I believe Win 8 is going to be another Windows Vista

[Ray8]

OK, I didn't understand what you meant.

 

[aramil]

Way back when Windows 95 introduced the Start button, I saw the same arguments in reverse. In Windows 3.1, we did the equivalent of pinning by putting the app's launch icon on the desktop or in a folder (like fences does).

There was a huge controversy when the Start button was introduced, about how it was better, easier for people to find stuff, etc.

It was then argued that this was Microsoft forcing users to do it there way (no program manager and so not giving customers the choice), and that users would be loosing the customization they where used to. That the start button hid software away in layers of menus, (why do I have to click through all these menus to run something, when I used to just open a folder and it is there)

Then the point that people thought the taskbar would become cluttered (as they liked to arrange there minimized programs on the desktop or in the task switcher)

Add to the fact that almost everything needed to have new drivers (or new certified hardware).

Also you had to upgrade any software package you used (well most of them).

And that is just scratching the surface (not including Microsoft's statement about phasing out DOS in the years to come. (How dare they!))

Microsoft was doomed then to........

My first PC was an IBM 8086 4.77 MHz using 8 inch floppies (when floppy discs where..... floppy) with a green tone screen with PC-DOS 1, and have worked through MS-DOS/DR-DOS/NDOS(4DOS)/Xenix/Unix/GEM-Desktop/OS2/Linux & Windows, and every time any software company does something major to an OS this happens.

 

[mbratch]

Well my rational response would be that MS looked into a crystal ball and saw a very dark future being led by Google and Apple and that they could end up beside RIM.

I don't think they would have liked that very much so they had to make some tough decisions, do something or sit back and die.

I agree, and commend MS for seeing this and trying to do something.

The world is turning to touch so that's the path they took, they also made the bold step of one OS to fit everything and this is probably what is piddling most people off.

Therein lies the problem. Microsoft took a technology-centric view, not a user-centric view. I've used Windows products a long time and only used Apple products a little. I'm not an Apple phanboy, but every time I do use one, I just feel, "Wow, this is easy to use and figure out". As much as Windows fans want to dis Apple, and certainly they've had their duds, their successes have been because they've focused on what the user does and needs. Per the long video that describes how MS decided to do Windows 8, people will step out of what they're comfortable with into something new and innovative *if* it gives them a big benefit or improvement in usability.

What I can't understand is why, I don't find it that much different except for metro and a few things are in different places. What I really can't understand why now 6 months later we're still talking about Vista and all the doom and gloom. Windows 7 is still there for those who want it and Windows 8 is there for those who want to move on.

That's the issue. What you're saying is that Windows 8 really isn't an innovation (contrary to what MS was trying to do). It's a Metro UI (a full screen start menu) slapped on top of a familiar Windows, and the Metro UI, in the opinion of many users (not all) doesn't benefit them because it seems to assume a touch screen for optimum usability. They see it as getting in their way of what they use a PC for. MS made this change because they concluded, from historical examples, that innovation takes users away from what their comfortable with. However, they seem to have forgotten that such an innovation must be more than just different. It must be more useful in some way (integrates and simplifies what the user used to do in other ways) and not just give them a different way that they have to learn.

Is the hatred for MS that bad that everyone wants to bury it and live in an Apple world, or can we just put up with the changes. Me, I want to see where Windows 8 will end up, I find all the new tablets and convertible touch notebooks exciting, I just wish more people could see what I can see.

I'm sure some people "hate" MS. I don't "hate" them. I used to, because I always saw MS as spending most of their energy trying to lock me into their technology and inhibit me from benefiting from other, frankly, better ones. In the current case, though, I just don't find Windows 8 of any benefit to me as a user. I understand the technical reasons why it's good to consolidate OS environments. There are even some good user reasons to consolidate them. But, it's not always the right thing to do for the user. Maybe future changes in the OS and/or our hardware platforms will improve this for Windows 8.

 

[Tepid]

No that is not all that it is. The unified OS is supposed to help programmers create apps that be used
Across all platforms and synch with each other. It is far more than just a GUI. And that is where people
Stop and lose sight of the bigger picture and the one not being talked about.

