Dear HMRC, Please send me an iPad and not a Windows phone. Ta.

If it turns out that I'm one of the lucky 100,000 lottery winners Tax payers, to get a rebate in Gloucestershire, and if it's £400, Can you guess what I'll be doing with it in Cabot Circus ?  

Microsoft don't do iPads. They've fumbled about with Tablet PC's and touch desktops, but they're not going in quite the right direction yet. I'm sure you recall that Microsoft are the largest IT corporation on the planet with the hugest amount of financial resource available to them to dabble in whatever technology takes their fancy.  Well, them and Google at any rate.

After Apple's phenomenal success with the iPod they went after it with the Zune and what a disaster thatwas. To be fair it does have some following in the US, but considering it's not actually available anywhere else, it looks like they've missed the boat. They haven't given up all hope yet, but it must be soon.

Anyway, not be downtrodden, they've also gone after Apple's next little baby, the re-imagined smart phone. The iPhone has done massive amounts of business globally and can only be described as a roaring success. Google are hot on their heels though with the Android powered phones. Google may not be up to the Hardware challenges, but they certainly can do software and after the recent Antenna-gate charges it's possible that Apple can't do hardware either (although, like most people I think this is more of a blip on their part than anything else).

Apple do learn from their mistakes. I'm not so sure that Microsoft do, otherwise why would they be putting out stuff like this ?:

Do they really think they're going to get all that ground back again ? iOS is reportedly the 3rd most used Operating System online even beating Linux. Now that really is a big shout. Linux is almost as old as the Internet itself, but has continually grown and shaped and moulded to fit it's users needs. iOS is barely out of nappies by comparison, and yet is overtaking it's elder cousin already.

Thanks to NetMarketShare for this data.

You can judge for yourself by taking a ride through the demo's that are available here on the WindowsPhone7.com website. I like the interface. The way it moves and flips around, are all very nice touches. But, it's all about Facebook and Windows Live and Outlook. By default there's no Twitter client, so you're back to the browser for the good stuff. Mind you, even that's not necessarily a bad thing...

Yesterday I mentioned check.in, the HTML 5 based app for checking in to multiple locations. Well, today I'm going to point you at Seesmic.com which does a similar sort of trick for the SocNet (Social Networks; It'll never catch on - Ed). If you're familiar with Teetdeck, then you'll know what to expect.  Essentially, you give it the login details of each of your accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Buzz etc) and it then presents you with a column view in a similar fashion to Tweetdeck.  There's even an app for it naturally: http://seesmic.com/seesmic_mobile/ although I hav to say, the mobile version isn't quite as slick as the full web browser version IMOH.

Still, What do I care...  I won't be needing any of that when my cheque drops through the letterbox.  You can see me sat patiently waiting by the door even now.   What's that?  No, no. I'm sure you're mistaken, I can't have underpaid surely? Nobody said it works both ways!!  Arrrrrrhhgghgh.

Until next time.

This post originally appeared here: Posterous

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