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Engadget's conclusion:

"We really liked Windows 7 when it launched. It felt like a big step forward in the short time that had passed since Vista. Now, as we creep closer to a likely release near the end of this year, we can't shake a sense of doubt. Windows 8 still feels like two very different operating systems trying to be one. The potential is hugely alluring -- a single OS to rule both the tablet and the desktop -- and with each subsequent version we keep hoping this will be the one that ties it all together. Sadly, as of the Consumer Preview, we're still seeing a lot of loose threads.

As it stands, Windows 8 is a considerably better tablet operating system than any previous version has managed to be. However, it's still a clumsier desktop OS than Windows 7. That's a problem Microsoft must fix before release."

I feel the same way. By trying to please everyone, Microsoft will please no one, and will frustrate 95% of the Windows users out there who will be very confused not just by the tile interface, who is much different than what they are used to, but also by the disconnect between these two interfaces.

Microsoft is trying to win the few who want a tablet interface at the expense of the vast majority who want a PC, mouse-oriented interface for their...PC's and laptops.




I'm sorry, I don't get what everyone is on about.

The first thing a power user will do is to go to the old-desktop and stay there, basically not interacting with metro at all. There is no point, it's about as useful as the winkey+tab is on Vista/W7. "Cool" but useless for real work.

And there seems to have been numerous improvements to the windows experience (outside metro), the ability to pause file-copying etc. proves that they still have some focus for the enthusiast.

For everyone but the average Joe the new "metro-UI" is nothing but a bundled application that you will only use when you want to demo something or for some very light use (on a tablet for instance).

Just as Media Center is today!

How does a bundled application make the whole windows experience clumsier? If it is clumsy, close it! Sure, the start menu is different but who uses the start meny on windows today? All apps that you actually use are pinned to the task bar...

And that is how everyone that does real work will use their windows 8 machine, just as they do today in windows 7. And no. MS will not phase out the "regular windows", that's just moronic. Contrary to popular belief but people will actually do work in the near future as well, not floating around in a fluffy cloud with touch devices.

You read it here first. The mouse and keyboard are not dead.

Curious to see how broken the metro is on a multi-monitor setup is though. Any UI that doesn't scale well to multiple monitors has failed miserably in my eyes (hello OS X + Unity + Metro(?)). And that's not an edge case (at least it shouldn't be for anyone favoring productivity).


The first thing a power user will do is to go to the old-desktop and stay there, basically not interacting with metro at all. There is no point, it's about as useful as the winkey+tab is on Vista/W7.

I don't know if you're trying to troll or you're just incredibly short-sighted, but I'll bite.

Windows 8 is clearly designed as a hybrid OS, in the same vein that Ubuntu on Android is, even if Microsoft's marketing team don't outright say it. It's fills the use case of "I love my iPad, and I love my Mac, but I really hate that I have these two devices."

Within a year, you're going to see probably about 30% of the new machines being manufactured as tablets, with docking stations. Run the machine in tablet mode, and you get Metro, perfect for reading web pages and flinging Angry Birds around in bed. When it's time to go to work, you pop your tablet into the docking station, and up pops the Desktop for productivity apps. Metro is not going to disappear like Media Center did. It's integral to the whole thing.

The iPad is not a machine to do large amounts of work on, but you'd be surprised how many people are trying to. Have you been on a plane recently? A good half of the iPads I see are actually jammed into some horrible looking keyboard dock. Consumers seem to really want a machine that will do this. That's what Windows 8 is.


The problem with this logic, IMO, is that they are still ignoring that, in spite of consumers wanting a single device that supports multiple interfaces, they're still trying to cram two very different experiences into one unified experience.

To me, Microsoft and Apple should realize that once you plug a keyboard/mouse into a tablet, it becomes a notebook, and the user should be presented with a new experience -- because it now has a new interface (keyboard/mouse vs. touch screen only).

If they could figure out how to intuitively transform your experience from a tablet experience to a notebook experience without jarring or confusing the user, then they could have an OS that could work with both devices -- or a single device that supports both interfaces.


So that should still work right? As long as there is a tablet that has a good keyboard stand, As a tablet, you mostly stay in the metro world and once docked you can use the keyboard/mouse. None of the metro apps I saw were not hard or non-intuiitive to use with mouse/keyboard.

