Updated: iPhone 5 rumours: what you need to know

iPhone 5 rumours: iPhone 4S and new rumours

As it happened, there was no iPhone 5 in 2011 after all, but the company did announce the iPhone 4S.

However, the iPhone 5 is still on the cards - we're expecting it to debut in the middle of this year. So we've gathered together all the latest iPhone 5 rumours and rounded them up below.

First though, why not read our complete iPhone 4S review?

It's the phone that appeared when the whole world was looking forward to the iPhone 5 anyway, so make up your own mind whether to make the jump to Apple's latest now or save those pennies for the 2012 iPhone 5 release.

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iPhone 5 release date

UPDATE: For the latest on the new iPhone 5's release date, check out our regularly updated article iPhone 5 release date.

Given the pattern of Apple's iPhone launches, we're expecting the next-gen iPhone 5 to debut in mid to late 2012. We reckon it's most likely to be shown off at Apple's Worldwide Developer Event (WWDC), which usually takes place in early June.

Rumours that we reported on 18 October claim an iPhone 5 release date of Summer 2012. Analyst Ashok Kumar claimed that the absent iPhone 5 was meant to be the big announcement at the recent event where the iPhone 4S was launched.

iPhone 5 form factor

Unlike the iPhone 4S, it'll be a completely new design from what has gone before, so that means an entirely new casing as we saw with the iPhone 3G and, later, the iPhone 4.

Interestingly, someone who claimed to have seen a larger-screened iPhone 5 prototype said in November 2011 that Steve Jobs canned the new handset and opted for the iPhone 4S because of the larger screen size of the new device. According to Business Insider, it was feared that a new size would create a two-tier iPhone ecosystem.

Beatweek also claimed in November 2011 that the 5-inch was scrapped "because Apple wouldn't be able to do it properly" this year. However, the Daily Mail (make of that what you will) then suggested that a four-inch version was likely and that Sony has already shipped top secret demo screens to Apple.

iPhone 5 specs

Based on the roadmap of mobile chip design specialist ARM (of which Apple is a licensee), we'll see a quad-core processor debut in the iPhone 5 - probably called the Apple A6. We know that we'll see other quad core handsets debut in 2012, so it's not too much of a stretch to say that the iPhone 5 will be the same.

iPhone 5 will have 4G/LTE support

With many 4G handsets already announced in the US, it can't be long before the iPhone supports 4G technologies - even if we won't even have a UK spectrum auction until 2012.

• 4G mobile broadband and LTE explained

Cnet.com quotes Will Strauss from analyst firm Forward Concepts, who says that the next iPhone will feature LTE technologies."They're saving iPhone 5 for the LTE version and that won't be out until next spring," said Strauss.

Steve Jobs' iPhone 5 legacy

Many sites have reported that Steve Jobs was working hard on the iPhone 5 project, which will apparently be a "radical redesign". We shall see...

iPhone 5 rumours: old rumours

Below are the rumours that we reported on leading up to the iPhone 4S press conference.

iPhone 5 (or the iPhone 4S, as some are calling it) rumours have been flying thick and fast for months.

And now Apple has finally confirmed a press conference for Tuesday 4 October, where the company will almost certainly unveil the iPhone 5.

The invitation hints that it will be one phone that is announced, which is likely to be the iPhone 5 rather than the much-discussed iPhone 4S.

Check out what TechRadar is hoping makes it into the next iPhone, in our video wish list:

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And if you're in a bit of a hurry, we've also got a handy iPhone 5 video detailing the latest rumours on release date, spec and more - so check if out for a quick fix of next-gen Apple fun:

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Although we are still waiting for news on an iPhone 5 UK release date, we reckon an iPhone 5 release of late October is likely. It's possible that the iPhone 5 release date is November, but it's more likely set for October.

In mid September the CEO of France Telecom (the parent company of Orange) got specific when commenting on the iPhone 5 release date, saying "If we believe what we have been told, the iPhone 5 will be released on 15 October."

Price cuts of the iPhone 4 in August hinted at an autumn release for the iPhone 5 or iPhone 4S and Apple reportedly began pushing up the amount of orders for the handset.

In early September, Japanese site Macotakara reported that the iPhone 5 had entered production, saying that Foxconn and Pegatron had begun assembly on the new handset. A few days later, Digitimes wrote that Foxconn was producing 150,000 units of the new iPhone per day.

