Microsoft to shake-up Windows 8 Start screen

Microsoft to shake-up Windows 8 Start screen

Microsoft will make changes to the Windows 8 Start screen based on user feedback, according to a company executive.Speaking to PC Pro in London today, the company's general manager of platform strategy, Tim O'Brien, suggested next month's Windows 8 beta will make amendments to the divisive Start screen menu.The Windows 8 Start screen currently defaults to the new, tile-based Metro interface. More controversially, when users click on the Start button in the tradtional Windows desktop, they are immediately thrown back to the Metro screen.[FONT=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif][/FONT]
O'Brien said Microsoft will react to the feedback received on the Building Windows 8 blog, which devoted a lengthy post to the Start screen in October last year. "Some of the changes you'll see on the Start screen are based on feedback from developers on that blog," O'Brien explained.

Windows chief Steven Sinofsky admitted on the blog last year that forcing Windows 8 users to run the touchscreen-oriented Metro - irrespective of whether they're using a tablet, laptop or desktop PC - had angered some early testers."We've seen some small amount of visceral feedback focused on 'choice' or 'disable' — a natural reaction to change, but perhaps not the best way to have a dialog leading to a new product," Sinofsky wrote.

Microsoft then spent the rest of the lengthy post justifying the decision to apply Metro by default, but promised modifications such as increasing the number of tiles displayed on larger screens, and a redesigned Apps screen that makes it easier to scan through long lists of installed apps.

O'Brien couldn't confirm what features will be tweaked ahead of the beta, which is due to be released at the end of next month.​

Full article Available here >> ​

Microsoft to shake-up Windows 8 Start screen | News | PC Pro

 

[Coke Robot]

I wonder if a picture background was allowed for Start Screen, more people would be a little more ok with it because it looks familiar. Hmm....

 

[Colonel Travis]

You think you know more about productivity and usability than Microsoft?

Pezz, my mission is not to figure out the best productivity scenarios for the computing populace. I know what works for me and that's all I care about. I've used DOS PCs and Macs since they were invented. Before that, I remember going to my friend's house to play this on his TRS-80. I do not want to go back to the TRS-80 days, or the XP days, or the 7 days. I prefer much cooler technology than we have now. In fact, I could very well be more impatient than you in this way.

1.) My first, and biggest, problem with Sinofsky/Marina Dukhon was that they said they read all the complaints and then basically told everyone - up yours. Fair enough, it's their program.

2.) Not a fan of someone who says but, but, scientists have proven this is better for you, and pulls out stuff like Fitts' Law - it's easier to hit a big box target with your mouse vs. a small box. No $#!%? What if I'm not a fan of big boxes, Fitts? Well, the shapes are visually pleasing and the layout will keep scrolling to a minimum. And what if I don't give a $#!% about either of those, or if I don't agree with your definition of pleasing? Well, you had the 2-click access problem you had with the Start button. Gee, I get to save perhaps a maximum of one second in return for an ugly electronic tablecloth that drives me 809,771,614 times more nuts than wasting that extra second on the Start button. Yes, but arranging the Start menu like you wanted was a waste of your time. Thank you, Obi-Wan, I will ask no more questions and move along to look for the droids I'm looking for.

First of all, you get the EXACT same thing with the fugly old Start Menu that you love. EVERY little unwanted piece of crap gets added there and bloats up the list.

First of all, I get to TRASH the ENTIRE FOLDER without having to remove those items ONE at a TIME like I have to do in METRO. I also said that this would probably be FIXED in Metro because it's such a PITA. I also like to CUSTOMIZE my icons in the Start folder and elsewhere. Will I be able to do THIS in Metro? I don't KNOW but MAYBE I will, which would be NICE of THEM.

Good on you for not typing them out, because there is not ONE logical point in there. For example, the pathetic clown who wrote that article doesn't like the ribbon, but explains no reason why.

