
Metro - aaronbrethorst
http://daringfireball.net/2011/09/metro
======
eykanal
If I'm reading this right, Gruber's effectively saying, "Metro, and Metro
alone (i.e., no desktop), is a good competitor to the iPad." That's wonderful;
a real iPad competitor.

But what about all the rest of the computers? You know, those big things on
your desktop? We all know just how smart most users are when it comes to
figuring out how to use stuff on a computer. Its taken _years_ to get to the
point where your typical "user" can use a computer without too much
difficulty. Part of this is due to the consistency of the Windows UI; folder
windows, mouse motions, menubars, etc. Suddenly, we're going to throw
something completely new at them, something which:

1) Has been shown to be difficult to do well for everyday use (touchscreen
desktops)

2) Has a moderately non-intuitive interface (hidden UI elements until I swipe
from a particular side, or maybe tap over here and here and here)

3) Has questionable benefits in a desktop computing environment where a
keyboard is a perfectly appropriate device

And, once they learn all that, our user realizes that he _still has to use the
original UI for many programs!_ That's right, photoshop isn't going to be
going Metro anytime soon, and neither is Matlab, or Autocad, or Excel, or
video editing software, or any "Pro" program (for lack of a better word).
Metro may be wonderful for tablets and other mobile devices, but it sure looks
like it's going to be a drag in being forcibly married to the traditional
Windows UI.

~~~
alex_c
I suspect we'll be seeing a more and more pronounced split in computing and,
therefore, interfaces. On one side (the majority) will be "consumers": web,
email, Facebook, maybe some light photo editing. On the other side will be the
"producers": people who use Photoshop, or Matlab, or AutoCAD. Office falls
somewhere in the middle... Office itself may eventually be divided along those
lines, with a lightweight, tablet-friendly spinoff.

So in many cases I think you're actually talking about different users: the
majority of people may eventually not need anything beyond a tablet. I also
suspect the rest of us will be annoyed and inconvenienced by this trend, since
it won't be aimed at us.

~~~
gbog
I don't like these ideas Gruber and friends are repeating and repeating again.
In the article, it is carved in marble: "the advantages that come from NOT
allowing you to do so many [things]". The reasoning behind is that Steve Jobs
or other said genius should be choosing for you what you are "allowed" to do.

It feels awfully 1984 for me.

I live in China and I can tell you it is painfull, sometime, when someone else
chooses for you what you are allowed to do. I'm reading "Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance", and heck, this guy is right, you have those losers
who fear and get used by technology, and the other guys who don't fear and use
technology.

The cynic (borderline totalitarian) approach is to say that people should be
divided between those clever hacker who have control and the rest, which
should not be given "too much" control, because their are not clever enough,
or don't need it, or what.

The humanist (democratic, cf "Enlightment") is the opposite: human being are
clever, and should be given control on their life, on their tools, should be
given choices, etc.

It seems to me that too many people have forgotten the we gather here, on HN,
on the free, interesting and open parts of the Internet, because we like to
control our shit, and ALSO we prefer the common people to be educated and
control their shit. Especially when it come to so personal matters as their
own files.

Sorry for the rant. I hope I'm mistaking, but from my recent reading of HN I
feel there is a progressive shift toward more "Gruberness" which is
questionable in its hypothesis and conclusions.

~~~
alex_c
I don't like it either (hell, most of us here on HN won't like it... we love
to tinker and break things and get under the hood), but that doesn't mean it's
not the most likely direction.

You describe it as a struggle between totalitarian and democratic ideologies,
with all the moral and ethical implications. I think it's really about a
third, much more powerful force: giving people what they want.

This is tangential, but I think explains what I mean better than I could:

[http://www.prosebeforehos.com/image-of-the-
day/08/24/huxley-...](http://www.prosebeforehos.com/image-of-the-
day/08/24/huxley-vs-orwell-infinite-distraction-or-government-oppression/)

~~~
gbog
Thanks for the link. I am no historian but I have the impression that Human
history would show that Orwell's fears are more grounded, as the totalitarian
world he described has actually been implemented for real in many occurences,
far away in the past (maybe under Pharaos? certainly under Qinshihuang) and
closer (USSR, PRC). It is possible that Huxley's fears are a bit less likely
to happen for real. Maybe Roman empire had a pinch of it (panem et circenses)
but even then roman people (the free ones) had their freedom, and some used it
to write books, create things, etc.

