thwacks]

WinCE delivered professional grade suckiness - frequent crashes with data loss, and no upgrades to fix bugs at all. It looked like a scam to me. Professional non-tech people who used it against the advice of IT people (because it was "windows") were horrified at how crap it was, and could not wait to ditch it.

Re:Yes it's totally software, but

[drinkypoo]

Let's talk about the other two typical problems with WinCE devices.

Until 2003, portable Windows CE devices nearly always had volatile storage. It was nearly part of the spec.
Windows CE's interface made no concession to small devices whatsoever, meaning they had to be operated with a stylus. Who cares about ugly, let's talk about usability.

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