Remember I said some and not all of the points in that link? Remember? Yeah, I remember that. Good times. In fact, I said in a post not even two days ago that I LIKED the ribbon. Actually, I was wrong. I LOVE the ribbon. Some other stuff in that story is perfectly reasonable - the idiotic subtext menu choices? The other menu BS? The dragging problems? Just because you gloss over info. like this constantly, and define "logic" as whatever slippery-as-a-fish meaning you want it to be, doesn't make the issues go away.

I'm gonna say this again, Pezz - you like Metro? Great. You use it all day long and love it.

 

[Coke Robot]

Why, after a good hundred years after the internal combustion engine, are we looking for something else to do the same thing? Sure, the engine has worked in the past, and is working now, and can be improved upon in the future to an extent. Yet, we're here in a time where all sorts of people are thinking of and building new and different and innovative ways to go from point A to point B without fossil fuels. Is it that needs are different now? Is it that people are moving away from large vehicles that use gallons of gas to smaller ones? Do we just want cleaner environments? Or maybe after doing the same thing for a 100 years and having infrastructure built for a gas powered car, we just simply want to use something else that isn't of archaic technology of a century ago?

This is the funniest thing that I have read for some time. Win8 is the "clean energy technology" of the computing era...LOL!!!

Sure, Microsoft has been designing operating systems that are windowed and have menus and have mouse pointers that have worked, but that isn't where technology and input will be 10 years from now. Windows 8 is bringing two new inputs into play, touch and gesture, two nature human ways to interact with a surrounding environment.

Well, touch and gesture are important in handheld devices. Touch has been part of interacting with phones since Graham Bell (nothing new here). There was touch in smartphones for ages...going back to almost the first devices. I fail to see the innovation here. But touch and gesture in non-handheld devices (desktops and laptops) is an idiocy!! Pure and simple. I sit at my desk and my screen (a 30-inch one) is about 2 - 3 feet away. Just let me know why would I want to exercise my shoulders touching it and gesticulating in front of it? Just try to do this and you would soon find out that the keyboard and the mouse are the fastest input methods in interacting with laptops and desktops.



You are so wrong here....First of all, "Metro" is quite old, there is nothing new about it. First, it was (and still is) in "Media Center"; then it showed up in Zune (for about 5 years or more) and has been in Windows Phone for about 2 years. So, it has been around. If people loved it, it would have been a winner. If Microsoft were certain that people would love it, it would have made it optional. In fact, Microsoft is not at all sure that people like Metro, so it has to shove it down their throats.

The same goes for Windows 8, some don't like it just because. Some don't like it because it's difficult to use when honestly, it's not, initially yes. I may pass off that I have chip on my shoulder and that's because I'm starting to think people honestly have a superficial view of what an operating system is. I'm getting a little ticked that people are wanting a metro shut off button included to keep the course of technology limited to a start menu, taskbar, and a desktop background. I don't want to keep seeing Windows becoming just warmed over versions as the last because if it does, in the long run, Windows will be bombarded out by new comers to the OS game, like apple, android and google. I see Windows 8 as an innovation to show everyone that best is doing what they do best.

This is really weird. Why are you annoyed that people want the choice not to run Metro? If you love it so much, use it. Take it to bed with you, we do not care. But why do you want others not to have choice??? What are you? A "Metro" Grand Inquisitor???? If you like it, all the power to you. In fact, if you think it is that "hot", give users a choice. If they love it as much as you do, they will enable it!! Actually, if you are afraid that Windows will be elbowed out by users, such tactics by Microsoft are bound to antagonize millions who are going to go to other OSs. Forcing a stupid interface down people's throats is not a winner, trust me. Personally, I will stay with Win7 and eventually I may migrate to MacOS or Android, running some Windows applications through virtual environments. Sorry, I do prefer a desktop OS, I have no use of mobile OS in my desktop. If MS gives me a choice, then I may stay with Windows.

As for metro screens, you need to use a Windows Phone to understand it, it's a different design scheme unlike anyone else has. But you need to clarify, you need to use the Desktop to launch Photoshop, or Word, or Excel, or games?

I personally dislike Metro and Windows Phone. I find that the interface is just too "scrolly" and there is nothing there that a user cannot do with Android widgets (along with a much more customizable interface).