However I am extremely opposed to entertainment feeding, I don't watch TV, nor
do I read magazines, so I agree with Huxley (and you?). But I don't think it
is closely related to my impression that some people go too far in the "don't
say yes to all" direction.

The good reason for tool creators to say no is not because they know better
how the tool should be used, it is because they know that saying yes to
request A would forbid the tool to be used in ways B and C, and other
unprospected ways. Saying no is ok when it actually opens new doors.

------
brianwillis
_Thinking about it, isn’t window an odd word choice for what we call movable,
stackable, resizeable content regions in a user interface? Other than being
rectangular they’re not like real-world windows at all._

I can remember my high school computer studies teacher explaining they're
called windows because they're split into panes. Microsoft Windows versions 1
and 2 didn't actually have stackable overlapping windows (you'd split the
screen up into as many panes as you needed) so I suspect the name made sense
then and has since stuck.

~~~
glhaynes
Good point - though I believe they were called windows on previous GUI
systems.

EDIT: Though now that I think about it and, IIRC, Xerox's stuff didn't have
overlapping windows either. Apple's Lisa and Mac did. I _think_ Englebart's
demo had windows but I'm not sure if they overlapped.

~~~
zizee
I recall a story (maybe an urban myth) about Steve Jobs visiting Xerox's labs
and seeing their UI in action and thinking "we've got to have that". He went
back to tell Woz all about it, telling him that Xerox's UI supported
overlapping windows and that Apple needed to do the same.

Woz was amazed that it was possible to have overlapping windows on such a
resource constrained machine. But if Xerox engineers could do it, he could to
dammit! After a Herculean effort he got the overlapping windows to work nicely
and they shipped.

It was only later that they found out that Xerox's engineers were blown away
by Woz's achievement as they had studied the problem and decided that it
wouldn't be possible to do overlapping windows. They never developed that
functionality.

Turns out that Jobs had made a mistake in remembering what he had seen and
Xerox never did have those overlapping windows :-)

Anyway, this story might be incorrect on some points or a complete
fabrication, but I like it.

~~~
krevis
Not Woz, Bill Atkinson.

[http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...](http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt)

"Smalltalk didn't even have self-repairing windows - you had to click in them
to get them to repaint, and programs couldn't draw into partially obscured
windows. Bill Atkinson did not know this, so he invented regions as the basis
of QuickDraw and the Window Manager so that he could quickly draw in covered
windows and repaint portions of windows brought to the front."

~~~
_sh
The 'regions' used in QuickDraw are an amazing (for their time) data
structure, a testament to the genius of Bill Atkinson. I strongly recommend
reading the patent to see how cool and useful they were to the original Mac
windowing system
([http://patentdetails.patenttools.com/patent/04622545?searchi...](http://patentdetails.patenttools.com/patent/04622545?searchid=18718)
click on the 'download pdf' link in the top left).

Steve Jobs know how important regions were:
[http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=I_Still_Remember_Regions.txt&topic=QuickDraw)

~~~
_sh
Obviously I meant 'Steve Jobs _knew_ how important regions were'.

In a semi-related matter, does anyone know of the algorithm Bill used to draw
RoundRects 'blisteringly fast'?
[http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt&topic=QuickDraw)

~~~
Robin_Message
I've been intending to write a blog post retrospective on the workings and
algorithms of the quick draw library, but regions seemed too big a topic to
start with. You've given me an idea though: I'll have have a go at RoundRects
first and see if there is any interest.

------
bane
Finally a Gruber post I haven't felt forced to flag. A pretty good analysis,
excellent (as usual writing), interesting testable predictions plus just
enough Apple flag-waving so you don't forget which religion he follows.

 _edit_ reading through the comments shows a commensurate level of better
discussion than the usual Gruber response as well.

~~~
cooldeal
Err, he's wrong on ARM PCs not running desktop Windows, I don't see why this
wrong post needs to be on top of HN. It's like there's like zombies that seem
to have a need to auto upvote any post by Gruber. Maybe they're similarly
misinformed.