Rumours of a UK Apple Store holiday ban also emerged on 26 September. It was also reported that Telefonica, which owns the O2 network, is set to begin scaling back iPhone stock in advance of "the launch of a new smartphone".

However, it may not all be plain sailing for Apple, with rumours that Samsung will seek a sales ban courtesy of an injunction - another piece of the increasingly mixed up lawsuit puzzle between the pair.

The iPhone 5 will debut alongside iOS 5 and iCloud

Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer was asked during an earnings call why he was suggesting a 12 per cent drop in revenues for the Q3 financial period - a traditionally robust time thanks to the scores of people buying the latest iPhone.

He said that there is "a lot going on in the fall with iOS 5 and iCloud" but added there will be a "future product transition that we will not talk about today".

That's almost certainly the new iPhone 5. And iOS 5 will arrive alongside it as well iCloud.

Apple says it is "cutting the cable" with iOS 5 - just as well, as it claimed the iPad 2 was the first post-PC device earlier in the year. OS updates can be delivered over the air - you'll just received what's changed rather than the usual 600MB download - and devices can be activated without plugging them into iTunes.

You can also now create and delete iOS calendars and mailboxes too, so you really can devolve your device from your PC or Mac.

"You can activate on the device and you're ready to go," explained Apple's Scott Forstall.

"Software updates are now over the air. So you no longer need to plug in to update your software. And they're now Delta updates. Instead of downloading the whole OS, you only download what's changed," he continued.

The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that: "Apple is also developing a new iPhone model, said people briefed on the phone. One person familiar said the fifth-generation iPhone would be a different form factor than those that are currently available… it was unclear how soon that version would be available to Verizon or other carriers."

This has since been backed up by reports from Engadget, which state the design will be a 'total rethink'.

Chinese case manufacturers have been sent design briefings of the new iPhone 5 chassis and apparently feature a return to the old days of iPhone design. But could iPhone 5 really have a curved back? We can't begin to tell you how sceptical we are over such a 'leak', given Apple's desperation to keep its forthcoming designs under wraps.

However, earlier reports from China backed up the larger-screened, metal chassis-sporting iPhone 5 rumours, so the redesign still seems firmly on the cards.

Interestingly, an Apple patent that we reported on on 7 April 2011 suggests that we could see the bezel put to good use on the new iPhone. The patent describes how visual indicators and touch-sensitive buttons could be incorporated to the space around the iPhone screen.

Will iPhone 5 actually be an iPhone 4S?

Of course, since the iPhone 3G was followed by the 3GS it's possible the new iPhone won't be a total refresh and we'll see an iPhone 4S (or iPhone 4GS) before an iPhone 5.

An iPhone 4S looked more likely on 16 May 2011 after analyst Peter Misek wrote: "According to our industry checks, the device should be called iPhone 4S and include minor cosmetic changes, better cameras, A5 dual-core processor, and HSPA+ support."

Rumours that we covered on 3 May 2011, suggest that there may even be two versions of the new iPhone: a 'standard' iPhone 5 and an iPhone 5 'pro'. Apparently, Apple is buying in components of differing quality, and those parts wouldn't be required for a single phone.

A white iPhone 5

The Economic Daily News is reporting that white iPhone 5 glass is being shipped, with a supplier called Wintek being the sole touch panel vendor for the white iPhone.

On 12 September 2011, a page which briefly popped up on Vodafone's site referenced the iPhone 5 in white as well as black.

iPhone 5 will support 1080p HD

It's fairly likely - given that the iPad 2 supports Full HD - that the new iPhone will do the same.

According to the Chinese Economic Daily News (via AppleInsider), with the exception of Qualcomm chipsets - which would replace the current Infineon chipsets in the iPhone 4 - Apple's sticking with the same suppliers for the 2011 iPhone 5G components.

We'd expect the basics of the iPhone 5 specs to get a bump - more memory, faster processor, and more storage. The A5 dual-core ARM processor from the iPad 2 is extremely likely to be included.

The specs? A new antenna, 1.2GHz processor (possibly dual-core) and a larger screen: 3.7" instead of 3.5". The iPhone 5 may also be made from a new kind of alloy, or maybe meat.