Well, a windowing OS is even older than metro, like, a good 20 years. And even then, Windows Phone is a totally different market than PCs, you need manufacturers of handsets and carriers to adopt it over crapdroid phones.
You statement saying that if Microsoft was sure everyone would love metro, they'd let people make it optional is a complete wasted statement. It says nothing, it says to me, "I don't like metro and if Microsoft was sure I'm not going to like it, they should make it optional." Then that's just Windows 7!

I get annoyed when people make superficial criticisms about something they don't know enough about to fully make judgment. Mind you, many metro haters have used Windows 8 less than they may have used a smartphone OS, or even watched a movie. It bugs me. Good luck with mac os, it's taking components of iOS as major design themes of it, a touch device on a non-touch device. And android, HA! That's silly.

I pose two questions, why be hesitant against touch and gesture? I know, keyboard and mouse are more precise and it's worked since the invention of the mouse pointer OS, but again, I go back to saying, why use a gas engine when an alternate can be able to do the same with some work? And also, if I may ask, how old are you?

 

[Coke Robot]

Here's going out on a limb, racism. There are people that don't like someone because they look different and act different than them. The natural human response is to not like that person just because they're different than you. The same applies to something that is totally different than what is around.

This is the stupidest thing I've ever read from you. Seriously. I can't even believe you'd drop that bomb. You continue to ignore what everyone who disagrees with you says and instead shoehorn them into stupid little cages of ignorance like this, far, far away from the Land of Enlightenment where you are. No one who's arguing with you is leveling the charges against you that you do against them. Learn how to have a rational discussion.

So you say this is wrong, that saying that people have a tendency to not like something different than they're used to?

 

[Colonel Travis]

From what you say about Windows 8, I'm starting to think you don't fully understand the Start Screen.

That's OK, you keep trying with that brain of yours. Maybe one day it will fire on all cylinders.

 

[Colonel Travis]

So you say this is wrong, that saying that people have a tendency to not like something different than they're used to?

1.) I don't think about racism when I think about Windows.
2.) I don't speak on behalf of the world, like you try to do.
3.) I don't think in broad generalizations like you do, unless it's something like - people have a tendency to eat when they're hungry.

 

[pezzonovante]

Pezz, my mission is not to figure out the best productivity scenarios for the computing populace. I know what works for me and that's all I care about.

If this is all about your PERSONAL preference, then you do understand you can't expect Microsoft to incorporate with your ideas in their operating system? I thought we were discussing what will be beneficial to MOST Windows 8 users, and consequently included in Windows 8? For example, Windows 8 is not perfect for ME either. If I had my way, there would be NO fugly classic desktop in Windows 8. There would be no classic apps. EVERYTHING would be Metro. Office, Visual Studio, Photoshop -- everything would get a Metro design.

BUT, that probably won't be right for most Windows 8 users. That's why Microsoft haven't done that, and nor do I expect them to do so.

So, again, do you agree Metro Start Screen is better for MOST Windows 8 customers, even though you personally don't like it? If you do agree with that statement, we can end this debate right here and now.

 

[Colonel Travis]

So, again, do you agree Metro Start Screen is better for MOST Windows 8 customers, even though you personally don't like it? If you do agree with that statement, we can end this debate right here and now.

This is impossible to know until 8 is in the marketplace, and I couldn't care less either way. Seems you want to believe it's true, because you cling to this idea every time you write something, and the more someone pushes back on that statement the more you double down on it. I don't know how you could advocate that 8 is better when 8 isn't even on the shelves. The only people who are using it now are a fraction of a slice of a sliver of Windows users, and bunch of them hate it. How many? No clue. It's not insignificant, otherwise MS wouldn't have gone on the defensive like they have. My guess is that a lot more people want to try the beta and/or can't wait for it than not. I'm in the camp that will definitely try it out. But you're going on nothing but theory here, which is fine in the theory world, but useless in the real world until it's unleashed upon it. Even if the statement were true, what does that prove? That everyone needs to use 8 or else they're an idiot? C'mon.