And on top of that, there is even more. But OMG, THAT GUI ..... RRRRaAARrrrrr
Sent from my WP7

 

[gazz9496]

That's the issue. What you're saying is that Windows 8 really isn't an innovation (contrary to what MS was trying to do). It's a Metro UI (a full screen start menu) slapped on top of a familiar Windows, and the Metro UI, in the opinion of many users (not all) doesn't benefit them because it seems to assume a touch screen for optimum usability. They see it as getting in their way of what they use a PC for. MS made this change because they concluded, from historical examples, that innovation takes users away from what their comfortable with. However, they seem to have forgotten that such an innovation must be more than just different. It must be more useful in some way (integrates and simplifies what the user used to do in other ways) and not just give them a different way that they have to learn.

It also requires the purchase of additional hardware, that is essentially where they shot themselves in the foot.

how many 10 point multi touch monitors are there on the market?
how many of those are at a reasonable price point?
how many of you would be willing to part ways with your current 22"/24" led/3d monitors? that some may well have just bought.

what microsoft failed to do was look at the hardware market for desktops and just assumed manufacturers of touchscreen monitors would follow suit...but they haven't.

yes tablets are seeing a growing market, that's pretty natural really considering they are always improving and desktops for most users needs aren't improving at any fast pace, what i mean by that is a i7 bought 4 years ago is still perfectly good today, just the same as the older core 2 quad range are still usable for most applications that's years of potential use and no requirement for a new faster pc that doesn't actually work much faster unless your using certain applications.

but a tablet bought a few years ago is effectively redundant today, through lack of o/s updates that should have been available and improvments to the hardware they can fit in.

once a tablet hits the market that does enough and the hardware reaches a maturity and the o/s can last a few years you'll see a massive drop off in tablet sales simply because they won't need to be replaced.

you can not compare tablet sales to pc sales for those reasons.

just look at the sales of ipads, they are declining because the ipad 3 isn't much better than the ipad 2 so people don't feel the need to upgrade as the jump isn't high enough to warrant the purchase. nuff said.

 

[gazz9496]

No that is not all that it is. The unified OS is supposed to help programmers create apps that be used
Across all platforms and synch with each other. It is far more than just a GUI. And that is where people
Stop and lose sight of the bigger picture and the one not being talked about.

Sent from my WP7

not being talked about because it's stupid to assume a desktop user wants a crap phone app on their desktop/laptop.

lets play farmville for the wp8 but lets not play it on the phone lets play at 1920x1080 on a £3000 pc instead....yeah really never gonna happen.

 

[Mystere]

As far as touch goes, unless all you're doing is poking at icons to look at things, all is well. But the moment that you have to start interacting with whatever you have open ie typing, drawing, highlighting etc, your humble digits tend to fail miserably and you need a keyboard/mouse/stylus. That's where touch simply doesn't cut it.

This is the kind of argument that generates so much controversy, because it's based on a false premise. Your premise is that if you have touch, you don't have a keyboard or mouse. That's simply not the case. You can use touch *IN ADDITION* to your keyboard and mouse, so you can use touch when it's convenient (for instance, using gestures or to do quick selections or rotations or objects) and a keyboard when that's convenient (of course if you are on a tablet without an attached keyboard, you only have touch and an on-screen keyboard).

Nobody is trying to take away your keyboard or your mouse, so please stop pretending they are.

 

[Mystere]

It also requires the purchase of additional hardware, that is essentially where they shot themselves in the foot.

how many 10 point multi touch monitors are there on the market?

It doesn't *require* any such thing. If you want to use touch, then you need a touch device (which, by the way does not have to be a monitor, there are touch pads available that enable the same functionality for a fraction of the price of a touch screen). If you don't want to use touch, then you don't have to. Please, people.. stop making specious arguments that aren't based in reality. Nobody is forcing you to use touch, or to buy any new hardware (other than if your CPU isn't capable of running it).

but a tablet bought a few years ago is effectively redundant today, through lack of o/s updates that should have been available and improvments to the hardware they can fit in.