On 12 September 2011, a page briefly appeared on the Vodafone site referencing the iPhone 5 in 16GB and 32GB storage, and in white as well as black. Other sources expect double the RAM of the iPhone 4, so that would be 1GB instead of 512MB.

On 20 September a bunch of internal iPhone 5 components were supposedly shown off.

iPhone 5 screen

Various sources claim the iPhone 5 will feature a larger, 4-inch screen. Digitimes quotes the source as saying that Apple is expanding the screen size "to support the tablet PC market as the vendor only has a 9.7-inch iPad in the market."

On 23 May, we reported on rumours that the iPhone 5 could feature a curved glass screen. These rumours also came from Digitimes, which said that Apple has purchased between 200 and 300 special glass cutting machines because they're too costly for the manufacturers to invest in.

The iPhone 5 or iPhone 4S will also get a massive graphical boost as it moves to a dual-core GPU - this will herald true 1080p output from the new device.

iPhone 5 digital wallet - NFC

There's been some speculation that Apple might include Near Field Communication (NFC) technology in the iPhone 5G, turning it into a kind of credit/debit card.

However, with the tech being inside the Google Nexus S, the time for NFC may finally be here.

On 24 June 2011 it was reported that the Google Wallet mobile payment platform could feature on the new iPhone. Eric Schmidt admitted that Google is looking to port the software to other manufacturers.

However, on 31 January 2012 9to5Mac claimed to have spoken with a well-connected developer who disclosed information received from Apple iOS engineers saying they are "heavily into NFC".

The developer in question has not been named, but is working on a dedicated iOS app which includes NFC reading for mobile transactions. When questioned how confident he was on the information he had received his reply was "Enough to bet the app development on".

iPhone 5 camera

Sony makes the camera for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. Speaking at a live Wall Street Journal event, Sony's Sir Howard Stringer was talking about the company's camera image sensor facility in Sendai, a town that was recently ravaged by the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

According to 9to5Mac, he said something along the lines of, "Our best sensor technology is built in one of the [tsunami] affected factories. Those go to Apple for their iPhones… or iPads. Isn't that something? They buy our best sensors from us."

Sources have also suggested the new iPhone could have an 8MP camera. Indeed, Sony announced in January 2012 that it had developed new back-illuminated stacked CMOS image sensors which are smaller in size.

iPhone 5 price

If the iPhone 5 is an evolutionary step like the move from the iPhone 3G to the iPhone 3GS then we'd expect the price to stay more or less the same, although in the UK higher VAT rates may well mean a higher price tag.

iPhone 5 review

TechRadar is renowned for it's detailed phone reviews where we look at every aspect of a handset, and we'll be bringing you a full, in-depth iPhone 5 review when we get our hands on one.

Updated: Hands on: Windows 8 review

Windows 8: Getting started, ARM and x86

NOTE: We're updating this article constantly as we play with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Check back for more!

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview (here's the Windows 8 download) updates the look of the Developer Preview and adds a lot of new features and revamps a few old ones.

The round Start button is gone, the Metro-style Start screen remains and yes, you can only pick from nine colours and five patterns for the Start screen background.

But there's far more to the Consumer Preview user interface than the Start screen, and far more to Windows 8 than the user interface.

There are new ways of switching between apps, as well as more updates to the desktop tools. There are changes under the hood to file copying, power management, security, networking, hardware support and more.

And then there are the first real Metro apps, so you can find out what it's like to use Metro for more than just trying out Metro, and the Windows Store for the first third-party apps from real developers.

This is the version of Windows 8 that's going to give you a real feel for what the final operating system will be like and the first version you could realistically use for day-to-day work. But will you want to?

Running the Windows 8 Consumer Preview

First of all, it's worth noting that the Consumer Preview is only for x86/64 PCs; there isn't an ARM version that you can download and try out, since there aren't any ARM devices that will run it.

That's because of the extremely custom way that ARM devices are built, where not even the way to control a physical button is standard. Microsoft isn't supporting tablets built to run Android or WebOS.

Much of what we're seeing in Consumer Preview will be the same on Windows on ARM (WOA) systems. Most stuff like the Metro user interface to the touch gestures, to the Windows desktop and built-in Windows tools like Explorer and Task Manager will be practically the same, but until we see it in action we don't know what WOA performance and battery life will be like.