At least you understand we see this OS differently, and that's progress.

 

[Vertex]

Many systems are of good specs, but you need to consider millions of PCs are from the vista era, of single or dual core processors and below four gigs of RAM. Newer PCs do.

I have do have a computer with just 1 GB of RAM and a dual processor and it could still rock on even if I had about 10 opened desktop programs or windows in it at once. I had that machine since mid 2008. But I could not stand on thinking that although Metro apps self-terminate if idle, I just want to be able to close them as I want and have them stop consuming resources right there and if they do self-terminate, that means I have to go back to the Start Screen, leave my running app and reopen the program that self-terminated, use it for a while and at that time, the other app I just left moments ago would have self-terminated as well. Most of the sample Metro apps that came with WDP can do no better than the games like Chess and Purble Place that came with Windows 7, well at least those can be windowed and have a decent close button.

There are apps on phone marketplaces that do things a desktop gadget cannot do, other than a desktop program. But my 1o dollar app, 100 dollar program is a hypothetical situation. Given the choices, a consumer would go with what costs less to them and adapt to that.

Well let us not forget that most Desktop gadgets are free and takes just a fraction of the screen compared to Metro apps. As I said before, there are thousands and thousands of freeware Desktop apps there that people are used to. I think most people would go for something that is already free with windowing and multitasking abilities they are already used to than a 10 dollar app that you need to adapt to and have no windowing ability and poor multitasking.

So, when you use Windows 7 and open the start menu, where does your focus go to? Does it stay on some open window or windows, or do you focus on opening something up from it?

My focus goes on to what I would like to do first depending on the situation but I would like to be able switch in between them quickly and fullscreen is not the way with that.

I would not use Metro apps if I do not like them of course but its this Metro Start Menu that's getting in my way and disabling it disables some other features that should not have been linked to the Metro like System Refresh and System Reset. And that's what disappoints me. Why the heck don't they just make it optional?

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
the most salient point in this thread was the mention of crapdroid phones. Crapdroid is a PERFECT example of how NOT to write an OS.
Freezes a lot, almost impossible to see what tasks are actually running, pathetically over complicated and absurd way of installing applications, leaks like a sieve as far as security is concerned and you generally can only update the OS by buying a New phone or tablet !!.

I'm sure MS will sort out W8 so it's suitable as a phone / tablet OS as well as fine for a desktop / laptop OS.

I've used computers even BEFORE TRS 80 (I used TSO from IBM on a large GREEN MONOCHROME terminal - 3277 I think it was called) and I have NO probs with the metro style -- so long as these can be user arranged for convienence - for example all the office apps in one box rather than having to left / write scroll to get the office app you want to launch.

I'm looking forward tp the next W8 preview and the forthcoming Office 15.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

Just curious Jimbo, I am aware of those Tandy, and IBM products, BUT who was first on the scene? Radio Shack, or Osbourne?

 

[Coke Robot]

So you say this is wrong, that saying that people have a tendency to not like something different than they're used to?

1.) I don't think about racism when I think about Windows.
2.) I don't speak on behalf of the world, like you try to do.
3.) I don't think in broad generalizations like you do, unless it's something like - people have a tendency to eat when they're hungry.

But do you think that though?

I know I'm going out there but that's just me.

 

[Coke Robot]

Many systems are of good specs, but you need to consider millions of PCs are from the vista era, of single or dual core processors and below four gigs of RAM. Newer PCs do.

I have do have a computer with just 1 GB of RAM and a dual processor and it could still rock on even if I had about 10 opened desktop programs or windows in it at once. I had that machine since mid 2008. But I could not stand on thinking that although Metro apps self-terminate if idle, I just want to be able to close them as I want and have them stop consuming resources right there and if they do self-terminate, that means I have to go back to the Start Screen, leave my running app and reopen the program that self-terminated, use it for a while and at that time, the other app I just left moments ago would have self-terminated as well. Most of the sample Metro apps that came with WDP can do no better than the games like Chess and Purble Place that came with Windows 7, well at least those can be windowed and have a decent close button.