~~~
j_baker
Yes. Clearly someone is a zombie if they upvote a John Gruber article that
contains one false speculation. It _can't_ be that they found the rest of the
article appealing.

------
beloch
From the article:

"you can’t give iOS apps even the option to run continuously in the background
without sacrificing battery life and foreground app performance. But that’s
how Microsoft has positioned Metro for tablets — a modern touch interface that
carries the full CPU and RAM consumption of Windows as we know it. That have-
your-cake-and-eat-it-too attitude is what I didn’t get with Microsoft’s
positioning Metro as its answer to the iPad."

This is wrong. From Anandtech: ([http://www.anandtech.com/show/4771/microsoft-
build-windows-8...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/4771/microsoft-build-
windows-8-pre-beta-preview/7))

"discarded applications will continue to stay open as a background
application, having all of their memory pages intact but unable to schedule
CPU time so long as they’re a background application. They’ll remain in this
state until the OS decides to evict them, at which point they need to be able
to gracefully shut down and resume when the user re-launches the application.
Internally Microsoft calls this freezing and rehydrating an application."

Metro's approach sounds very similar to that of iOS and Android. Presumably
this behavior will be adjustable so that background processes can be allowed
on desktops without mobile power constraints. This is actually a really smart
way to do things. Make how the OS handles background apps a setting rather
than hard-coded architecture. e.g. If you're out and about using your tablet
background apps get quashed so that you get decent battery life. When you go
home and plug it into a dock you can leave a torrent downloading in the
background while you browse the web or play games. Best of both worlds.

~~~
pbz
Which proves he didn't even bother to watch the keynote. There was even a
piece of hardware that showed the power consumption during sleep. They also
showed the new task manager and specifically pointed out how the Metro apps
have been suspended (using 0% CPU, but still loaded in RAM).

~~~
silverlight
He later goes on to suggest that perhaps there will be no "traditional"
Windows on the tablet, only Metro, which he discusses having the same sorts of
backgrounding-and-suspending capability iOS enjoys. From the article:

It’s worth noting that Metro is more than just a new look, and more than just
putting touch first. Metro apps have similar restrictions to iOS apps.
According to Jensen Harris, for example, Metro apps will get “about five
seconds” after they’re no longer on-screen before the system puts them into a
suspended state. There’s no file manager. Users no longer quit (or, in Windows
parlance, exit) apps explicitly. These tradeoffs sound familiar?

...Did you (and the parent poster) simply read the Gruber article until you
could find something to nitpick, then go with it?

~~~
pbz
"He later goes on to suggest that perhaps there will be no "traditional"
Windows on the tablet, only Metro, which he discusses having the same sorts of
backgrounding-and-suspending capability iOS enjoys."

Which, again, proves he didn't watch the keynote. At one point they brought up
the scenario of using a tablet on the couch and then, after finding a bug,
being able to pull up Visual Studio on the same device. Even the tablet they
gave out came with VS installed on the device.

~~~
lloeki
It's an _Intel_ tablet. Gruber envisions a possible scenario where Metro-only
is on _ARM_ tablets.

~~~
pbz
That's a very narrow definition of a tablet. Regardless, they also showed at a
different conference the actual Windows desktop with Office running on ARM. If
it can run the full desktop it can Metro as well.

------
sambeau
Metro is really nice. It's great to see Gruber praising it like this: it is
very praiseworthy. Also, it's easy to forget that Gruber is first-and-foremost
a design geek.

~~~
steele
I thought he was an Apple shill first and foremost.

~~~
sambeau
Nope. You should read his rants about Helvetica…

~~~
blasdel
But those aren't really from a design perspective either. There's little about
what makes 'his' font work better, just potshots at the 'other' fonts that
suck because they don't copy his closely enough (except where they do, then
they're ripoff assholes).

He's a sportswriter, and his home teams are Apple, the Yankees, and Helvetica.