Consumer Preview doesn't include the desktop Office apps that will be bundles with WOA either - and of course it runs all the x86 desktop apps that won't work on WOA.

• Windows 8 on ARM: Steven Sinofsky speaks

When you download the Consumer Preview, installing is easier than usual with a beta operating system. You can start the installation directly from the Web page, instead of having to download an ISO file and burn that to an optical disc.

You can still burn an ISO if you want, and the installer can also create a bootable USB stick so you can download Consumer Preview once and install it on multiple machines.

The tools for creating a Windows To Go USB stick aren't available yet, so you can't run Windows 8 directly from USB, but you'll get a far better feel for how Windows 8 performs if you can try it out directly on a PC.

Windows 8: Metro interface

The Metro interface doesn't look that different, but having your email, photos, appointments and friends pinned to it livens it up considerably – as does the new Metro tile for the desktop, which sports a cute Metro-ified version of the Windows 7 beta fish.

You can also pin libraries here as well as Explorer, but you have to do that from Explorer set to view the desktop rather than from within a library itself.

The improved touch gestures also make it far easier to work with. Swipe from the right edge of the screen and you get the redesigned charm bar; Search, Share, Start, Devices and Settings.

You can do the same thing by leaving your mouse pointer in the top or bottom right corner; first the charms appear as white outlines and if you don't move your mouse they disappear as Windows assumes you didn't want to trigger them (you might be moving the mouse to scroll or closing a window at the side of the screen instead and you don't have to wait for the charms to vanish to do that. Move the mouse towards the charms and the black bar and charm titles draw in on screen.

Start, which is highlighted in the accent colour of the colour theme you choose, swaps between the Start screen and whatever you were doing last. Search is now context sensitive; if you're in IE when you choose it, you get results from Bing first.

Swipe up from the bottom on the Start screen to get a quick link to the All Apps view, which is now neatly organised into program groups, arranged alphabetically.

As you swipe across the Start menu, it stops with the group of tiles you've swiped to lined up under the word Start; this bouncing into place is the promised 'speed bump' to help you navigate around. Scrolling with a mouse works far better; you push the mouse past the edge of the screen and the tiles scroll as if you were swiping with your finger.

This works so well you'll find yourself missing it in apps that don't support it, like Photos, where you have to go back to grabbing the scrollbar – or use a touch pad or Microsoft Touch Mouse, which lets you swipe sideways.

The Semantic zoom feature now works too; pinch to shrink the tiles on the Start screen to tiny thumbnails so you can see everything at once or move an entire group. Select a group and drag it down to get the option of naming it.

This is also the view you get when you drag a tile you're moving to the bottom of the screen, which makes it easier to move an item a long way across the screen without disturbing the arrangement of all your tiles and groups.

As you drag a tile between two groups, when you position it between them a vertical grey bar appears to show that you're creating a new group to put it in.

Switching between apps is now far easier. You can still drag in the next app in the stack from the left edge of the screen to be full screen or to snap into a side window, but when the icon of that next app appears, you can also drag it back to the edge to get a vertical pane of thumbnails.

This only shows six thumbnails of recent apps (including the desktop if that's open) plus the thumbnail for the Start menu. Tap a thumbnail to open the app or drag it to choose where on screen it appears.

You can get the switching pane using a mouse by leaving the mouse pointer in the top or bottom left corner of the screen until a thumbnail appears (the next app at the top, the Start menu preview at the bottom); drag down with the mouse and the thumbnails appear. If you want to see all current desktop apps and recent Metro apps, use Alt tab instead (and Win Tab makes the switching pane appear).

You can close Metro apps without restoring to the task manager. Drag down from the top of the screen until the app you're looking at shrinks down to a thumbnail and keep dragging that off screen to close it (it's a longer swipe that when you use a quick finger swipe down from the top or up from the bottom of the screen to get the menu bar inside an app).

That works with a mouse as well. Or you can use Alt-F4, just like with a desktop app.

You can type quite well on screen. The large touch keyboard is a little better laid out now, and has predictive text and spelling corrections. The thumb keyboard layout still has the alphabet split between the two sides of the screen where it's all in reach of your thumbs, but there's now a numeric keyboard in the middle to make it faster to type passwords (or indeed, numbers) and you can resize the keyboard.

