

You’ll Hate Windows 8 - spathak
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/06/windows_8_microsoft_s_radical_operating_system_redesign_will_aggravate_you_to_no_end_.html

======
cageface
Apple's key insight was that touch interfaces are _fundamentally_ different
than WIMP interfaces. Microsoft's attempt to have its cake and eat it too by
smushing Metro on top of Windows and then forcing it down everybody's throat
is just going to piss people off.

The right thing to do would be to release Metro as a tablet-only OS and
gradually cherry pick the best features for future versions of Windows but
they've played the trick of piggybacking everything on Windows so many times
now they don't know any other game.

~~~
emehrkay
I've come to accept the dual personality of win8 and was going to hold off any
real judgement until we started to see the hybrid laptops that have touch
screens. As of this week, we've seen quite a few and it is strange.

You are touching metro and then may be thrown into classic, where touch is
second class. The same shortcomings since Gates started championing
convertibles become apparent at an instant. The worst of them, which im sure
is configurable, was that touch+drag === click+drag. So in an instant the user
is taken from a situation where touch+drag == drag screen around to one where
it means highlight. I'm no UX guru, but that was startling.

Old people will hate this.

~~~
jsz0
I could see a huge number of people sitting at the Windows 8 login screen with
no clue how to click and drag to login. A simple floating tool tip ala 'slide
to unlock' would help a lot.

------
jessriedel
> Last month, Jensen Harris, the director of product management for the
> Windows user experience team, wrote a lengthy blog post in which he
> documented all the ways that Windows has changed over the last 27 years—and
> how people always hated these changes until they got around to loving them.

I still hate the ribbon. I haven't met anyone in real-life who likes it.

I still hate the way the control panel apps are organized, and their weird
layout in Windows Vista/7. I have gotten used to it, but I still like the old
way better.

The user control agent stuff doesn't bother me any more like it did in Windows
Vista, but that's because it doesn't go off all the time like it used to.

I liked the new behavior of the taskbar in Window 7 (just an icon, windows
grouped by programs) immediately.

I liked the way notification icons were handled in Windows 7 immediately.

I just can't think of anything I hated at first but ended up liking. Can
someone help me remember?

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I love the ribbon. I just got sick of memorizing arbitrary locations. I also
manage IT and see even our more clueless users able to use it with ease. From
a non-power user perspective its actually nice.

Not sure whats going on with this metro stuff, but the ribbon has been a
pretty big success outside the group of people who have long memorized menus
and are annoyed they need to learn something else.

~~~
jessriedel
It wasn't just the re-learning that was a pain with the ribbon (although that
in itself needs to be justified by some gain, which I just couldn't find in
the ribbon that hadn't been found in the graphical tool bars in previous
versions). It was that lots of functions weren't even there to find! You had
to customize the ribbon just to access functions I used every day.

It also took up a third of my screen real estate on my netbook, so I had to
choose the 'auto-minimize' option, and wait for it to slide open every time I
wanted to change a font size. What a pain...

------
bobsy
Windows 8 looks great for phones, tablets and hell the XBOX doesn't look too
bad either.

However... PC's need productivity. The current way Windows 7 works provides
that just fine. It is easy to find and launch programs. You can open up many
programs at once and instantly jump from one to another.

You can see everything you are working on. Its nice.

Metro doesn't appear to allow this. I really don't see why you would use Metro
in a desktop environment. Enterprise won't pick it up. They won't want to
retrain their workforce to use something completely new.

There is no reason to buy Windows 8 if you are happy with Windows 7. Windows 7
was an upgrade for Vista. Vista was an upgrade for XP. Windows 8 is a
completely new OS. Its a different product.

Packaging Metro with Windows 8 desktop editions is fine. However the classic
desktop view should be the default. You can then switch to Metro if you want
and sync that up between devices or whatever. I get the unified interface
across devices. I just don't get why Microsoft thought it was a good idea.

~~~
powertower
Where are you getting this crap that the Desktop is gone on Windows 8, or that
it's soooo difficult to enter, that it might just be impossible.

Boot Windows 8 up in Desktop Mode. Make a settings change. Or select it as
default on install.

Microsoft is not dropping the desktop or the enterprise. They make an enormous
amount of money from that market and work-flow.

~~~
maxerickson
It seems fairly obvious that Microsoft is anticipating single-device computing
and getting out in front of it.

A cell phone that can drive HDMI still needs a nice UI for the little touch
screen. Apps that run everywhere might not be perfect everywhere, but it is
still a nice feature.

(Perhaps 'single-device' is the wrong description, but the barriers to running
the same environment everywhere are shrinking, not growing)

------
untog
An aside, but it only occurred to me with this title that MS has set itself up
for a "Windows Hate" nickname for this version. We'll see if it becomes a
trend..

------
debacle
> the company considers the enormous popularity of the iPad a major threat to
> its business,

Microsoft clearly has no idea why people use its software.