There are apps on phone marketplaces that do things a desktop gadget cannot do, other than a desktop program. But my 1o dollar app, 100 dollar program is a hypothetical situation. Given the choices, a consumer would go with what costs less to them and adapt to that.

Well let us not forget that most Desktop gadgets are free and takes just a fraction of the screen compared to Metro apps. As I said before, there are thousands and thousands of freeware Desktop apps there that people are used to. I think most people would go for something that is already free with windowing and multitasking abilities they are already used to than a 10 dollar app that you need to adapt to and have no windowing ability and poor multitasking.

So, when you use Windows 7 and open the start menu, where does your focus go to? Does it stay on some open window or windows, or do you focus on opening something up from it?

My focus goes on to what I would like to do first depending on the situation but I would like to be able switch in between them quickly and fullscreen is not the way with that.

I would not use Metro apps if I do not like them of course but its this Metro Start Menu that's getting in my way and disabling it disables some other features that should not have been linked to the Metro like System Refresh and System Reset. And that's what disappoints me. Why the heck don't they just make it optional?

I've been working on a laptop that was built last year and has a single core processor and couple gigs of RAM. It's a vista styled experience when having 10 or more tabs in Internet Explorer open. Then again, it is an entry level machine.

When I speak of apps and programs, I am talking about something more a user can get than a desktop gadget. Like, having just Word 2010 on the Desktop and an applet of it in Metro. But looking at this from a capitalistic side, a developer can't make much money off a gadget. They would need to focus on making a program and selling it. The Start Screen offers a newer design platform for them to work on. People will buy apps from apple's app store for they have millions of apps, they sometimes do in android's. They can try before they buy in the Windows Phone marketplace. But with the desktop, that experience doesn't translate over. Some companies have try before you buy setups, some have lite versions, some require that you buy it before you install it. The Windows Market place will offer a solid, well defined interface.

So, if I may assume, your focus when you want to open something up goes on the left hand side of the screen?

 

[ADRz]

Well, a windowing OS is even older than metro, like, a good 20 years. And even then, Windows Phone is a totally different market than PCs, you need manufacturers of handsets and carriers to adopt it over crapdroid phones.

Well, first you do not have any knowledge of the evolution of Windows. In fact, Windows started as a "tiling" OS, not as a "windowing" OS. Full screen multitaskers are far older, they date from the time of the original Unix. In fact, until the evolution of the GUI, all capable OSes (main frame, mini, and some micro computing) were "full screen" multitaskers with access to other running programs provided with a key stroke sequence. Today, all the mobile OSes are "full screen" multitaskers, like the system of old, with access to running programs provided by a key sequence. Thus, Win8 is really taking us back by 50 years, at least. When graphical interfaces arrived, the capability of placing applications in windows was heralded as a major breakthrough. Now, you seem pleased to go back to the days of Bell and the original versions of Unix (on which all current mobile OSes are based).

Just for you to know -and some others here- the mobile OSes of today (iOS, Android) are based on Unix. In fact, OSX is a customized version of Unix; Android is Linux-light, which is another modification of Unix. So, there is nothing new or particularly innovative here. Of all the current mobile OSes -with the exemption of Android- are not even true multitaskers. Win8 "Metro" seems to be a limited multitasker, too.

You statement saying that if Microsoft was sure everyone would love metro, they'd let people make it optional is a complete wasted statement. It says nothing, it says to me, "I don't like metro and if Microsoft was sure I'm not going to like it, they should make it optional." Then that's just Windows 7!

I really hope for the sake of Microsoft that Win8 is something more than a mobile OS running the Win7 desktop as a task. If you are right and in the absence of Metro you have just Win7, then those with laptops and desktops have absolutely no reason to buy this OS. I will await to see the beta and if it is very similar to the developers preview, forget it. I am staying with Win7, there is no reason to use this OS. It is an issue of money, in fact, as a Technet subscriber I would have access to 5 licenses, at least.