The new notifications in Metro work well; they pop up in the top right corner of the screen where they're not likely to be in the way and you can tap for options. So the first time you put a USB stick in, you can choose whether to open Explorer or do something else – and that will happen automatically next time you insert it.

Windows 8: Metro apps

Instead of the games and utilities bundled with the Developer Preview, the apps included with Consumer Preview are the basic apps you need – mail, calendar, contacts, messaging, photos and social networking, plus an app for exploring your files on SkyDrive (the desktop SkyDrive app is 'coming soon').

There's also a Bing Maps app and other tools like Weather and Finance, Music and Video catalogues powered by Zune (which also give you a music and video player that will be very familiar to Zune HD and Windows Media Center users) and an Xbox-branded gaming section.

These apps are all labelled as previews and while many of them were produced by the Windows Live team, they're not the final Windows Live apps that will be coming for Windows 8. Microsoft told us to think of them as representative of the kind of experience you'll have in the final apps but not of the features that will be in them.

The People app is similar to the Windows Phone tool, in that it combines the address books for all the services you link Windows to, through your Live account or by adding specific accounts for email and calendar.

You can see contact details and recent updates for individual friends or browse through updates from all your linked social networks in a view that wastes a lot of space unless there's a photo in the update; you can tap through to reply or see more details but this isn't powerful enough to be really useful.

The Mail app is better, although you can only use it with Hotmail, Gmail and Exchange accounts and while it's easy to jump between accounts and folders, there's no conversation view and you can't flag email or even mark it as spam.

The Calendar app is similar; it has a clean and appealing interface, with a monthly, weekly or two-day view and it shows all your calendars together. You get the choice of which calendar you create a new appointment in. But if you have multiple calendars in your Exchange account you can't choose which are visible

The Messaging makes good use of the size of a PC screen to show you multiple conversations on Facebook and Windows Live, with details about your contacts so you can see what else they're talking about on other services. You can also send group messages, but it's just text chat; no voice or video yet.

The Photos app lets you explore your images whether they're on your PC or in online services like SkyDrive, Facebook and Flickr. You can swipe through images, zoom out to see thumbnails, play a slide show or pick an image for the Lock screen but there aren't any editing tools. It's very simple, but the look is elegant (apart from the lurid yellow banner marking it as a preview app).

Until the desktop SkyDrive app arrives, you can't automatically sync files from Windows 8, although you can pick files to upload to SkyDrive in the Metro app, which has a clean and simple interface with tiles for folders and thumbnails for images. It's a great way to work with your online files, although documents on your SkyDrive open in the Office Web apps in Metro IE rather than directly in the SkyDrive app.

Apps that let you select files, for example to upload to SkyDrive, use the Metro file picker, which will either make your life very simple or very complicated. When you look at the Pictures library, you see the contents of every folder aggregated together - much like Windows Live Photo Gallery - as well as a list of folders (or you can navigate to individual folders by starting at Computer and working down).

That's convenient if you can't remember which folder you put some recent photos in but could get overwhelming once you have a lot of images. The Music library only shows the list of folders (usually corresponding to albums) but not the individual tracks inside them.

The same is true in Explorer in Windows 8 desktop; the Pictures Library shows you thumbnails of all the pictures in all the library locations, but it's a little more manageable when you have a mouse and scrollbars.

The Bing Maps app is very like the version for the PlayBook; you can jump to your current location, see traffic or an aerial view, search for businesses and places and get driving directions. It's a little basic, with far fewer features than the Bing Maps Web site, but it's very easy to use with touch.

We've seen rumours of the Microsoft Reader PDF viewer before; it's included in Consumer Preview and it's an excellent and simple PDF tools. Large files open quickly and scrolling through documents is equally fast.

There are no confusing toolbars floating over the page; you can pinch to zoom in and out or double tap to zoom into a page, and the commands on the app bar let you search, switch views, rotate a page or see what you have permission to do with a password-protected PDF. This is far more pleasant to use than Acrobat Reader (and noticeably faster).

The Xbox LIVE Games app will look familiar to both Xbox and Windows Phone users; it has your avatar and those of your Xbox LIVE friends, your achievements on phone and Xbox games, the two games included in the Consumer Preview and adverts for the Windows and Xbox game marketplaces.

