Those with very long memories might have spotted a resemblance between the iPhone Duo and a prototype device seen way back in 2009, the Microsoft Courier.
My headline is, of course, tongue-in-cheek: Microsoft never got any further than the prototype, and abandoned the project less than a year later. All the same, it is remarkable now to look back at it and see just how similar it is in terms of the integrated user-interface …
I said in my earlier piece that Apple has shown the world how to properly make a foldable smartphone, and that the clever integration between hardware and software is absolutely key to this.
One of the examples I gave was dragging part of a photo from one side of the screen to a separate app on the other, so it’s quite amusing to see Microsoft demonstrating a very similar capability in that 2009 concept video.
Microsoft did run with some of this type of capability with some of its Surface products, but it’s ironic that it took Apple to really match the level of integration the company originally had in mind. Check out the video below.
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Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!