I get annoyed when people make superficial criticisms about something they don't know enough about to fully make judgment. Mind you, many metro haters have used Windows 8 less than they may have used a smartphone OS, or even watched a movie. It bugs me. Good luck with mac os, it's taking components of iOS as major design themes of it, a touch device on a non-touch device. And android, HA! That's silly.

First of all, you make assumptions that are incorrect. And I think that we have proven here that it is you who is uninformed. But let's not go there. In fact, I like Android a lot and Win7 with access to Android apps (which you can do right now) is a better solution than Win8 for those who want access to mobile apps on their desktop.

I pose two questions, why be hesitant against touch and gesture? I know, keyboard and mouse are more precise and it's worked since the invention of the mouse pointer OS, but again, I go back to saying, why use a gas engine when an alternate can be able to do the same with some work? And also, if I may ask, how old are you?

Listen and listen carefully, because you are answering to your preconceptions and not the arguments made here.

(a) Touch and gesture are proper for handheld devices (smartphones and tablets). I have no problem with any of this
(b) Touch and gesture are improper for non-handheld devices (desktops and laptops). I suggest that you sit in front of your desktop and start touching the screen. Your shoulders would tire very quickly and selecting either data of commands would become much slower. For desktops and laptops, the keyboard and the mouse remain the fastest input devices. It really does not matter how old they are, they are the best we have. The wheel is thousands of years old but it is still the best thing we have to move vehicles, isn't it????

 

[pezzonovante]

This is impossible to know until 8 is in the marketplace, and I couldn't care less either way. Seems you want to believe it's true, because you cling to this idea every time you write something, and the more someone pushes back on that statement the more you double down on it. I don't know how you could advocate that 8 is better when 8 isn't even on the shelves. The only people who are using it now are a fraction of a slice of a sliver of Windows users, and bunch of them hate it. How many? No clue. It's not insignificant, otherwise MS wouldn't have gone on the defensive like they have. My guess is that a lot more people want to try the beta and/or can't wait for it than not. I'm in the camp that will definitely try it out. But you're going on nothing but theory here, which is fine in the theory world, but useless in the real world until it's unleashed upon it. Even if the statement were true, what does that prove? That everyone needs to use 8 or else they're an idiot? C'mon.

At least you understand we see this OS differently, and that's progress.

No, I do have a very good idea that it works. I do know that the Metro Start Screen is FAR more productive than the fugly old classic UI. I have been using the Windows 8 DP every single day as my main and only OS since day 1. I am simply loving the productivity improvements the Metro Start Screen has brought. So, there's no doubt that Metro Start Screen is far more productive for most people.

Obviously, I still don't know for sure how Metro apps will be like in real life, because Windows Store hasn't opened yet. But I have a very good feeling that at with live tiles, notifications, search contracts, auto-save states, Windows Live syncing etc. features, I will be able to completely move into the beautiful new Metro world. Only Visual Studio and Qt Creator are two products that will have to remain with the classic UI. For everything else -- browsing, checking emails, chatting, social networking, document editing, number crunching, creating slides etc. -- Metro will be perfect. At least that's my gut feeling.

But the Start Screen is a clear winner ALREADY.

 

[Colonel Travis]

Changed my mind, Pezz. You don't understand. But you've got the best OS ever. Maybe you could learn to be content with that instead of worrying why the entire world doesn't see things exactly like you do.

 

[ADRz]

Obviously, I still don't know for sure how Metro apps will be like in real life, because Windows Store hasn't opened yet. But I have a very good feeling that at with live tiles, notifications, search contracts, auto-save states, Windows Live syncing etc. features, I will be able to completely move into the beautiful new Metro world. Only Visual Studio and Qt Creator are two products that will have to remain with the classic UI. For everything else -- browsing, checking emails, chatting, social networking, document editing, number crunching, creating slides etc. -- Metro will be perfect. At least that's my gut feeling.

But the Start Screen is a clear winner ALREADY.