~~~
nextstep
What do you mean? Why do you think people use Microsoft's software?

Without sounding too snarky, I think a large portion of Microsoft's users are
either corporate users who are locked-into the MS ecosystem, or are users who
are unaware of the benefits of other (IMO superior) OSes. I mean to say that
Microsoft has benefited from being the _de facto_ default OS for most normal
consumers. This is changing as OS X and Linux distros become more mainstream.

------
jakejake
I gave the developer preview a try when it came out and I came to pretty much
the same conclusions.

Something about hitting the start button and not getting the menu just feels
so wrong. It seems so extreme to make the OS default to one app, full screen
all the time. Maybe I'm just old school or whatever but having only one app on
the screen at a time slows me down about 1000%. Maybe we'll all be using
tablets soon or something and I just need to get over it?

~~~
goostavos
Can you explain that a little more? I haven't played with 8 at all yet, but
surely they allow more than one app at a time?

~~~
jakejake
well you can go into "Desktop" mode which functions more or less like the
current Windows with one major exception - that is when you click the start
button you don't get a pop-up menu, instead it takes you back to the metro
launch page (full screen). It's very jarring for a windows user to lose your
start menu.

It feels like they want to keep pulling you out of desktop and back into the
metro mode - which is basically a tablet design for using one app at a time
(just like ipad, android, etc). For people who like lots of windows open at
once it stinks!

------
CrazedGeek
"But in Metro, Windows 8’s primary interface, that’s not possible, because all
apps take up the full screen. I could only have one bank site on the screen at
a time, and I had to constantly switch between them."

I could have sworn that Win8 had an option to run two applications on a single
screen in Metro. Does that not apply to two instances of a single app?

~~~
bitwize
Wow! TWO whole apps?

Reminds me of when I went on a bit of retrocomputing geekery and discovered
the Synergy Window Manager for the DEC Professional, which boasted of its
ability to run "up to four applications at the same time".

------
Zirro
"Microsoft, though, clearly expects the new interface to become the dominant
way to use Windows, so I’ve tried to spend most of my time using it."

This is important. I've had a lot of "pro-Windows"-friends come up to me and
say that Windows 8 is great, "the best Windows so far".

Yet, I only see them spending time in the "Windows 7"-mode, essentially using
their computer just like they did with the previous versions of Windows. When
they do that, they disregard a huge part of what Windows 8 is, and the
direction Microsoft wants to take.

------
cliffcrosland
Certainly, I may be wrong, but Windows 8 could be a wild success. Currently,
there are no good tablets in the enterprise market that allow users both to
read and edit documents. Windows 8 gives tablet users access to programs like
Excel and PowerPoint with exactly the same level of functionality as they
would on a full-fledged desktop PC. This could be a godsend for knowledge
workers whose tasks really only require the computing power of a tablet,
letting them forgo purchasing a more pricey laptop or desktop.

Also, promoting Javascript and HTML5 as first-class citizens in the Windows 8
environment opens the door to native app development for a massive population
of web developers, which is a huge event in software engineering. Web devs
will be able to create the same kinds of dynamic UIs with web connectivity as
they always have but with the added bonus of file system, GPU, and other kinds
of OS access. As a web dev, I'm stoked.

Yes, Microsoft is heavily favoring touch interaction at the expense of the
mouse and keyboard interface. It does indeed seem like the unforgiving
interface is meant to push touch screen sales, but if people adopt touch
screen devices as much as Microsoft is betting, then Windows 8 will be a huge
hit. Despite the mouse and keyboard UX, I say kudos to MSFT for trying to
advance human-computer interaction beyond the status quo since 1963.

------
antidoh
I think Microsoft really liked the Office Ribbon, and they really liked the
overall reaction that people had to the Ribbon. So they expanded the Ribbon
beyond obscuring the menus of their Office suite, to obscuring the entire
desktop/tablet.

The only thing a tablet OS has to do is be obvious about how to use the
tablet. If you're really good, your tablet OS will be so obvious that people
who successfully use the OS won't be able to explain how to use it, because
they never had to think about it.

The only thing a desktop OS has to do is not break convention too terribly or
suddenly without obvious benefit.

They only thing the two types of OS have to do jointly is don't interfere with
each other. They don't need to support each others' metaphors any more than a
bicycle needs clip pedals that accept fins.

------
deelowe
It's very clear to me what's going on here. This isn't a tablet os or a
desktop os, because I believe that Microsoft is expecting the distinction
between those devices to become less of a factor sooner than later. This os is
intended for a mobile workstation type computer (AKA "transformer" devices).
The implementation could use some polish, but the intent is that the metro ui
is for the tablet or phone interface when there is no large format display or
mouse connected. The desktop mode is for when the device is hooked up to a
larger display and/or a mouse. However, why there isn't a clearer separation
between the two interfaces is beyond me. I think this is a smart strategy by
microsoft, the real question is whether they got it right. So far, I'm not
convinced. That said, Asus seems to be sold on the idea.

------
altrego99
To me it looks like Windows 8 is going to be a repeat of Unity interface.

