I don't PERSONALLY believe that, it was made known a while ago in this one article I read about which PC was the best for Windows 8. But it's true nonetheless, a clean copy of Windows 8.1 is better than an OEM customized copy of Windows with crapware galore.
This is true enough, every HP or Samsung or Sony or Packard Bell (if they still make those) computer is chock-full of wild tangent crapola. After I get my hands on say a new HP, and I delete every vestige of that garbage including the HP software that is supposed to be helpful I just take it all out except for anything that that controls the buttons or something. THEN, and only then, do I have a machine that is very close to the speed of a MacBook Pro running Boot Camp. But it's not just the speed of a Windows OS running on a MacBook, it's just that the hardware that they have in the thing is better hardware then what you can normally get for a PC.
The Windows Store DOES have productivity apps in it, like all of Adobe's creation software...
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But the thing is, to have a Windows Store listing for Desktop apps, they need to meet requirements like being digitally signed and whatnot.
That is, if you can FIND THEM. The window store is very difficult to navigate: it is not sectioned off properly, there are no categories really- well, there are categories but they are not laid out properly, so that when you start searching through the media apps, you will see the same crappy one dollar - $10 apps (that usually have no trial so you can determine if you really want to waste your money on it ) that are in the productivity section and they are all garbageware. Garbageware made by basically the same guy if you look at whoever makes it, and even when there are different names, the names represent the same guy. it is the same person who made about 50 VLC related apps that have nothing to do with VLC whatsoever, and they all cost $10, and they are all worthless according to everybody who posts a review- because they were suckered into buying it and now there is no refund.
On the other hand, the Apple Store when you look into the categories you do not see the same apps repeated over and over again, you'll see very different apps in every section. And, there are always free versions that you can install just to get the feel of it and I have bought a lot of apps because they had free versions.
Now I am sure that there are useful productivity apps in the window store but somebody is going to have to make me a roadmap so that I can be led directly to the download page because I don't have time to spend 2 1/2 hours searching for them because that's what you have to do, they are not evident when you try to go into the area where you think that they are going to be. And the search function it does not reveal the programs that you were looking for it reveals the garbageware- because the creators of the garbageware apps have set it up so that their garbage will show up instead of the useful product that you were searching for. This has never ever happened to me in the Apple Store, every time I have searched for a specific item I get that item only in the results and not all of the copy garbage apps.
Eight inch tablets are something I will never understand. The Dell Venue Pro 8 is a prime example of what the hell? It's an Atom based PC and an 8 inch screen. Effectively, you really need to stay in the Modern UI of things because you can't properly use the Desktop with a screen that small. You can, but you have to keep open windows maximized and use the stylus for sure to interact with it. That's a form factor size IDEAL for Windows RT with ARM...but I guess not. Then there are the giant phablets out there... People want giant smartphones and smaller tablets. LOGIC.
Okay I see it's the size that you're complaining about. Well I've never owned an original iPad. I have full around with my brothers iPad and I liked it because I can sit at his kitchen table and I have a little computer there that I can just sit there and manipulate it's really nice. But it weighs almost a half a pound and is very bulky.
However it does feel like you got something of quality and your hands but when I picked up this iPad mini out of the box it's less than an eighth of an inch thick and weighs like a few grams, a little less than my iPhone 4S. and the screen I mean it's not even a retina screen and it does not hurt my eyes.
But Innoway I was prepared for the smaller screen because at the beginning of December last year I bought a "double power" (DoPo) 7 inch tablet- which was actually a rockchip M7088, there are about $200 tablets I got that one for $70, on Black Friday because I was going to buy a TRIO tablet from RadioShack but I didn't get there in time. Those were $50 and they had a dual core processor but only 512 ram.
So I got on Amazon and started licking 47 inch tablets I found the dopo M7088, it was 1.6 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, it had the HDMI output and a slot for a 32 GB card. But mostly is that it was on sale for 70 bucks so I bought it immediately.
But when I got it I couldn't believe the level of cheapness it was just very shoddy merchandise, the power adapter was a mini barrel adapter very easy to manhandle and mess up, and indeed I tripped over the power cord and I bent the connector.