For a legacy laptop, most of the work is done in the desktop anyways no matter how much Microsoft is touting the cool metro UI, I doubt the users of older laptops are going to spend much time in metro land. So that experience does not change much anyways.

So its like you do have two devices in one. Use the one which you prefer.


I don't see how that goes against what I said.

Of course the metro UI has advantages on a tablet, my post was mainly centered around the workstation. Whether you take your workstation with you at the end of the day or not is irrelevant for the work you do on it when it is being used as workstation.

If you feel the transition between the two isn't smooth enough that's another point but my first reaction to this is positive. I do not want that transition to be smooth, to me that's like trying to mimic the feel of a nice heated leather car seat while skydiving. If either was any like the other at least one of them would be worthless (probably both).

Realizing that that is impossible and separating them is the key to my heart and both windows 8 and unbuntu for android seems promising in that regard (but since I haven't used any of them that is just my initial impression). Apple on the other hand seems to be taking small steps in the opposite direction with mountain lion, which is of course fine for most but I don't think that that will cut it in the long run.


If you haven't even seen Windows 8, please don't comment on it. It's clear from even a quick look at Windows 8 what awkward transition between "tablet" and "desktop" he's talking about.


The idea of a single device that does both mobile and desktop work well is a nice idea, but in practice the few attempts at this have failed, mainly at the hardware level. See the Motorola Atrix, previous Windows Tablet Laptops, etc.

If Microsoft was serious about building this as the future computing experience, they should have built the hardware and controlled both the hardware and software. But then they'd be no different from Apple and they'd alienate their hardware partners.


"but in practice the few attempts at this have failed, mainly at the hardware level. See the Motorola Atrix, previous Windows Tablet Laptops, etc"

I am typing this response on an ASUS Transformer laptop, which I don't see as a failure at all at the hardware level. The only downside of the ASUS Transformer is that the Android software ecosystem has a long way to go to catch up to the idea of being run on a laptop-like device. This is something Windows 8 should have a big advantage on, which is one of the primary reasons I'm really looking forward to Win8.


>If Microsoft was serious about building this as the future computing experience, they should have built the hardware and controlled both the hardware and software. But then they'd be no different from Apple and they'd alienate their hardware partners.

Windows On ARM tablets do exactly this.


>> It's fills the use case of "I love my iPad, and I love my Mac, but I really hate that I have these two devices."

It's an interesting point, but if this is the target, then I think it's hopeless. Indeed, I don't think that people are ready to ditch there Mac/iPad setup for a unified windows setup. And if MS wants to conquer the tablet market, then I'm not sure that the "unified" argument is a key selling point. People won't buy any tablet over the iPad just because you tell them: "hey, you can find everything you (don't) like about windows on your tablet too!"

Note: I'm sorry if I sounded anti-windows, that's not the case, although I'm not a big fan either


Nobody is forcing you to use the things you don't like about windows. Which you haven't bothered to list... A tablet can be a pure metro experience and a pretty cool one at that.


Unfortunately, that's not going to happen unless we will see some x86 tablets. WOA will have Metro-style apps only.

And I doubt we'll ever see x86 tablets


Just an FYI Intel has announced new chips and future strategy for the mobile market. We will definitely see x86 tablets. AMD wants in as well.


I may have 8 main applications pinned to the taskbar, everything else I do is through the start menu. Frankly, all I really need is the taskbar + start menu.


The experience does not change. Either you type windows buttong and start typing the name of the app (just like in wondows 7) Now if only you could pin a desktop app like word to the start screen, then I don't see the difference in experience.


I think my only objection to that is how the new start screen comes up in a jarring Desktop > Metro transition.

But then again I disliked the Windows7 Superbar until i'd been using it a while, so I'll reserve my judgement until I've used the Consumer Preview for a month or so.


I'm wondering if you've tried this new OS out yet.

The "Start-Menu" has now gone, no button - nothing. Metro is the start menu. That means to launch apps you've not created desktop shortcuts for yet, or pinned to the taskbar, you need to launch Metro. I find it quite jarring switching between the two, but I could get used to it.

Also, to bring up things like "settings" for a given item, you need to hover over the top-right corner and then move your cursor directly down. This is just plain weird for me, and I fear what a less confident computer user would make of this. Effectively things they may need are completely invisible, unless they know where to look.