No, tablets are a rapidly progressing market, and technology in tablets has increased exponentially in the last few years. Tablets from a few years ago were 500Mhz with 800x600 displays and resistive touch screens with poor touch resolution. If you were lucky enough to get something with capacitive touch, then you paid a pretty penny for it. Today it's a mandatory feature.

once a tablet hits the market that does enough and the hardware reaches a maturity and the o/s can last a few years you'll see a massive drop off in tablet sales simply because they won't need to be replaced.

Yes, but that time is probably 5-10 years away. Look at the phone market, it's now > 5 years old and it shows no sign of slowing down.

just look at the sales of ipads, they are declining because the ipad 3 isn't much better than the ipad 2 so people don't feel the need to upgrade as the jump isn't high enough to warrant the purchase. nuff said.

No, the iPad 3 sales are dropping off because the iPad 4 came out, less than 6 months after the iPad 3 came out... doesn't that more or less kill your argument?

 

[Bo Jangles]

I will argue that if & when tablet sales drop off, it will be due to some newer paradigm. Finger-tracking stereo-glasses, perhaps? After that.. well, I'm already speculating.. Suffice to say there will always be new markets in technology; things will never be "good enough".

 

[Mystere]

Not to mention that tablets, by their nature, much like phones tend to take a lot of abuse. Desktops, not usually so much (funny videos of guys bashing their computers aside). So they will break far more often than desktops, and probably somewhat more often than laptops, as people seem to treat laptops with more care.

 

[gazz9496]

It also requires the purchase of additional hardware, that is essentially where they shot themselves in the foot.

how many 10 point multi touch monitors are there on the market?

It doesn't *require* any such thing. If you want to use touch, then you need a touch device (which, by the way does not have to be a monitor, there are touch pads available that enable the same functionality for a fraction of the price of a touch screen). If you don't want to use touch, then you don't have to. Please, people.. stop making specious arguments that aren't based in reality. Nobody is forcing you to use touch, or to buy any new hardware (other than if your CPU isn't capable of running it).

you just agree'd with me....you need a touch device...confused.

but a tablet bought a few years ago is effectively redundant today, through lack of o/s updates that should have been available and improvments to the hardware they can fit in.

No, tablets are a rapidly progressing market, and technology in tablets has increased exponentially in the last few years. Tablets from a few years ago were 500Mhz with 800x600 displays and resistive touch screens with poor touch resolution. If you were lucky enough to get something with capacitive touch, then you paid a pretty penny for it. Today it's a mandatory feature.

kind of my point? so they are redundant as they can not run current apps, how does that change the fact that tablets can only go so far without a serious shift in how chips are made?...again you just improved on my point...mystere are you trolling?

once a tablet hits the market that does enough and the hardware reaches a maturity and the o/s can last a few years you'll see a massive drop off in tablet sales simply because they won't need to be replaced.

Yes, but that time is probably 5-10 years away. Look at the phone market, it's now > 5 years old and it shows no sign of slowing down.

the phone market will change as different devices come to the fore and change the way we communicate, communication is a very different industry and not something you can compare with the tablet or IT industry as a whole, telecoms will always be an ever changing and advancing industry, but that doesn't mean the mobile phone market will follow it, their are already alternative options in R&D that may see a market release but not for some time. way to go for assuming the mobile phone industry won't go through changes as the years go by.

the tablet market will hit a brick wall of tech advances far far sooner, you can only shrink a dye so far before you reach a point of no progress with current silicon based chips, the desktop market is no different on that front either. when it happens for tablets is decided when the consumers get what they need out of a tablet and don't need anything more, that's not decided by tech firms that's decided by consumers.

just look at the sales of ipads, they are declining because the ipad 3 isn't much better than the ipad 2 so people don't feel the need to upgrade as the jump isn't high enough to warrant the purchase. nuff said.