As usual, you do not know what you are talking about. Metro-style apps are not going to be rich programs, they are going to be simplified apps designed for touch use. Now, because of the need for touch in these apps, elements of the menu and the data have to be larger than in current desktop programs. Thus, a Metro version of Excel will present fewer commands and much fewer cells, otherwise it could not be used by touch. Nor can I do detailed Photoshop work in a touch-enabled application, one needs the finer control of the mouse of resistive tablet (that registers pressure).

I think that the existence of Metro fanboys is a disturbing development. I have no problem with simplified apps for tablets and smartphones, but I do have a problem with these apps on the desktop. Especially when the only way of presenting them is full screen (which is laughable for an OS called Windows).

However, you are not in a position to discuss this issue logically. If you want to believe into your great Metro world, be my guest.

 

[Vertex]

So, if I may assume, your focus when you want to open something up goes on the left hand side of the screen?

Yes, for a moment my focus goes to the left hand side of the screen, I see nothing wrong with that and since I could type what I was looking for in the search bar if its not already pinned on the Start Menu list, I could get to it in seconds! Much better than the search function on Windows 8 that makes me focus on the left then the right of the screen where a green search section appears.

Windows does not dominate the phone and tablet worlds and it would be very hard for their marketplace to compete with Apple's or with the Android's phone and tablet empires and as I said before I have not felt any huge uproar of developers rushing to make these 10 dollar apps and even if they do, few people who use Desktops will actually put much use to them. Microsoft should have maintained their dominance on the Desktop because that was their bread and butter not fuse it with phones and tablets just because theirs needed more attention. There would have been so many more ways to develop the Desktop PC.

Apple just seems to beat them when it comes to perfecting technology. M$ are more concerned in perfecting profit$.

 

[Coke Robot]

So, if I may assume, your focus when you want to open something up goes on the left hand side of the screen?

Yes, for a moment my focus goes to the left hand side of the screen, I see nothing wrong with that and since I could type what I was looking for in the search bar if its not already pinned on the Start Menu list, I could get to it in seconds! Much better than the search function on Windows 8 that makes me focus on the left then the right of the screen where a green search section appears.

Windows does not dominate the phone and tablet worlds and it would be very hard for their marketplace to compete with Apple's or with the Android's phone and tablet empires and as I said before I have not felt any huge uproar of developers rushing to make these 10 dollar apps and even if they do, few people who use Desktops will actually put much use to them. Microsoft should have maintained their dominance on the Desktop because that was their bread and butter not fuse it with phones and tablets just because theirs needed more attention. There would have been so many more ways to develop the Desktop PC.

Apple just seems to beat them when it comes to perfecting technology. M$ are more concerned in perfecting profit$.

You do realize that you can just simply hit the Start button and type a search for a file, program or settings if it's not already pinned to the first section of the Start Screen, right? Or am I making superficial judgments?...

Again, as a desktop user, you don't like or need metro apps, don't use them. It's just like if you have desktop gadgets, you can use them if you want.

You're right, Windows hasn't dominated the tablet market or the phone market. They haven't because they already tried before, no one was interested. People didn't want to buy an even more impotent touch screen mobile computer even if it did have a few touch features built in with Windows xp. Most people didn't have a need for smartphones or digital assistants in the days of Windows Mobile. That all changed with apple. apple is dominating that field because Microsoft already dominated the desktop. The problem that stems for them is apple again, with one blow, an ipad can effectively get rid of Microsoft's bread and butter: Windows, IE, Office, and the PC. If they don't put themselves back into the mobile field again, Windows will become the way of linux, it could end up being used only by a select faction of users and that's it. I don't want to see that.

 

[Coke Robot]

Well, a windowing OS is even older than metro, like, a good 20 years. And even then, Windows Phone is a totally different market than PCs, you need manufacturers of handsets and carriers to adopt it over crapdroid phones.

Well, first you do not have any knowledge of the evolution of Windows. In fact, Windows started as a "tiling" OS, not as a "windowing" OS. Full screen multitaskers are far older, they date from the time of the original Unix. In fact, until the evolution of the GUI, all capable OSes (main frame, mini, and some micro computing) were "full screen" multitaskers with access to other running programs provided with a key stroke sequence. Today, all the mobile OSes are "full screen" multitaskers, like the system of old, with access to running programs provided by a key sequence. Thus, Win8 is really taking us back by 50 years, at least. When graphical interfaces arrived, the capability of placing applications in windows was heralded as a major breakthrough. Now, you seem pleased to go back to the days of Bell and the original versions of Unix (on which all current mobile OSes are based).