Rooting for dominant winners like that isn't so bad in itself, but he does it
as if they were still downtrodden losers in need of defenders — that's the
core of what makes him so _insufferable_

------
ethank
Metro to me, and I hate to say it, reminds me of MS Bob, and frankly of the
original Windows 3.1 except where in that case it was a layer on DOS, this
seems like a gloss on Windows 7. I hope for the sake of innovation I'm wrong,
but it is frankly more bizarre than Launchpad (and that's saying something).

Let me show: <https://skitch.com/ethank/f3drj/windows-8-x64-preview>

then <https://skitch.com/ethank/f3drc/windows-8-x64-preview>

and... <https://skitch.com/ethank/f3dr1/windows-8-x64-preview>

after you go back to metro:
<https://skitch.com/ethank/f3dri/windows-8-x64-preview>

dumped back into Metro with no context how you got out.

Thus: feels like a skin or window manager, not the OS.

~~~
eddiegroves
"like a gloss on Windows 7" - From what I've read[1] so far this is not the
case. The APIs that 'Metro style' apps use are built deep into Windows. In
fact it seems more like the opposite - legacy Windows is treated more like
another app that you can switch to, if you're on x86/x64 machine.

[1]
[http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-devel...](http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-developer-
preview-140546)

~~~
ethank
I'm speaking from the beta. The act of going between a "traditional" looking
UI and Metro and what is available in each is very disjointed.

~~~
joenathan
It's not a beta!

~~~
Lewisham
Yeah, exactly. It's alpha, and it feels that way. That the dev preview doesn't
resume state well when you go from Metro -> Desktop -> Metro didn't surprise
me in the slightest. I'm sure it's one of a litany of features and fixes
they're planning on.

------
technoslut
>I think Metro will only run alongside the traditional Windows desktop on
Intel PCs. On ARM devices, there will only be Metro.

It seems there will be a desktop mode for ARM tablets if you look 1:40 into
the video here:

[http://thisismynext.com/2011/09/14/nvidia-kal-el-
windows-8-t...](http://thisismynext.com/2011/09/14/nvidia-kal-el-
windows-8-tablet-hands-on/)

The desktop mode doesn't seem to immediately respond to touch like Metro. It
will be interesting to see the final product and how well Windows 8 performs
on an ARM processor in desktop mode.

~~~
roadnottaken
Is that really hot off the press, or did Gruber just miss this?

~~~
LokiSnake
Gruber just posted about it: <http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/14/for-
realsies>

------
zmmmmm
> Tradeoffs. Mutually exclusive tradeoffs. Separate devices are required. ...
> And you can’t give iOS apps even the option to run continuously in the
> background without sacrificing battery life and foreground app performance

This is a typical Gruberism of false logic. He starts with the notion that all
Apple's decisions are holy and right. He then derives conclusions by
extrapolating from that.

There is no reason that tablets cannot achieve fantastic battery life while
running background processes. They certainly need to be designed to achieve
it. Existing Android tablets support background processes and multitasking and
get comparable battery life to the iPad - typically we're talking a sacrifice
of < 10% battery life to achieve an incredible expansion of utility. And this
is not taking into account the fact that Android is a less efficient OS
overall (utilizing less hardware acceleration, running most tasks inside a
Dalvik VM instead of native, etc.) Even the iPad itself evidently does
background processing as you can have it play music, give you calendar
reminders and all kinds of other things happen _in the background_ even when
it is in sleep state.

~~~
ugh
Compared to desktop operating systems Android does very limited multitasking
or, to put it in another way, it is cleverer about multitasking (iOS, too).

Remaining backwards compatible while picking up such a new model of
multitasking is hard. Very hard. Apple made parts of it opt-in with Lion but
that’s not the same as requiring everyone to adhere to the model and today
hardly any app supports it.

Gruber simply sees this as a hard challenge that is, at least currently, not
solvable if Windows is to stay backwards compatible. That’s all. He might be
wrong but I think that position is quite sensible.

------
toddmorey
I think metro is very minimal and very clean. But it's also... cold. A bit too
austere. The goal for an interface isn't to impress--it's to connect. Somehow,
I've never felt a sense of connection with the Metro interfaces. It feels like
design borrowed from the annual report of a faceless international
corporation. All design; no personality. I like simple and clean. And I like
minimalism. But I also think you have to be careful with it or you'll end up
with something soulless. That, I think, is what has always subtly bothered me
about Metro.