My biggest concern is that sometimes you can be using a screen in the old way, e.g. network preferences - select an option, and then a completely different style of screen appears out of the right hand side for you to action on. It's just plain weird and confusing, and needs to be sorted before launch.

It seems to me that in an effort to simplify the OS they've made it way more confusing.


And here is the thing, Majority of users ARE average-joes. That's why iPad has been an incredible success. It's a power user's nightmare,and yet look at how it has fared. The average-joes are the ones who will dig Metro, and that's a vast, overwhelming majority.For power users, there is regular desktop. However, Gradually, as an eceosystem of apps starts thriving, the power users will start to discover that are okay with giving up a little of that power for well-designed Metro apps that make their lives a whole lot easier and will start shifting away from desktop to Metro. Just as content writers, programmers, musicians etc have started taking to the iPad for their day-to-day work. I say W8 is a win-win for everyone !


Have they? I remember an article on HN a few months ago of some guy doing all his programming on an ipad. Beyond that most of what I see ipads used for is browsing and watching movies.


Well I guess it all feeds into the "buy every other Windows version" joke. By Windows 9 they'll have this integration sorted, maybe.


I kind of noticed this as an unwritten rule, instead of a joke. Every other release of windows seems to have its fair share of weirdness which is corrected with the release immediately superseding it.

My path, which I'm sure matches a great deal of others is:

3.1 = buy 95 = skip 98 = buy ME = skip XP = buy Vista = skip 7 = buy

Extrapoloating, 8 will be a "skip". I hope this will be the exception.. I kind of like what I've seen with 8 so far.


It's a nitpick, but you left out WIN2k, which would break your pattern...

It was actually a very solid OS from my experience.


So I've heard- but my thoughts at the time (as a mostly ignorant kid) were than Win2k was too business focused for gaming. Keep in mind, I didn't even have internet access until 1999!

Went straight from 98 to XP, buying ME and then taking it back after finding out that it broke EVERYTHING.


To be honest, MS did indeed intend to target Win2000 at businesses and WinMe at home users, though Win2000 actually have good DirectX support unlike NT4.


Well, he has also skipped NT 3.1, 3.5 and 4. The various versions branded as NT, plus Win2k, were generally considered non-consumer, though Win2k was a marginal case.


Off topic, but did you wait 8 years upgrading from ME to Vista?


His timeline was really confusing. HN probably stripped out the newlines he used.

  3.1 = buy  
  95 = skip  
  98 = buy  
  ME = skip  
  XP = buy  
  Vista = skip  
  7 = buy  
He skipped ME.

The "every other version" rule left him on 3.1 while the rest of the world was on 95, though. Seems like a pretty broken rule...


Yeah, it ate the newlines and I kind of posted in a hurry... oopsy.

Thing was I didn't have a computer capable of running Win95 at the time, and even then convincing my parents to drop $100 on that plus the requisite hardware upgrade was pretty tricky.

Then this and that happened, we got the new computer with 95, and then upgraded it to 98. Ah, those were the days :)


No, I went to XP.


I think they should clearly separate tablet and desktop interfaces and switch between them based on context (like what Canonical is planning to do with their "Ubuntu for Android").

That is: you get only a classic desktop (+ windowed Metro apps) when your slate is attached to a docking station and you only get the tablet interface otherwise.

And then provide a switch within Control Panel to get the hybrid experience, as it is now.


> they should clearly separate tablet and desktop interfaces... like what Canonical is planning to do with their "Ubuntu for Android"

What? The whole point of Unity is to have a single interface. Canonical is making the exact same mistake as Microsoft.


The point of Ubuntu for Android is it's Android when its on your 3"-4" phone and it's Ubuntu when you dock it and move to a larger screen. You can't expect a desktop interface to easily switch between a smartphone and a 20" screen with a keyboard and mouse.

Ubuntu for Android is not Ubuntu for tablets.


Right now ARM tablets only have the Metro interface period -- there is no desktop interface installed at all. Only PC's have both interfaces.


I have played with a Windows 8 tablet at that had a fully functional desktop interface, looked just like Win 7 desktop.

...and I'm pretty sure it was an ARM


Holy crap, it's even more confusing than I thought:

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/win...

