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Windows 8 launches in Japan

Microsoft's new look and touch-friendly operating system, Windows 8, goes on sale in Japan.

This post was originally published on Mashable.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook took a dig at Microsoft's soon-to-be released Surface tablet during Apple's earnings call on Thursday, referring to it as a "fairly compromised, confusing product".

Ziming Liang receives one of the first copies of Windows 8 in the world, sold to him by Harvey Norman executive chairman Gerry Harvey at his company's Alexandria store in Sydney. Click for more photos

Microsoft launches Windows 8

Ziming Liang receives one of the first copies of Windows 8 in the world, sold to him by Harvey Norman executive chairman Gerry Harvey at his company's Alexandria store in Sydney. Photo: Supplied/Adam Hollingworth

  • Ziming Liang receives one of the first copies of Windows 8 in the world, sold to him by Harvey Norman executive chairman Gerry Harvey at his company's Alexandria store in Sydney.
  • Customers at Harvey Norman Alexandria get pumped for Windows 8.
  • Microsoft Australia managing director, Pip Marlow, and Gerry Harvey pose for a photo at Harvey Norman Alexandria in Sydney after the midnight launch of Windows 8.
  • An Ultrabook at the Windows 8 launch in Sydney running Windows 8 shows some of the local (and not so local) apps available to Australians.
  • Steven Sinofsky, the President of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft, holds a Surface with skateboard wheels attached to show the strength of the device during the launch event for Microsoft Windows 8 in New York.
  • Mike Angiulo, corporate vice president of the Planning and PC Ecosystem team at Microsoft, shows the company's Surface tablet computer at the launch of Microsoft Windows 8 in New York.
  • The new Microsoft Surface tablet on display following a press conference in New York.

“I haven’t personally played with a Surface yet,” Tim Cook said in response to a question about the Surface and the competitive landscape in the tablet market overall.

“What we’re reading about it is that it’s a fairly compromised, confusing product.”

Cook went on to suggest that Microsoft and other competitors have failed to make the “hard trade offs” in their tablets that are necessary to make a successful product.

Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Apple CEO Tim Cook. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

“I could design a car that flies and floats, but I don’t think it would do all those things really well,” he said.

Cook’s remarks were reminiscent of another statement he made earlier this year about why it’s a bad idea to try to make a tablet/laptop hybrid.

“You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator,” he said in April, “but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user.”

Mashable is the largest independent news source covering digital culture, social media and technology.