And to top it off I could not root it, it was resistant to rooting because when I brought it up into the rooting software before I even tried to root it, it said that it was already rooted but it was not rooted, as there was no root access whatsoever!
And then I went to my Christmas party at my in-laws house and I had just been joking with my brother that I kind a wanted an iPad and he suggested I get an iPad mini and I said well I can't afford to pay for one outright, but I could make payments. so what does he do? he gives me an iPad mini for Christmas!
And I kept on using the M7088, as I had some programs installed on it, remote programs I was using it to control my TV and it was okay but it has a capacitive touchscreen and it would make you tap several times before I recognize the tap!
But when I set up the iPad and moved my programs into it it was like butter! I barely had to tap on the screen it had much cooler animations and regardless of only having 16 GB it was just a much better tablet then the DoPo- so I bundled up that the dope oh I installed some useful programs into it that I removed all my information and I gave it to my friend and she loves it - she's never had a tablet in her life she thinks it's like the coolest thing in the world but she's never had an iPad.
I'll say that there were a couple of neat things I could do with the M7088, but maybe four days after I got the iPad mini, the Evad3rs jailbroke iOS 7 so I'm still learning what I can do with this thing, I've installed so many modifications and I've got so much more use out of it now.
But lately I have been bringing this thing with me out to work. The smaller size allows me to stick it right in my leather jacket pocket. I have installed tetherme into my iPhone 4S, so I can use Bluetooth to connect my iPad to my iPhone, and that gives my iPad access to everything that my iPhone can do everything except maybe a dialer but I suppose I could get some software that would do that too.
I'm still sorting out what I can do but I've found this thing very useful out in the field- I can access it to bring up files that are stored on my home computer, and I can move them into the computer where I am working and that is a very useful service. I could not do that with the droid tablet. Also the droid tablet was brand-new but it only had a droid version 4.1 jellybean on it! You would think a brand-new droid device would have the very latest droid operating system on it.
But that's not how droid devices are, they put the operating system in there that's going to run the best on that device- which is kind of lame. In fact I think Droid is kind of lame, except for a couple of devices where I saw 4.4 running and that looks like a pretty good operating system right there, it is at least way better than 4.1.
But the more that I used iOS 7 especially in my iPhone work where I had not intended to install it- The more I realize it's a much better operating system iOS 6. It just gives you different ways to use Bluetooth then existed in iOS 6 more useful ways, I can connect Bluetooth hard drives mice and keyboards which I could install on iOS 6 but not with such ease.
Still between my two Apple devices and their connection to two windows eight computers, one Mac PowerPC with 10.5.8, and a Windows 7 machine, I rarely have to move out of my chair when I'm working on something, I used to have to get up constantly and move between computers but this way I've got everything right at my fingertips, it has been coming in handy at home, but yesterday I found out it is more than handy out in the field as I can do the same thing with client computers too, and I can connect to my home computers as well- so when I'm out in the field I've got full use of all of my systems, local and remote.
The arguments about the windows store versus the Apple Store, that's moot, also it's a preferential thing. Because they build these stores and these services right into the device and the operating system. they kind of wanted windows eight on a PC to act more like a device so they included the store, and it has been, what, two years now? And the windows store is not any more useful to me now that it was the first time I looked through there and tried to find useful programs.
But as far as the operating system I'll use Windows 8 probably longer then I used Windows 7, and I still use that.
You see, if Windows 8 was an experiment on getting more cross-platform usage, then it was a smashing success, regardless of if the store sucks or not. I consider the windows store the least useful aspect of Windows 8. But the high usefulness of every other part supersedes the uselessness of the store.
Whereas in iOS six or seven, even iOS one through five, The store is simply there to allow you to load the programs that you have gotten used to using. Which, by now, as a set list of programs: because I don't go searching for things in the Apple Store either- because I know what I need and I know what I want, I just go straight in and I get my programs and then I'm out of the store.
However I use the Cydia store several times a day, I am always looking through there for new modifications. I think I have bought more paid cYdia modifications then I have bought regular Apple Store apps, heh.