"You will get the traditional desktop with Windows 8 on ARM - but you won't be able to put third-party apps on it.

That's because all the third-party apps developed for ARM-based Windows 8 devices will be for the new Metro interface."


Sounds like echoes of the Gnome Shell critisicm... trying to be both tablet and desktop at once leads to neither side being very good.


People mostly hate change, and metro gnome shell and unity all represent that. Why did people like Engadget go from hating Vista to loving Vista SP1 aka Win7? They had gotten used to it and microsoft gave them a good excuse to change their minds. While gnome shell was a bit rougher around the edges as most dot oh open source projects tend to be, you'll emd up seeing the same behavior in n years when people will be screaming bloody murder about giving up gnome 3... or win8/9.


> Why did people like Engadget go from hating Vista to loving Vista SP1 aka Win7?

Because the last polishing step for an OS, like for every other software, is the most important ? Vista was filled with things that were one little short step from being great, or said another way vista was filled with things that were not great.


"Why did people like Engadget go from hating Vista to loving Vista SP1 aka Win7?"

If I'm not mistaken, the main reason for the Vista-hate was the too frequent UAC-prompt, buggy drivers and extreme slowness. This was generally resolved by Windows 7, and that's why I think they started praising it.

I don't think I heard many complaints about the "new" UI. Rather, if anything, people was saying it looked like XP with a new theme. That's not much to get used to over time as a previous XP-user.


There was a lot of small and discrete but very effective ui changes in windows seven. The kind that transformed "why is it asking me to add tags and rating to my dll" into "what i need is right there under my mouse already".

And as you said the completely broken uac in vista didn't help, they had managed to make limited accounts worse to use than in xp somehow.


How were limited accounts worse? Previously, a limited user couldn't perform action X at all. After UAC, they could perform it if they had an administrative account (or could get an administrator to approve).


Vista added a bunch of areas that prompt for admin for no reason, and to get in as a limited user is definitely more painful.

Note that there is no security need for admin here, just a dumb prompt that you can't second-guess.


Vista did add some prompts for things that an admin could do that really shouldn't have resulted in prompts. What actions that a limited user could previously perform resulted in the new prompts?


The first thing that comes to mind is running regedit. Despite the elaborate ACL system in the registry windows won't run it without admin rights. You can still use any other program including reg.exe to access the registry, but not the convenient one.


Did it work pre-vista? If so, I agree that's kind of a lame change. It seems like a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme, since generally users shouldn't be mucking around in the registry, but it's lame nonetheless. I assume that if it worked previously, it was decided that the effort to implement key-specific UAC was just too high, so they implemented whole-app elevation.


i feel like microsoft shouldn't have tried to include the classic/desktop mode. Metro is cool, commit to it. re-work office to exist solely in the metro interface, add a launcher to make AAA PC gaming titles compatible with metro. then, refuse to continue selling windows 7 to laptop OEMs. enterprise is going to hate metro anyways, keep selling win7 to them, but commit to metro as the way forward for consumers.


Microsoft's shareholders would have had a fit if they marginialized the enterprise in this way. Let's face it, right now all of Microsoft's current future revenue is coming from there. The shareholders wouldn't allow them to go all-in against Apple in the consumer space right now.

I expect what you're looking for will be Windows 10, once enterprises have had time to get used to Metro.


This would be a great way to kill windows. Microsoft Office, IDEs, Photoshop, etc. simply wouldn't work as well in metro. Having separate windows allows drag and drop between applications and is a huge boost to productivity. Not to mention you can have several windows open and tiled appropriately so you aren't stuck in fullscreen mode all the time.


>Microsoft is trying to win the few who want a tablet interface at the expense of the vast majority who want a PC, mouse-oriented interface for their...PC's and laptops.

Interesting, I thought the wisdom here was that the post-PC era is upon us and PC are going to die? In that case MS is definitely going the right way.


Heh. I think they are going the right way, too, but they're up against the types of those who think Facebook or YouTube should never change the UI and leave it alone forever.

Apple is slowly converging OSX and iOS into one platform, "inspired by iPad", etc. Microsoft isn't doing that. They are smashing the two together at once, when they should really have created an OS that ran alongside the PC market until the proverbial train tracks merged. This way, everyone melds into a comfort zone rather than being shoved into it (not comfy).

