Copying the iPad Mini won’t help Microsoft

Microsoft confirmed last week that it’s working on a smaller version of its poorly selling Surface tablets, which are available in Windows 8 and Windows RT models. Much of Microsoft’s mobile strategy has been to copy Apple in form, if not substance. Stuffing the already hard-to-use Surface Pro into a smaller screen is a recipe for greater failure.

Apple did not invent the 7-inch tablet. The first ones did follow the original iPad, as companies like Samsung, Dell, and Asus tried to join the tablet revolution after the fact by taking the smartphone version of Android and running it enlarged on a larger device that couldn’t make calls. These flopped big-time, and the iPad dominated the tablet space for three years. Yes, in November 2011, Amazon.com released the Kindle Fire, an anemic tablet designed for consuming Amazon content; it got a lot of interest at launch, but that petered off quickly.

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But in spring 2012, Google’s Nexus 7 launched a wave of small tablets that found a real audience. Amazon.com followed with a revamped Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble with the Nook, and Apple with the iPad Mini. Like the Kindle Fire and Nook HD, the Nexus 7 was aimed at media consumption, but unlike those rivals, it ran the full Android tablet OS under the media-focused home screen. The iPad Mini also runs the full iOS and doesn’t bother trying to focus on media consumption alone. Samsung likewise has a small tablet line running standard Android: the Galaxy Tab 2 7 released a year ago and the Galaxy Note 8 released this year.

You can see why Microsoft wants one, too. But there’s a key difference between the successful 7-inch tablets and how Microsoft is likely to deliver its own. (Microsoft has revealed no details of its plans, only confirmed it has plans.)

Apple’s approach to the iPad Mini was to have it run all iPad apps unmodified: The iPad Mini’s 7.9-inch screen is 85 percent that of the full-size iPad’s 9.7-inch screen, so most apps are readable and tappable as is. The pixel ratio is also the same as for the iPad 2: 1,024 by 768. Likewise, Google’s Nexus 7 and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 8 run Android in its standard 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution. On a 7-inch device, that’s a bit pinched, but acceptable on an 8-inch display. In other words, when you buy one of these small tablets, you get a much lighter, smaller device at the price of perhaps needing reading glasses from time to time.

Amazon’s approach was to not try to be a general-purpose tablet but a media device, for watching videos, reading books, and playing games. Yes, there’s a browser and an app library, but they’re not why you get a Kindle Fire.

What about Microsoft? On tablets, Windows 8 requires a minimum screen dimension of 1,366 by 768 pixels. Although Metro apps may be comfortable to see and manipulate at that resolution on a smaller tablet, the Windows 7 Desktop will not — it’s already too hard to read and manipulate on the existing 10-inch Surface Pro. Also hard to use at that resolution is Office 2013 and its not-Desktop, not-Metro UI on both the Surface Pro and Surface RT.

On non-tablet PCs, Windows 8 can run on a 1,280-by-800-pixel screen, so you might argue that therefore Windows 8 will be just as usable on a small tablet as the same-resolution Android is. But that would neglect the fact that Windows Desktop apps are very dense, with tiny text and tiny buttons designed for a mouse’s fine sensitivity and a large-screen monitor — Microsoft has said its expectation is that people use a monitor with at least 1,920 by 1,080 pixels, and that’s what the apps are designed for.

When you shrink those apps, you get a hard-to-use experience on the 10-inch screen of a full-size tablet such as the poorly received Surface Pro. You’ll get an impossible-to-use experience on a 7-inch or 8-inch Surface Mini.

The other option Microsoft has is to deliver a small tablet that runs only Windows RT, the Metro-only version of Windows 8: a Surface RT Mini. The Metro app UI can scale to the smaller screen — though not the special version of Office 2013 that ships with Windows RT. But there are few useful apps for Windows RT, and WinRT doesn’t work with Microsoft’s standard management tools nor does it support the common POP email protocol in its Mail app. In other words, Windows RT is a poor tablet OS at any screen size, and people simply aren’t buying it.

Perhaps Microsoft could take a page from Amazon and ship a small tablet that runs Windows RT and rejiggers the Start screen to focus on its media services — essentially a Microsoft Surface Kindle. But if you want media content, Microsoft’s video and music library isn’t as good as what Amazon and Apple offer, nor does it approach Google’s library. Those other media tablets would make more sense, especially the iPad Mini and small Android tablets that give you more than media.

If Microsoft were to scale Windows Phone — its other other OS that sports the Metro interface — to a small tablet, users would experience apps that are blown up in size, creating an awkward fit. iPad owners have the option to run iPhone apps at double size, but anyone who has will tell you that you do so only in a pinch. No wonder most iOS developers create apps that autoscale to the device in use. But Windows Phone developers don’t have this ability, so any Windows Phone-based tablet would be stuck with poorly scaled apps.

There’s nothing wrong with the notion of a small Windows tablet. The problem is that the Windows Desktop was not reworked in Windows 8 to scale down; in fact, it essentially requires the use of large screens. And Metro by itself (that is, Windows RT) is too weak an OS to bother with.

Microsoft has boxed itself into a couple corners here, and it will take a radical move to break out. A smaller screen isn’t that move.

This article, “Copying the iPad Mini won’t help Microsoft,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Mobile Edge blog and follow the latest developments in mobile technology at InfoWorld.com. Follow Galen’s mobile musings on Twitter at MobileGalen. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.