Oops is now a software development term

Software ain't as easy as people think:

One year ago, a pair of Boeing engineers decided to revive the spirit of a dead Microsoft project called Courier, but as an iPad app. They named this project Taposé, and began a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for development.
This week, Taposé launched in the App Store for $2.99.
Courier was supposed to be a dual-screen digital journal– the content creator’s rebuttal to Apple’s consumer-minded iPad. Users would combine notes, sketches, pictures, web links, and other content into elaborate documents to capture their ideas. Using two screens, people could load websites, maps, or other media on one virtual page, then drag the content into their notes on the other page. Microsoft never commented on the Courier, except in April of 2010, to announce that the project had been cancelled.
So can a couple of new developers do justice to the Courier concept by turning it into an iPad app? Maybe some day, but in playing around with the app, it’s clear that Taposé still needs a lot of work.
During my hour using the app on the new iPad, it crashed five times. Stability is crucial for apps that deal with content creation, because a crash can mean work lost. Fixing critical bugs needs to be a top priority for the Taposé team.
Taposé also suffers from some questionable user interface decisions. To name a few:

When viewing half your document alongside a webpage, map, or other content, it’s not clear how to flip forward and back through the pages. To do so, you must swipe left or right in a tiny area near the top corner of the page.
Much of the app’s functionality is centered around a vertical bar where you select tools for typing, drawing, painting, cutting, and pasting. But actions you’d expect to find on this bar, such as undo, search, and zoom are hidden elsewhere in the app.
Tapping a dot at the bottom of the vertical bar takes you back to your document list– a rarely important task that takes you out of whatever you’re currently doing. More useful options, such as opening a webpage, are hidden in a menu that you conjure by dragging a finger upwards along the vertical bar.
Taposé’s scissor tool is clever, letting you copy and paste a portion of any on-screen element, but it needs more accurate selection options, such as rectangular or circular selection tools. Also, when you copy an element, there’s no way to delete it from the action bar without dragging it onto your page first.

Taposé is still an interesting idea, just as Courier was. As a writer, I can imagine using an app like this to take notes or organize story ideas, especially once the team releases a web version for accessing notes on a PC. But until the bugs get squashed and the interface gets cleaned up, Taposé  is tough to recommend.

Rico says even Microsoft screws up occasionally (sarcasm implied):

RIP, Microsoft Courier, we hardly knew ye.
Gizmodo, the gadget blog that first uncovered the Courier last year, reports that Microsoft has all but scrapped the project. The two-screen tablet folder was intriguing, based on conceptual videos also obtained by Gizmodo, but we’ll never know for sure if any of what we saw would have made it into the final product.
When asked for comment, Microsoft Corporate VP of Communications Frank Shaw had this to say, which happens to be the first time Microsoft has publicly acknowledged the Courier’s existence:

At any given time, we’re looking at new ideas, investigating, testing, incubating them. It’s in our DNA to develop new form factors and natural user interfaces to foster productivity and creativity. The Courier project is an example of this type of effort. It will be evaluated for use in future offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.

Two years ago, Microsoft shocked the tech world with a visionary concept called the Courier, a dual-screen tablet intended for content creators. Details were scarce, revealed only in leaked documents. But, in April of 2010, Microsoft at once confirmed and killed the project.
CNet’s Jay Greene has the inside story of Microsoft’s Courier, based on the accounts of eighteen current and former Microsoft executives, plus contractors and partners. Among the juicy details in part one of the story (part two will be published later):

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer essentially had to choose between two competing tablet visions. One was the Courier, led by Xbox creator J. Allard, and the other was Windows 8, led by Steven Sinofsky, who headed the Windows division.
Ballmer called in Bill Gates, Microsoft’s current chairman and former CEO, to help make the decision. Gates was concerned about how Courier users would check their email, and Allard said he wasn’t trying to build another email experience, because people could already check their mail on a smartphone or PC. Gates was not pleased with this answer.
The Courier could have launched within a few months of Apple’s first iPad had Microsoft invested more resources, sources said. Instead, Microsoft cancelled the Courier project and is now focused on launching Windows 8 tablets in 2012.

You can count me among the people who were initially excited about the Courier. Gizmodo, the main source of Courier rumors (and the photo), described a complex interface for passing images and other page elements between the two screens, using either a stylus or multitouch gestures. At the time, in the vacuum of solid information about any upcoming tablet, it seemed like an interesting product.
But in hindsight, the Courier was a novelty. However great it would’ve been at creating digital content, it wouldn’t appeal to the masses, who now use their tablets to play games, watch movies and browse the Internet. A dual-screen, book-like tablet is ideal for none of those things. If CNet’s report is accurate, Gates was right. The lack of email is a dealbreaker. Just look at the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, which has flopped in large part because it doesn’t have the basic ability to send an email.
I’m not saying the Courier concept is bad. I’m sure some graphic designers, artists, and writers would kill for a dual-screen digital sketchbook. It’s just not mainstream enough to take on Apple’s iPad. Windows 8 is.

Rico says he's predicting Windows 8 to be a total loser...