No, the iPad 3 sales are dropping off because the iPad 4 came out, less than 6 months after the iPad 3 came out... doesn't that more or less kill your argument?

you should have done some checking, the ipad 4 doesn't exist, it is the ipad 3 just with some minor changes so it's just the ipad 3.5 or maybe i missed the massive marketing campaign for the ipad 4. in any case it is still sold as the ipad...not the ipad 3 not the ipad 4 just ipad and those sales are dropping.

and i was refering to apples market share that has dropped to 50% on all tablet revisions models types pick one....

maybe you shouldn't be so quick to infer a point and decide and argument is dead when it wasn't an argument just mere fact based on the sales, oh and that was over the last 2 sales quarters a 6 month period where apple have seen a decline in sales.

i'm starting to think you just want an argument for the sake of it.

 

[Chrono]

See, comments like, "it requires a touch device" just makes it seem as if you've never touched (bad pun, I know) the OS. Get a decent optical mouse that has more than 400 DPI and using the mouse is perfectly fine in 8 for pretty much everything. I haven't even bothered to use keyboard shortcuts lately.

 

[gazz9496]

ah yes sorry chrono, i was coming at that from a previous discussion and a different angle, looks worse there lol.

it was about how microsoft released metro for desktops with touch being the focus of metro and it does work really well under touch far better than with a mouse...and some other yada yada yada comments.

 

[mbratch]

See, comments like, "it requires a touch device" just makes it seem as if you've never touched (bad pun, I know) the OS. Get a decent optical mouse that has more than 400 DPI and using the mouse is perfectly fine in 8 for pretty much everything. I haven't even bothered to use keyboard shortcuts lately.

I would say it's "optimized for touch". I've used a mouse and a touchpad, and I'll say it's a little... um... "touchy". I mean, sure click here or there is fine. But closing an app, for example, is awkward (e.g., click-hold while swiping across the screen). Panning the screen is a bit of a pain with the mouse, but not so bad with a multi-touch touchpad. Overall, it's usable, sure. But it certainly doesn't make me say, "Wow, this is easier than using Aero", and it sometimes makes me say, "I think I'll stick with the desktop view". The Metro UI is the one thing that visibly really distinguishes Windows 8 from prior versions and on the desktop it's... meh.

 

[Chrono]

Ah, I gotcha. I have no doubt that touch on Metro would be preferable to using a mouse to navigate. A mouse is certainly doable though, unless it's an older mouse with a low dpi, or dare I say, a ball mouse. I switched my mouse to 450DPI just now and it was terrible. Currently using 1800-3500 (switch back and forth sometimes).

 

[Coke Robot]

Using a stylus is using touch. A finger can be used for most navigation, a stylus for a little more precision. So no need for a mouse. I think you're doing the touch thing wrong?

That would be good, having a phone being operated from a PC, but again, seeing as how you'd need to be in front of a PC to do that, I don't think would be attractive to most people. Interesting yes, appealing to most, not so much...

I can't be using touch incorrectly, because I'm not using it (Windows 8 has been deleted from my tablet and my PC doesn't have touch monitors).

A stylus is generally used for specialist applciations, such as photo editing, drawing etc, where a finger simply doesn't provide adequate precition, though it can be used for pecking when using tiny phone screens.

Actually, being able to connect a phone to a PC/notebook/tablet and use the phone interface almost natively is excellent and would appeal to many people. At home, if I receive text messages etc on the phone, I can simply connect it to the PC and use the PC to type and respond, rather than battling with the phone keyboard/screen.

When I'm out and about and need internet etc, I connect the phone to the tablet and can emulate the PC/phone capability I have at home. I tether the phone rather than use the tablet capability, because that means I only need one SIM card and account (for mobile and data) and my phone has significantly better reception than the tablet. A lot of business people and those who are frequently out and about would find this capability very handy.

Many people, when at home, may be lounging around with their tablet, with the mobile phone charging or whatever, so why not be able to wirelessly have the mobile phone connect to the tablet, so that you can use it directly from the tablet. Most of today's generation apparently don't use a mobile phone for voice anyway, so being able to text, mms etc via the tablet would be ideal.

A mobile phone, tablet/notebook, PC are all different tools for different purposes, none of them will likely ever become redundant and just because mobile phone sale will surpass that of other devices, is really only because these things become redundant almost annually, especially if on plans; whereas, PCs/notebooks/tablets usually see much longer term useage (other than Apple devices).