~~~
bergie
...and KDE 4, and GNOME 3: <http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/how-do-i-turn-this-off/>

------
altrego99
I still don't understand how this was "first worthy rival" to iPad, at Feb
2012.

------
zyb09
Well I haven't tried it, but I don't think it'll be that bad. You don't really
have to use Metro and stuff like Notepad++ still works fine, so I'm sure you
can work just fine with it. So what's the big deal?

~~~
Zirro
First of all, Metro is forced upon you as the new "start menu". That's where
you end up when you boot the computer.

Secondly, you have to look at the long term consequences. This may be the
direction Microsoft wants to take. Will there be a "Desktop"-mode in Windows
10?

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Will it matter in Windows 10? Its like saying "Whoa, I can't install Norton
Commander on this Windows95! This sucks!"

I have no idea what the future holds, but change happens. I'm not a fan of
metro but as long as I can get to a classic desktop I don't care. As an IT
admin I am a fan of the ribbon because its enables our clueless users to find
things and not bother IT.

At the end of the day all these interfaces are designed for the lowest common
denominator, not power users or develops. That's how mass software production
works. We make dumb interfaces for dumb people and they keep getting dumber
and dumber. The market has spoken and even Microsoft needs to cater to the app
obsessed teenager and middle aged dad who thinks computers are "too hard."
Well, maybe they are. Look at the malware and support mess that is the Windows
status quo. Fummy how the HN crowds lambasts Windows but refuses to accept any
reformation as well.

Its not all bad. I don't think anyone wants to go back to the DOS days. I
suspect this is the usual tempest in a teapot that precedes all Windows
releases. End users won't care and power users will get around whatever new
limitation or UI they don't like.

------
darklajid
I smell link-bait and hyperbole if I see a title and subtitle like this:

    
    
      You’ll Hate Windows 8
      We may all grow to love it (..snip..)
    

That said - my coworkers seem to be totally happy about Windows Phone and
Windows 8 (all tiles/the whole Metro UI thingy) and won't stop selling it to
everyone as the best thing ever during lunch breaks. I didn't try it and I'm
not a Windows user during the night. While I don't think that it'll be the
right thing for me, at least I seem to live in an alternative universe where
Windows 8 is anticipated with excitement.

~~~
drucken
Try actually reading the article. It is more balanced and informative than the
title suggests.

I feel awkward even having to suggest to an HN'er this...

~~~
darklajid
Your implied assumption about me was wrong. I did.

My non native understanding of link bait is defined as using hyperbole in a
title to lure in readers. Do you disagree with that definition or with my
application in this case?

------
nextstep
What is the "Start" in the upper left corner of all the screenshots I've seen
of Windows 8. Is this a button?

------
lupatus
I miss Win98.

------
moron
I can see the narrative being set up already, just like I could last time with
Vista and Windows 7. The first one "sucks" and the one directly following is
"great", except under the covers they are basically the same. And with the
first one, the one that supposedly "sucks", you get a bunch of backlash
blogposts talking about all the ways it is subtly better than its predecessor
and how the people slagging it are bandwagon-riding idiots. Weak.

~~~
mtgx
That kind of reminds me of the Stockholm syndrome a bit. Vista was very
disappointing, because users expected something good after XP, and it wasn't.
By the time Windows 7 showed up, users were even more tired of XP than they
were when Vista launched, and they couldn't wait for a "decent" alternative.
After the low standard that Vista set, they were happy that Windows 7 was at
least as good as XP or better.

But now people are not tired of Windows 7, and some just upgraded to it a year
or two ago. Add that to the fact that it makes the desktop experience very
confusing, and I don't see Windows 8 being very successful.

~~~
e40
I think people are forgetting the huge performance slowdown with Vista on some
hardware. This is the reason I and my colleagues said that it sucked, at the
time. Yes, SP1 made it better and the "it sucked" labeled was withdrawn.

~~~
pfraze
Yes, and experience is in the details. The difference between Vista and 7 is
not prominent, but it is big.

~~~
DeepDuh
Having used Vista and 7 side by side (test environment for a customer) I can
say that you're spot on. It's many small things but they add up quickly. One
example: network adapter settings are completely misnamed in Vista, a major
pain to find them.

------
Toshio
Regardless of how you feel about the OS itself, I think Windows 8 product are
going to have to either be really cheap (to compete against the Kindle Fire)
or have some really amazing hardware feature like very good battery life or a
better display than Retina Display (to compete against the iPad. From what I
can tell, neither of the above will be the case, which means Windows 8
products will be undifferentiated products powered by an OS that is different
for different's sake.

