One of the nice benefits of working on TouchXPRT has been the opportunity to play with the latest touch devices. The latest two are Windows 8/RT tablets, the ASUS Vivo Tab RT and the Microsoft Surface. I’ve been using the Vivo Tab without a keyboard and relying solely on touch while on the Surface, I’ve been using the cool keyboard/screen cover as well as touch. Overall, I’ve found the devices and Windows 8 very interesting, but still rough around the edges. One example of interesting on the interface formerly known as Metro (IFKaM) is the elongated landscape screens. They take a bit of getting used to, but may prove to be a good choice. On the rough-around-the-edges front, the first thing I currently do on any new device is to install Dropbox so I can get to some files to play around with. Dropbox is not yet available, though it certainly will be—hopefully soon!
IFKaM has a lot to it. On the one hand, it does not seem to me as intuitive as IOS. On the other hand, I have found that if I look hard enough, I can find a way to do something I’m used to doing in Windows. For example, even though I couldn’t use Dropbox, it dawned on me that I could just mount my file server and get to some files that way. As I spend more time with these devices, I’ll have to see if the tradeoff of a longer learning curve pays off in terms of more power and flexibility.
While I ponder that, I want to put in a mention about TouchXPRT 2013 CP1. The source is now available to members. Let us know if you see areas to improve TouchXPRT or the code itself as we work the final version over the next few months. Thanks!
Bill