~~~
ashr
As compared to what? A traditional desktop like interface with application
icons scattered over the background? As in... iOS?

One would think that the live tiles with continuously updated information show
more "connection" with the user.

~~~
pbz
From a purely aesthetic point of view, I kind of feel the same as toddmorey. I
find it too cold, too precise, too machine-like. It's like looking at a 3D
rendition of a face versus an actual picture. A little bit of roundness here
and there, subtle transparency, or at least shades of color could help.

------
nextparadigms
This is why Metro will make or break Windows. This is where the line is drawn
in the sand. Since ARM is the future together with touch based devices,
Microsoft will have to move over to ARM. The problem is they are _very_
vulnerable on ARM, because they have no apps there, and wanting millions of
apps on a tablet was kind of the whole reason you'd want Windows on a tablet.

But it won't work, because those apps won't be available on ARM, and even if
they were, they wouldn't be designed for touch. So Microsoft is starting from
scratch, and this time they have strong competition from both iOS and Android.

In this market, their Windows dominance doesn't matter as much, so they are on
equal footing with the others. And I find that very exciting. If you notice,
Microsoft is innovating only when it's the underdog in some way, not really
when it dominates.

So I hope 5 years from now we'll get to see iOS, Android and Windows with
about equal market share each for "personal computing devices", whatever that
means 5 years from now.

~~~
malbs
Keep in mind a lot of .net applications will run on x86 or arm with no effort
by the developer, ie no "simply recompile your application" either, it will
just run on either platform.

But you're right that they're exposed with no applications, which is why
they're basically giving windows 8 beta/vs11express away to any and all who
are prepared to download it, they need to catch up, and quickly

------
modeless
There will be ARM laptops, not just tablets, and they will run Microsoft
Office in classic mode or nobody will buy them. Office on ARM has already been
demoed on stage.

------
indrax
>You can ask Mac apps to behave like iOS apps, which is what Lion’s Automatic
Termination feature does, but it has to be opt-in.

Virtualization could enable you to run a legacy app, stop its processing
instantly, bring up a new app, and save the 'background app' state to storage
when it's convenient.

This seems to be where they are heading. I don't know how it would translate
to ARM tablets, but intel wants in on tablets anyway.

[http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/08/03/windows-8-to-
have...](http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/08/03/windows-8-to-have-
unprecedented-virtualization-prowess/)

~~~
dpark
The OS can stop any process at any time and resume it later. There's no need
for virtualization here.

------
Steko
Contra-Gruber I'm betting ARM Windows 8 devices will have some mode that looks
and feels just like Windows desktop. It may not be the default and it may be a
dumbed down version of it but I can't imagine them shipping without it.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
I believe it's already confirmed that Win8 ARM devices will indeed be Metro-
only - no legacy Desktop whatsoever.

~~~
crenshaw
I don't think that's true. Can you point to a source? I've heard and seen only
the opposite.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
[http://seekingalpha.com/news-
article/1823690-windows-8-metro...](http://seekingalpha.com/news-
article/1823690-windows-8-metro-shows-off-microsoft-tablet-but-keeps-apps-at-
a-distance)

