Microsoft Courier tablet inspiring interface examined screen by screen

You never thought Microsoft would give Apple a free run here now, did you? Apparently the guys over at Redmond are working on a UMPC, which should rival the Mac tablet, whenever those two actually manage to hit the shelves. Microsoft Courier may not have gone much further away than the drawing board but the ideas those guys are having are amazing.

The Courier file browser is called library

If Windows Mobile has destroyed your fate in Microsoft and their ability to create a user-friendly UI, than you look no further than Courier to rebuild it. So unbelievably fluid and nicely intuitive this is easily among the best interfaces we have ever seen.

Of course, when something seems too good to be true it usually is and we don’t really believe any reasonable hardware will be able to provide as smooth real life performance as the first video suggested. But don’t let our negativism get in the way – enjoy it while it lasts with more screenshots after the break .

The infinite journal is where all the writing, drawing and sharing takes place. Timestamps are automatically assigned and geotagging is also available, but your options are by no means limited to them only.

Infinite Journal

You’d be quite wrong to assume the Pen is nothing more than a super-sized stylus.  In fact this little fella packs two buttons, an eraser and twists to alternate different drawing modes. There’s also an undo button on top to make this as good a piece of technology as the tablet itself.

The Pen breaths life into the whole project

In addition to heavy integration with the Journal (which allows you to quickly drag content there), the Courier web browser also packs visual history with nice Cover Flow-like graphics.

The web browser

And here’s the original video that started all the excitement about that futuristic Microsoft Booklet:

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