

Will Windows 8 emphasis on Tablet features drive users to iPad? - josephcooney
http://getwired.com/2012/05/29/windows-8-who-moved-my-desktop/

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tsunamifury
I've been to the Windows 8 developer conferences and worked on getting an app
off the ground for launch... and I have to say the skitzo strategy of half
tablet half desktop environment is so much of a headache I decided to abandon
the platform. Designing a metro and desktop version of the app, then compiling
it for ARM and Intel. On top of that having to rebuild it for a phone.

I wasn't willing to risk my teams precious development time on a store that is
unproven and a product that looks confused and misguided. Several other
developers agreed at the conference.

I really don't know what Microsoft was thinking blending the tablet/desktop
and separating out the phone. It seems they think this will allow them to
claim a larger install base for 'apps' as their phone has dismal sales
performance. The evangelists kept repeating over and over that I'll have 500
million user audience as soon as it rolls out.

But the experience is a mess. Everyone in my office from seasoned techs to low
level non-techy interns has made a terrible face at windows 8, constantly
clicking around wondering what is going on.

For the record, I thought Vista was alright and Windows 7 was nice. But 8's
bifurcated touch/desktop strategy is good at neither and heading in a worse
and worse direction with each successive release.

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jarek
Betteridge's Law of Headlines: "Any headline which ends in a question mark can
be answered by the word 'no'".

~~~
josephcooney
For a 'law' it can be trivially dis-proven. "Is water wet?". I think the
article raises some legitimate questions about Windows 8 that can't be as
flippantly dismissed as your analysis of the punctuation suggests.

~~~
jarek
This doesn't disprove the adage as in practice no one would write a headline
or a HN submission link entitled "Is water wet?"

~~~
blackhole
Unless they do for the precise reason of proving you wrong and then arguing
against the point you are making.

~~~
stcredzero
This is the one time, "The exception that proves the rule," isn't sheer
nonsense, precisely because it is.

~~~
thomasjoulin
Did OP wrote his own title ? Currently the article is titled "Windows 8 – Who
moved my desktop?" which is an exception to Betteridge's Law.

~~~
jarek
"Windows 8 – Who moved my desktop?" was also the title when I saw the article
six hours ago shortly after it was submitted to HN. My comment was regarding
the title of the submission.

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AJ007
On the topic of pickup truck verse convertible car analogies -- Windows 8 may
end up being the Chevrolet SSR of operating systems. This chimera could may
end up doing both so poorly that it makes either OS X or iOS a clearly
superior choice.

~~~
josephcooney
Yes, that was one of the points I thought the article was driving at.

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blackhole
I've seen lots of people say Windows 8 will be the death of Microsoft. This is
about as accurate as saying Vista would be the death of Microsoft. In fact all
it's doing is cementing Microsoft's incredibly resilient tick-tock process -
release horrible OS, then awesome OS, then horrible OS, then awesome OS.
Windows 7 was awesome, therefore Windows 8 will be horrible. This is
ridiculously predictable.

~~~
majormajor
As far as power-users go, how far back does that really go?

My exposure started with Windows 2000. It was fantastic. It made me ditch Mac
OS 8.x full-time instead of just maintaining a 9x box for games. XP wasn't
horrible either. Sure, after that things stagnated for a long time—and that
led me to dally again with Macs and eventually switch back to OS X for my main
machine—but after the initial kinks were worked out Vista and 7 added some
much-needed things (especially 7, UI-wise).

But I agree that the "death of Microsoft" stuff is tiring. Personally, I'm
pretty excited to see how this goes, since I like what MS is doing to bring
touch-centered concepts to the desktop, and really don't like the direction
Apple is going with Lion/Mountain Lion. I just wonder if MS will iterate
quickly enough—Apple's release cycles may put a lot of pressure on them to get
an "8.1" out the door very quickly with the kinks worked out.

~~~
fpgeek
In the consumer OS space, the predecessor to Windows XP wasn't Windows 2000,
it was Windows ME (which was a disaster).

~~~
majormajor
Well, I don't think ME and Vista fit anything like the same pattern. Vista was
an extremely messy release but nevertheless brought several big underlying
improvements. ME didn't. It wasn't a "tick" at all. Trying to fit it and Vista
into the same pattern is getting too pattern-happy.

And even in the consumer space, how long do you have to go back before ME to
find a dud? Windows 2?

~~~
fpgeek
Well, I'd say ME is at least related to the pattern. IIRC, it wasn't supposed
to exist at all. You could describe it as a "failure-to-tick": Microsoft
wasn't ready to switch to the Windows NT codebase for a consumer version of
Windows, so we got Windows ME (note that XP came out about a year later).

That being said, I agree that the pattern doesn't go back beyond ME. Which
does make me wonder: what changed?