Yeah, styluses are used for those purposes. It's like using a pencil to draw something or sketch versus finger painting.

You know, I have think, why not just cut out the physical phone part altogether? I was considering signing up for an SMS service for Outlook, and using Skype for calling. On a tablet, use a SIM card for data, do the same.

 

[Mystere]

you just agree'd with me....you need a touch device...confused.

What part of "If you want to use touch.." and "If you don't want to use touch" is agreeing with you?

the tablet market will hit a brick wall of tech advances far far sooner, you can only shrink a dye so far before you reach a point of no progress with current silicon based chips, the desktop market is no different on that front either. when it happens for tablets is decided when the consumers get what they need out of a tablet and don't need anything more, that's not decided by tech firms that's decided by consumers.

Unlike current desktop processors, there's far more to a mobile processor than just shrinking the die. New power management techniques, more graphics capability (since graphics are now built-into most cpu's at this level), more cores, etc.. Shrinking the die does help with current drain, but Intel is still doing di shrinks and is on track for several more of them. One thing mobile CPU's don't have to worry about is packaging, because they don't have to be socketed, they can be soldered to the motherboard (and almost always are) so the number of pins is not a factor in the design.

you should have done some checking, the ipad 4 doesn't exist, it is the ipad 3 just with some minor changes so it's just the ipad 3.5 or maybe i missed the massive marketing campaign for the ipad 4. in any case it is still sold as the ipad...not the ipad 3 not the ipad 4 just ipad and those sales are dropping.

Actually, it's called the "4th generation" ipad, and it's brand name is "iPad with Retina Display". While the "3rd generation" ipad was branded as "The new iPad". And I wouldn't call it minor changes.. it has a new CPU that's twice as fast, has a new cellular chipset for LTE support, a better camera, Lightning port, and a doubling of WiFi speed.

It's certainly evolutionary, but it's not like they just slapped some more memory in it and put a new label on it. And if you have an iPad 3, it may not be worth the upgrade unless you're on Verizon.

and i was refering to apples market share that has dropped to 50% on all tablet revisions models types pick one....

and yet they've already sold millions of them.

 

[Mystere]

maybe you shouldn't be so quick to infer a point and decide and argument is dead when it wasn't an argument just mere fact based on the sales, oh and that was over the last 2 sales quarters a 6 month period where apple have seen a decline in sales.

i'm starting to think you just want an argument for the sake of it.

If you want to post facts, you'll get no argument from me. It's when you editorialize it, and make comments about the facts that you get argument. Also, your facts should be correct, or you will get corrected.

 

[Ray8]

This is the kind of argument that generates so much controversy, because it's based on a false premise. Your premise is that if you have touch, you don't have a keyboard or mouse. That's simply not the case. You can use touch *IN ADDITION* to your keyboard and mouse, so you can use touch when it's convenient (for instance, using gestures or to do quick selections or rotations or objects) and a keyboard when that's convenient (of course if you are on a tablet without an attached keyboard, you only have touch and an on-screen keyboard).

Nobody is trying to take away your keyboard or your mouse, so please stop pretending they are.

You've pretty much validated what I've said. You use touch to basically peck at things, but as soon as you need to do something more complex, you need a keyboard/mouse. Once you need to carry around a keyboard/mouse, you're going to use that anyway, as it becomes far more convenient. Also, for programs that require a keyboard/mouse, gestures are usually completely redundant.

If no one is trying to take away the keyboard/mouse, why take away the functionality of the Windows 7 desktop? Also, why the requirement for 1366x768 screen resolution, why doesn't Windows 8 work with any screen resolution?

 

[Ray8]

You know, I have think, why not just cut out the physical phone part altogether? I was considering signing up for an SMS service for Outlook, and using Skype for calling. On a tablet, use a SIM card for data, do the same.

Often the physical phone is a very valid tool. You hardly want to carry around a tablet or similar when you go shopping, but having a phone with you is handy. I smart phone is like a Swiss Army Knife, it can do a lot of handy things to get you out of a bind, buit it's not a substitute for a tool kit. But you're not likely to be carrying around a tool kit all the time.