I don't know if Apple initially figured this out intentionally but they are surely proud of it today, because people want iOS features on OSX – least to a degree. Apple incentivized the experience through the needs created by developers. Microsoft is not answering these needs (API) directly, instead, just supposing they should exist and that will translate into useful applications.


> Apple is slowly converging OSX and iOS into one platform, "inspired by iPad", etc. Microsoft isn't doing that. They are smashing the two together at once,

Apple emphasizes that iOS and OSX fundamentally different platforms and will stay so, and says they're borrowing relevant ideas from one and bake them into the other (and vice versa).

Microsoft says their strategy is the Windows Everywhere convergence, and stitches the desktop and Metro side by side with no overlap.

It's interesting to see that their approach is the exact opposite of one another.


> Apple emphasizes that iOS and OSX fundamentally different platforms and will stay so, and says they're borrowing relevant ideas from one and bake them into the other (and vice versa).

I agree. But I think you think that this mentality is set in stone, just as console gaming must have a standard controller, or personal computing must have a physical keyboard. Touch is the marvel of today. Voice may be the marvel of tomorrow. Eventually a keyboard and mouse will be the old way of doing things. Your knee-jerk reaction to that sentence is also mine. I can't see a world without keyboard and mouse, but that is because nothing better currently exists. Remember: Unreasonable men with unreasonable ideas.... Touch only supplants certain features of the keyboard and mouse. Apple was unreasonable. Nintendo was unreasonable. What technology will be the next to pull us out of our comfy habits? The technology that improves upon the existing infrastructure wins, not the one that asks us to change our habits or do more work.

Microsoft is asking their users to do just that – more work. Does it work in Metro? Standard?

With iOS, I don't have to ask. I know. It is too underpowered to handle intensive applications. I don't have to look it up in the "app store" to find out. I don't have to look for "designed for X" stickers or buttons. I immediately know because my technological emersion and knowledge of what is possible makes this argument for me.


> But I think you think that ...

I don't. I merely restated the current public discourse of each company. This is not a knee-jerk reaction, because it's not a reaction at all, merely a summary.


Perhaps for consumers, but enterprise/office-workers will never switch to tablets. Keyboard/mouse is just too damned efficient for data entry and manipulation. And, I always thought that office-work/enterprise was MSFT's bread-and-butter.


I think the idea is that you carry your tablet with you, then plug it into a dock with a keyboard/mouse when you are at a desk.


Why would you need to? Most of your data is probably stored in "the cloud" anyway so switching between using 2 devices should be simple.

All you do is save on the cost of having an extra CPU in the desktop system and this is partly offset by power considerations (since you can have a faster chip in the desktop).


This notion gets a lot of play but I'm not buying it -- at least until several years down the road. Of course there are people for whom tablets are perfect -- inventory, front-line customer service, sales, etc -- however there are many where it is of questionable value.

A major issue at many corporations is asset management, with laptop theft or loss being a massive problem. Now take all of those desktops and replace them with roaming, fragile tablets?


I think possibly the corporation doesn't supply them. Employees simply provide their own hardware in the same way they buy their own cars.

The difficulty here is of course with security etc, but most of the corporate apps are probably web based and hidden behind a firewall anyway and none of the data is cached on the users device.


I think MSFT is worried about a future where IT workers bring in their personal tablets for consumption work - at some point they're going to become "good enough" for their creation work and replace the desktop PC (similar words were probably said about the mainframe). If they play a reactive role it may be too late.


No no, the post-PC era has already arrived and the PC is all but dead already. MS is years late.

(sent from my PC)


Depends what you define as a "PC" , if you mean an intel x86 CPU in a box with a MS operating system and a "C drive" as the dominant platform with 90%+ market share then probably yes.

I don't really see this as PCs vs tablets where only one can be left standing, I think we will see a diverse range of devices and software come to market over the next few years. The ones that actually suit peoples needs will survive.


Wisdom "here?"

You can do better than to listen to the Y-Combinator-funded "geniuses who are attempting to re-implement poorly the protocols which worked fine 20+ years go.

Oh, and they STILL work, too.


Well, I think people are re-implementing everything to run over port 80 with all the baggage that entails to get past firewalls. This will work until somebody comes up with web specific security software, then we'll rebuilt it all to work across twitter or something (think "packets" of 140 characters).




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