Those two games are disappointing though; Pinball FX2 looks good but the multiple splash screens and pages of instructions mean it takes far too long to load for a casual game) and the basic version of Solitaire doesn't even let you choose a different deck.

The Xbox Controller is far more interesting. Unlike the Windows Phone app, it doesn't turn your PC into a replica of the Xbox controller, which would be rather fiddly on a large screen. Instead you see what you can do on the Xbox screen and you can touch areas directly, so instead of looking on the Xbox screen to see that the B button means back, you get a back button to press.

This is going to work best with tablets, but on any PC the option to pick a movie or TV show from the Video app and play it directly on your Xbox is a great way of doing things; you get to search the catalogue using a keyboard so it's easy to find the show you want and then sit back and watch it on the big screen where it looks good.

Scrolling and zooming is smoother in the updated IE10 Platform Preview included with Consumer Preview; you can double-tap to zoom on the part of a page you're interested in – this works well, very like the same feature in the Windows Phone browser.

You can swipe near the left and right edge of the screen to move forward and back through the Web pages you've visited; if you use a mouse, when you hover near the edge of the screen you get an arrow you can click to do the same thing.

When you pin sites to the Start screen, they have a much nicer icon than in the Developer Preview, and if a site has a jump list you can see that in Metro IE on the bar of commands that appears when you swipe up (or right click). You can also choose whether the sites you pin to the Start menu or links you click in email and tweets open in Metro IE10 or desktop IE10.

The multiple tabs aren't quite a substitute for being able to see more than one Web site on screen at once and if you open several sites from other apps in quick succession, you may find the page you want is hidden away in a tab rather than being what you see in the browser.

Windows 8: Accounts and apps

If you use a Windows Live account (which can be a Hotmail address or any other email address you've set up as a Windows Live account) to log in, you automatically get your contacts, calendar and messages.

If you've already linked your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Flickr accounts to Windows Live, Windows 8 uses that to put your Facebook photos in the Photos app, your Facebook friends in the People app and Facebook chat in Messaging.

Much like it did in the Developer Preview, Windows 8 uses this account to take your settings, IE favourites and saved passwords to any other Windows 8 PCs you sign into with the same account, but this is now called a Microsoft account and it will let you download apps from the Windows Store.

If you use an account from a different provider, like Gmail, as your login you'll get the information from that account in Windows but you'll have to verify that before contact, calendar and message information start arriving.

When they do, you can choose which of them show notifications on the Lock screen; you can pick up to seven apps that will run in the background when your screen is off and tell you if you have new messages – one of them can show more detailed information although so far the calendar is the only choice. This will be much more important on WOA and SoC devices that have connected standby, as these are the apps that will get updates while the rest of the system is asleep.

Windows Live account or not, the first account you make on a Consumer Preview system is automatically an admin account. When you add a second account, there's no option to set it as being an administrator straight away, as you realise the first time you try to install an app and have to put in the password of the original account; you can go into the control panel and change the account type, but it's irritating not to get the option in the first place.

Windows 8: Conclusion

The Consumer Preview is a huge improvement over the Developer Preview; it's more polished, more pleasant to use and has far fewer rough edges. Performance is good, there are none of the frequent crashes we saw before and our initial testing suggests the battery life issues from Developer Preview have been fixed too. The interface is far more usable, whether you have a touch screen or a mouse and you should quickly master the gestures for switching and closing apps.

Consumer Preview also proves that Windows 8 isn't all about touch. The improvements to the desktop are very welcome, although we'd call them evolution rather than revolution, and if you want to spend most of your time in the desktop you can pin apps to the taskbar and stay there until you want to explore the Start screen. This is the version of Windows 8 that will let you decide what you think of Windows 8 and if you approach it with an open mind, you may be surprised how usable Metro can be.

On the other hand, Microsoft clearly has more work to do, both on Windows 8 itself and on the Windows Live apps that showcase Metro, and there are many key features like sharing and search contracts that will only be useful when there are far more apps to work with them. Windows 8 has to both deliver worthwhile improvements in the way you use your PC today – which it mostly does – and take a major leap forward for tablets and other upcoming PC form factors.

Until we see WOA tablets, it's going to be an open question how well Windows 8 can compete with the iPad. Consumer Preview is far and away the most touch-friendly version of Windows ever (and it no longer treats mouse and keyboard users like second class citizens). That won't be enough but it's a very promising start.