Reconciling 2 Worlds With Windows 8.1

Just about one year ago, Microsoft gave us two new operating systems.

One was a new version of Windows: the one for use with mouse and keyboard, the one whose desktop at this moment lights up hundreds of millions of screens, the one with a software library of four million programs.
The other was a new operating system for tablets. It was modeled on Microsoft’s lovely tiled Home screen for Windows Phones: colorful, clear, elegant, filled with fluid touch gestures. You can’t run Photoshop or iTunes or Quicken on it; this new system requires a whole new type of app. Since Microsoft doesn’t have a name for this OS (it abandoned the names Metro and Modern), I call it TileWorld. All of this might have been fine, except for one tragic miscalculation: Microsoft mashed these two new operating systems together into something called Windows 8.

Now you have two Web browsers to learn. Two completely different Help systems. Two (actually three) control panels. Two kinds of programs: the traditional ones, which have menus and overlapping windows, and TileWorld apps, which don’t have either of those things.

Reviewers and PC fans gave Microsoft quite a swat on the nose. PC World wrote that Windows 8 is “not worthwhile” for desktop computer users. PC Magazine: “Too drastic for some.” InformationWeek: “A big flop. Its Frankenstein interface combines two fundamentally incompatible operating systems.”
PC sales plunged 14 percent in the months after Windows 8’s release. The executive who masterminded Windows 8 abruptly left the company.

Microsoft, licking its wounds, spent a year trying to fix Windows 8. On Thursday, you can download the result: Windows 8.1. It’s free to anyone who already has Windows 8, and it will come preinstalled on new computers. Full disclosure: I have written a how-to book on Windows 8 and will be updating it for Windows 8.1.

The changes to TileWorld are nearly endless — and terrific. The anemic, pared-down starter apps, like Photos and Mail, have matured. Now you can edit photos in Photos (not just look at them) and drag e-mail messages into folders. The muddled Music app has been redesigned, smartly and handsomely. A suite of utility programs is there now, right where they should have been the first time around: Alarms, Calculator and Sound Recorder. There are also all-new apps, too, like Food and Drink, Health and Fitness and Reading List. It lets you save Web pages, e-mail messages and Twitter posts for use when you have no Internet connection.

You have more options to tailor your desktop, Start screen and Lock screen in Windows 8.1. For example, you can make your Lock screen a slide show, so that your tablet is a photo frame whenever you’re not working.

There's a good video here as well:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/t...-worlds-of-windows-8.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

[sygnus21]

If people are already hating Metro on the desktop, what makes you think they want to buy a Surface? Idk Microsoft leaves me speechless.

That hate is mostly desktop users; I'd imagine for tablet users, Metro is a great feature to have since these are touch enabled. I don't own a tablet, but if I did, and it was a W8 one, I'd definitely want this feature.

As a desktop user with no touch screen, the "metro screen" (aka Start Screen) is just a fancy shortcut screen which I avoid by just pinning my most used apps to the task bar. On a tablet I'd welcome this screen.

 

[labeeman]

I suppose I will give it a try... primarily to see if it is in any way usable, without having to resort to a third party start menu. I'm not hopeful, but I will give it a try.(this despite having previously made up my mind not to...)

Hopefully you are not going to spend any money on 8.1 because you will be disappointed. But it is a nice toy - worth about as much as the rubber ducky in my bathtub.

I have the Windows 8.1 and I will pay you more for your rubber ducky.

 

[pcRat]

I suppose I will give it a try... primarily to see if it is in any way usable, without having to resort to a third party start menu. I'm not hopeful, but I will give it a try.(this despite having previously made up my mind not to...)

Hopefully you are not going to spend any money on 8.1 because you will be disappointed. But it is a nice toy - worth about as much as the rubber ducky in my bathtub.

I have the Windows 8.1 and I will pay you more for your rubber ducky.

and I'll raise him $1 for the stress relieving rubber ducky because I haven't got 8.1 yet

 

[jimbo45]

Give me a call when "TileWorld" will run things like SQL Developer, TOAD, Stat, PeopleSoft Application Designer, UltraEdit, Autosys, Control-M and several other software development tools simultaneously in a multi, overlapping window environment.

-jeff

Add also things like SAPGUI where you might be logged on to MANY different systems - and also need development tools as well as the application screens for debug etc - plus access to the production screens to see the results of say posting an invoice or whatever the ERP system is doing.

No way for Metro in these types of apps - even if you could do 4 side by side -- that's not the way people work -- you often need OVERLAPPING and re-sizeable windows - also switchable over two (or increasingly these days MORE) monitors.

There IS a place for Metro in some applications - mainly smallish mobile devices - but for "classical work space devices -- that's not it.

Incidentally even the Metro system becomes impracticable on a tablet / mobile device once you start having large numbers of applications -- on even a decent phone (Samsung S4) there is room for 20 tiles -- often there are something like 40 tiles of bloatware installed with standard Roms -- now even on the user adjustable tile screens - there are only 16 of thgse (you have another row of pinned applications on the bottom of your phone so it gets quite messy organising these properly without having to endlessly swipe the screen too.

Loads of people have quite a few apps stored on their phones -- and I'll think sooner or later the cracks will appear in the whole idea of this metro type of interface for mobile devices once your app count gets high. - Great for a small number of apps I agree.

Maybe people don't mind endless screen swiping on mobile devices -- I find it gets a bit irritating especially as unlike a computer desktop the apps you might use frequently do change depending on where you are and what you are doing so endless re-organisation too.

The mobile companies don't help matters either by installing so much bloatware on their phones too -- but that's a whole other issue.

Cheers
jimbo