"Furthermore, applications for the ARM version of Windows 8 will only be
available through the "Windows Store" - and only apps compiled to use its
"Metro" touch interface will appear there."

~~~
ryanhuff
Engadget says otherwise.

[http://m.engadget.com/default/article.do?artUrl=http://www.e...](http://m.engadget.com/default/article.do?artUrl=http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/13/windows-8-store-
to-sell-both-metro-style-apps-and-conventional-w/&category=classic&postPage=1)

------
seanalltogether
_I had been reading statements like this as meaning that they wouldn’t be
doing Rosetta-style emulation of x86 software on ARM...but that developers
would be able to recompile traditional Windows apps for ARM. Now I’m thinking
what they mean is more profound: that on ARM, Metro will be the only Windows
interface._

I think that's a very black and white way of looking at it. Sure maybe MS will
rule out C++ x86 apps targeting winforms apis, but there's no reason to assume
that they will also exclude C# apps targeting WPF.

------
aik
>I’m hung up on the question of how any OS that lets you do everything Windows
does could compete with the iPad, because the iPad’s appeal and success is
largely forged by the advantages that come from not allowing you to do so many
of the things Mac OS X can do.

So you're saying the iPad is successful because it can't do stuff OS X can do?
Sorry I don't understand -- that sounds a bit silly to me. I thought it was
the portability and size and ease of access to apps (the ecosystem around the
device) that makes the iPad successful. If we could have the hardware power of
a desktop system on an iPad, while keeping the simplicity of use, I'm fairly
sure we would all like that.

With every step Apple is moving OS X closer to iOS, and iOS closer to OS X.
Will they ever combine the two? I see no reason why they couldn't eventually
with the amazingly quick progression of the relevant technologies that we're
seeing.

Now whether MS is doing the right thing by combining them now -- I'm OK with
saying I have no idea until I actually play with the device. Maybe they can
pull it off, maybe not.

~~~
statictype
_I thought it was the portability and size and ease of access to apps (the
ecosystem around the device) that makes the iPad successful._

All of these things are possible because of the restrictions in iOS.

For example, the lack of a filesystem forces apps to have a more simplified
data access mechanism[1].

The good battery life and response time comes from the fact that the OS puts
severe limits on what each app can do.

[1] - There's an escape hatch of course, with something like Dropbox

~~~
cooldeal
> the lack of a filesystem

What?! How are files stored on iOS if there's no filesystem? Maybe you mean no
user visible filesystem?

~~~
shinratdr
What!? I thought you had an actual concern! Maybe you're just being needlessly
pedantic?

------
jonpaul
I feel like one of the few who sees the emperor with no clothes.

Let me first start by stating that I do believe that touchscreen devices will
continue to revolutionize industries, as they already have. But, why in God's
name are Microsoft and Apple trying to shoehorn the touch-screen onto the
desktop?

Mac OS X Lion is probably the last OS X version that we'll see. With each
version it's gotten closer and closer to behaving like iOS. It seems that
Microsoft is doing the same with Windows 8. Think about this, the human-device
interface with touchscreen devices and desktop is different. The whole
paradigm is different. With touch, you have your finger. The other, you have
mouse/keyboard. The user interfaces that cater to one don't cater to other
very well. Why force it?

I believe mobile is the future. But, I'm not sure this is the best evolution
for desktop interfaces.

TL;DR: Metro UI looks nice, but merging touchscreen UI with desktop UI is a
mistake... a la same Windows 8 for all devices.

EDIT: Please share your thoughts.

~~~
ashr
Have you ever experienced coworkers discussing something in front of the
computer and touching the monitor screen time and again to point out things?
It is not the most popular use case, but it does show that touching a screen
to interact with a desktop is a natural inclination. Even with a desktop.

~~~
eropple
I don't agree that it's a natural inclination for _working_. For talking to
someone else, okay, but touching the monitor for actually doing work is a fast
route to gorilla arm.

------
12390ut90
Would his opinion have been any different if metro was the only mode available
while undocked and classic PC mode was only available while docked?

Metro looks like it competes with iPad and the rest seems to be a version of
Win7 under the hood. It feels to me like cmd is to windows as windows is to
metro; something under the hood for power users.

I can imagine taking my computer on the bus and reading hacker news in metro
and then when I get to work I plug into a dock and open visual studio. That
seems to be the vision and I think I like it.

I'd have to control what was going on in the background of my computer when I
was undocked, but if I'm enough of a user to set up background server like
processes then I should be clever enough to understand that heavy background
processing will eat my battery if I don't act responsibly when I unplug it.

The new more powerful ways to do diagnostics are exactly the type of tools I'd
want to be able to control power; so it really feels like MS has a similar
vision.