Just for you to know -and some others here- the mobile OSes of today (iOS, Android) are based on Unix. In fact, OSX is a customized version of Unix; Android is Linux-light, which is another modification of Unix. So, there is nothing new or particularly innovative here. Of all the current mobile OSes -with the exemption of Android- are not even true multitaskers. Win8 "Metro" seems to be a limited multitasker, too.

You statement saying that if Microsoft was sure everyone would love metro, they'd let people make it optional is a complete wasted statement. It says nothing, it says to me, "I don't like metro and if Microsoft was sure I'm not going to like it, they should make it optional." Then that's just Windows 7!

I really hope for the sake of Microsoft that Win8 is something more than a mobile OS running the Win7 desktop as a task. If you are right and in the absence of Metro you have just Win7, then those with laptops and desktops have absolutely no reason to buy this OS. I will await to see the beta and if it is very similar to the developers preview, forget it. I am staying with Win7, there is no reason to use this OS. It is an issue of money, in fact, as a Technet subscriber I would have access to 5 licenses, at least.

I get annoyed when people make superficial criticisms about something they don't know enough about to fully make judgment. Mind you, many metro haters have used Windows 8 less than they may have used a smartphone OS, or even watched a movie. It bugs me. Good luck with mac os, it's taking components of iOS as major design themes of it, a touch device on a non-touch device. And android, HA! That's silly.

First of all, you make assumptions that are incorrect. And I think that we have proven here that it is you who is uninformed. But let's not go there. In fact, I like Android a lot and Win7 with access to Android apps (which you can do right now) is a better solution than Win8 for those who want access to mobile apps on their desktop.

I pose two questions, why be hesitant against touch and gesture? I know, keyboard and mouse are more precise and it's worked since the invention of the mouse pointer OS, but again, I go back to saying, why use a gas engine when an alternate can be able to do the same with some work? And also, if I may ask, how old are you?

Listen and listen carefully, because you are answering to your preconceptions and not the arguments made here.

(a) Touch and gesture are proper for handheld devices (smartphones and tablets). I have no problem with any of this
(b) Touch and gesture are improper for non-handheld devices (desktops and laptops). I suggest that you sit in front of your desktop and start touching the screen. Your shoulders would tire very quickly and selecting either data of commands would become much slower. For desktops and laptops, the keyboard and the mouse remain the fastest input devices. It really does not matter how old they are, they are the best we have. The wheel is thousands of years old but it is still the best thing we have to move vehicles, isn't it????

I understand the unix/linux spiel and get how apple's mac os is the biggest scam in the industry.

Hmm, from what I understand, MSDOS came before Windows. Windows was Microsoft's first windowing OS after years of using keyboard commands and black screens with pixelated font. The GUI interface of OSs came from Xerox's GUI prototype, which apple used for their Lisa computer, which Microsoft used and subsequently; apple sued Microsoft for using the look and feel of their OS.

Now, I have never heard of a tiling OS in my life, windowing, yes. A command prompt based, OS, yes.

I maybe making uninformed assumptions, but isn't that what some people are doing when they review a developer preview of Windows 8? I think you or another forum member that once posted a YouTube video of an IT admin using Windows 8 and dismissed it right away. Was that an informed review, or was it just a quicky use and call it inferior? I don't know for sure.

I would say gestures are not proper for tablets or smartphones. From what I think, a tablet or smartphone's main input is touch. A desktop obviously wouldn't be using a touchscreen for obvious reasons. That's where gesture input comes in. I can sit back at my desktop as normal, and do gesture motions with my hands to interact with my operating system. This is where the Microsoft Kinect comes in, heck, even the Microsoft Touch Mouse can be used.

On a side note, maybe we don't need to make flying cars after all....