

IPad iOS 5 vs Windows 8 Slate [video] - sytelus
http://www.winrumors.com/ipad-ios-5-vs-windows-8-slate-video/

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tintin
After seeing this video it appeared to me both interfaces are quite bad for
first time users. Most HN readers won't have a problem with it, but concepts
like multiple desktop-pages are very hard to understand for first time users.

Overall I think iOS is much better for first time users. Take the unlock
screen for example. On iOS you see you need to unlock it. On W8 you don't have
a clue. After pushing around you might notice you can slide the screen up.
It's a strange concept.

But I have to admit W8 is looking very clean, very customizable. I think this
will be good competition for the iOS.

~~~
dorian-graph
The Win8 lockscreen being confusing depends on the context. For example, a
first time user buys a Win8 slate there's probably a basic 'This is how to
unlock' tip somewhere, I imagine. Also, seeing average users pick up wild
Android unlock schemes I think they'd be okay. :P Though, if they suddenly
started playing with a friend's slate the exploring of the interface would be
interesting to watch.

~~~
kevingadd
Android is an interesting point of comparison because the lock screen on the
Galaxy S2 is exactly like the Windows 8 lock screen. When I first got the
phone, it took me _minutes_ to figure out how to unlock it. I handed it to a
couple friends and asked them to figure out how to unlock the phone and they
struggled as well.

On the other hand, I feel like somehow the feedback for the Windows 8 version
of unlock is a little bit better - it responds to the swipe a little bit
quicker. I do fear that it creates a bad starting point for your first
experience with the device though - going into it confused isn't a good thing.

A lot of the gestural input in Win8 feels like it relies on blind exploration
to discover how to use the device, unless someone teaches you. In a way, that
could be a good idea - encouraging the device's owner to explore and play with
gestures - but I think the risk of features remaining hidden and undiscovered
is pretty significant.

~~~
saturdaysaint
Good points. The chromeless IE interface looks like another example where
users will chafe. I can go completely "chromeless" in Chrome for OSX but I
never do because seeing open tabs and having immediate access to extension
buttons at all times is too important. I imagine less seasoned users will feel
the same way about the URL bar and their favorites.

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rix0r
I kind of like the "picture password" option. It shows innovation in an area
that badly needs some (authentication) and should be easier to remember for
many people than a PIN code, I think.

Picture passwords would be harder to write down, but I'm not yet sure whether
that's a negative or a positive.

~~~
davidedicillo
"should be easier to remember for many people than a PIN code"

Until that day you forgot your tablet home and you had to explain your wife
where to tap in order to retrieve that document you need. :)

~~~
thenduks
This problem is solved by simply keeping documents on a server somewhere (I
hesitate to say 'the cloud', but that's the marketing term for it) instead of
only on the device.

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latch
It seems like touch is more natural on Apple devices...maybe people are just
trained for it by now, but he seemed to have less difficulty with getting the
iPad to do what he wants it to do. Many times he had to try his gesture a 2nd
or 3rd time on the Windows 8 tablet.

~~~
pohl
A lot of development time has gone into the gesture recognizers in iOS. My
understanding is that they we're not easy to get right, having a lot of
subtlety and edge cases, especially when a given view employs several if them
and they need to disambiguate between multiple possible gestures.

Win8 will get there in time, and already has at least one that I would like to
see iOS shamelessly copy: the ability, when drag-moving an icon, to employ a
finger from another hand to swipe from page to page. Awesome!

~~~
Terretta
> _the ability, when drag-moving an icon, to employ a finger from another hand
> to swipe from page to page. Awesome!_

OS X does this on laptops and magic trackpad, you can drag and drop icons that
way. iOS supports the drag with one finger/nav with another as well--try it
with a text selection handle with your left index and scrolling the page with
your right. But to your point, home screen icon moving doesn't use that
gesture.

------
exit
i'm really surprised to find myself more impressed with microsoft's metro
style than ios. i wish android had gone with something extremely minimalistic
like this.

~~~
acous
I'm with you there. I'm normally an Apple fanboy, but iOS is looking cluttered
and dated beside Metro.

~~~
llambda
At first I was really impressed with the Metro-style home screen. But as I
watched this video, actually, for the first time, having now seen Metro
several times, I realized that there was something about it I didn't like: I
think it came down to the constant movement on the home screen. It actually
reminds me of web banner ads. Now I'm sure that's configurable but I think I
understand why that wouldn't be desirable. Of course that said I'm sure that's
the kind of thing some people will love.

~~~
kabdib
Live tiles are great; on my Windows Phone 7 I can get a lot of context just by
looking at few tiles in the "root" display (time, the next meeting I'm in --
hopefully not many -- email count, etc.)

I used an iPhone for a couple of years, and would hate to go back.

I was surprised how static and dull the iPad looked; just a bunch of dead
icons that don't do anything for you. Reminded me a lot of the desktop in
Windows 3.1

~~~
barista
The other thing to realize is that you don't stay on the home screen for long.
You see if there are any inrestesting notifications and then move on to what
you want to do.

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tekacs
What bothers me is that it looks distinctly like Win8 wouldn't run very
effectively on tablets of smaller screen sizes - even with the size it's at,
for those of us who are heavy users I don't think it's even beginning to match
iOS's information density - the iOS 5 homescreen should hold a lot more data
than, say, the alert icons or the data 'streaming' into the panels - how often
does one sit at that screen staring at it anyway?

~~~
pohl
Wasn't metro started as Windows Phone 7, though? What did they change that
would keep it from scaling back down to a smaller screen?

~~~
kenjackson
In Windows 8 you can two apps running concurrently, but only at screen size of
width of something like 1366. So many tablets won't get his functionality at
all.

And multitasking on Win8 seems much worse than WP7, although that's not a
scale issue. The WP7 multitasking seems better almost regardless of size.

------
shinratdr
Wow, that comment thread is like a black hole. I ventured way too close.

~~~
cubicle67
I read your comment, then went back to have a look. One day I'll learn...

The video, however, I thought was one of the most level and unbiased
comparisons I've ever seen. Didn't go into a lot of depth (probably hard
because Win8 is still largely incomplete), but what it did cover it did well.