------
bgarbiak
I don't know why everyone (well, ok, I know why Gruber does that) focuses on
Apple and iPad after seeing Windows 8. IOS is an established system, with a
healthy ecosystem of developers and apps. IPhone and iPad dominate the mobile
market with ease. That won't change anytime soon. Besides, Apple had showed in
the past that they can survive living as a Microsoft competitor. They will do
just fine. Who should be worried about Windows 8 is Google. Android tablets
didn't set the world on fire, Chrome OS from the very beginning looks like a
low-profile project. And here comes Windows 8 which offers the same thing as
Chrome OS (cloud, HTML5/JS apps, etc.) and does that in a better fashion than
Honeycomb. Plus, it will run Windows software. Apple users learned to live
without Windows software, Google users - didn't. Considering the fact that
Microsoft will offer an integration with Bing, Skype, Hotmail and your latest
Nokia phone by default even the great Google services could be in trouble.

------
buddydvd
It will only be a matter of time before mobile phones start replacing laptops
for desktop-like use cases. People will likely use their phones as if they
were laptops with wirelessly-connected keyboard, mouse, and screen. I can
totally see businesses start buying Windows-ready phones for their employees
than the alternatives.

~~~
gwright
Eric Raymond describes this sort of transition here:
<http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1759>

------
bradwestness
I think the more likely interpretation is that they're "betting on the
future"; i.e. that tablet and other "portable" devices will continually get
more powerful and that letting services and applications run in the background
will continually become less and less of a problem. Seems like a pretty safe
bet to me.

------
cptskippy
This isn't really a ground breaking revelation but something that MS has been
hinting at for months if not years. Win32 was never suppose to be so tightly
integrated in the Kernel, it was suppose to be a user mode subsystem just
POSIX.

MinWin was a kernel cleanup effort that was suppose to be part of Longhorn and
then Win7. If MinWin is finished in Win8 then Win32 would just be a subsystem
along side Metro and neither would be dependent on the other or necessary for
the other to operate.

I can't find the reference but I remember reading somewhere a few months back
that Win32 may not even be installed by default in Win8 and that it would only
be installed when you attempted to load an application that needed Win32.

------
latch
I'm guessing Microsoft doesn't know yet how it's going to address this
quandary.

------
xradionut
As a long time third-party Windows developer, I don't call the rectangular
regions "Windows" I call them frames or containers.

Also a few questions could be answered by downloading the Developer Preview.
The Windows 7 desktop still exists, (thankfully for these of us that need to
get our jobs done), but how a user will use Metro on a desktop or laptop will
probably be dependent on their tasks and desires. As database application
developer and admin, I'll be sticking to the desktop and the CLI a majority of
the time.

------
tomlin
Bias is one thing, but this relatively picky, especially for Gruber who can't
stand when people pick apart Apple pre-dev.

I love Apple, but I really respect what Microsoft is trying to do here. The
whole "You did great, kid, but maybe next time..." routine is a little much.
It smells like a smear campaign more than an inquiring mind. This article
stinks of fear.

------
redthrowaway
>You can’t ... remotely log into an iPad.

Tell that to Aaron Barr. I know the iPad wiping story isn't confirmed, but it
would be pretty easy to refute were such a thing impossible.

------
Tichy
I remember Apple claiming that the iPhone runs OS X.

~~~
cptskippy
OS X and iOS are both running the Darwin OS with a different User Land UI
running on top.

------
cooldeal
Gruber's wrong on this. The ARM version will include the regular Windows
desktop, Office etc. Microsoft has shown this multiple times. They have demoed
even ARM desktops with a mouse and a keyboard!

Video back from January: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvzJmRBS84w> (watch
from 2 mins in).

~~~
DavidSJ
Just because they demoed it that way doesn't mean they'll ship it that way.

------
schiptsov
Who needs Windows that cannot run their old lovely trojan.exe and
virus.exe^W^W^W old-proprietary-crap.exe and in-house-crap.exe that was
developed 10 years ago and all contacts of the developers, leave alone
sources, got lost or never been made?

The ability to run an old win32 desktop crap.exe is what Windows is all about.
Only a complete idiot will choice it as a platform for a new, build from the
ground up project, or, god forbid, a server.

And there is enough ways to run a web-browser, especially plug-in-less one. It
is called Android. ^_^

