Discussion Rant -Windows still sucks for a Tablet

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
3,785
136
Windows 8/8.1/10/11 all sucks to a varying degree for Tablets. My laptop keyboard needs to be fixed and so using Tablet mode on the XPS 12 for Windows 10. It's still disjointed as ever. It sucked on 8 and it sucks on 10. Plus 10 still is a regression on the desktop side. I looked at Windows 11 and it's still bad.

They are too focused on the NIH syndrome and uniqueness for the sake of uniqueness. Tiles were crap and what they are doing now is crap. Way back my first official computer had Windows 95 Plus!. It had a feature called internet mode or something where it switched all your icons to single click. Man, they were inspired back then.

iPad and Android does exactly that. Every icon is single click. You have all icons accessible in one screen view with pages of icons you flip in between. Windows should have expanded on those features and kill two birds with one stone. That's why the single feature in the W95P version I called it inspired.

Issues on W8/8.1
-Dual application. One for Tablet one for Desktop.
-Neither here or there for important system config with one dumbed down interface called Settings.
-Tiles taking enormous amount of real estate.
-Screen rotation is too slow. With Android it rotates with almost no delay.

Issues on Windows 10
-Still a downgrade in experience for Desktop mode compared to 7. You can see every iteration since 95 to 7 resulted in productivity improvements. We've been going back since then. Why? Why dies Tablet vs. Desktop have to be one or the other? Tablet even on 11 is still a tacked on UI as if you installed a third party UI mod.
-When I have multiple applications open, and I close one, it goes back to the Start menu or whatever on the Tablet and I need to click on the button below to show all open ones to switch to another window. What's the logic behind this? The whole point of Windows is about seamless multi-tasking.
-Loss of information. If I have monitoring applications like GPU-Z or HWINFO open but minimize it the desktop mode is shown on the bottom right. In Tablet mode it simply disappears.

Windows 11
-The reason I call it a tacked on experience is because you need to swipe up to show the application bar. It's a waste of time. Use mobile OSes as a base, then add on your touch. The swipe is a waste of time. It minimizes when you open an app, a waste of time and loss of information.
-Nevermind that, you need to swipe up TWICE to get some settings.
-Over-focus on gestures and complex ones. Two fingers, bottom to up, left to right, screw them all! Android is intuitive and simple - you have one swipe from top for your settings.
-Widgets are stupid. Another swipe needed just for that. Should be part of the System Tray.

What should have been a proper hybrid operating system
1. Swallow your pride and copy good bits of iOS and Android. Icons are the name of the game. You don't need to go out of your way and contort yourself to hide it. Until 7 that was the case. Windows 95 with single click in "internet mode" or whatever it was called was a start for example
2. Take Windows 7 as the base. Throw away everything since then. Take advantage of the screen real estate by having all icons available as pages. No need to "swipe" to open up a separate, disjointed panel for applications. No, you just swipe up/down/left/right to go through pages. Now you have MASSIVE amount of "apps" at your fingertips available simply with a single click. Start Menu is left as it is. Doesn't need to be said. Everything else is an addition.
3. You'd be able to have categories of the icons on your desktop and name them however you wish. Though clutter of icons will be a distraction and not preferrable for some desktop users, it will be for Tablet. Desktops can use the *traditional* start menu. For clarity the Home page won't have many icons. And you'll be able to add/delete as you wish.
4. Doing a up-to-down swipe motion to close is acceptable. Still stick to the X button if preferred plus for desktop users. You can still choose to close the classic way from the Taskbar.
5. Left-to-right may be a rapid way of switching between open applications.
6. Subtlety is the name of the game for swipes. The difference between swiping to close is minute compared to swiping to switch between pages but however an important distinction. Closing - Finger on top of screen and drag it most of the way down. Switching - You start with your finger on the visible portion of the screen and drag as necessary. Same subtlety between switching between apps and changing to a icon page on the left of the Home page.
7. You should be able to fine-tune each settings for hardcore users. Turn individual gestures on/off.
8. EVERYTHING else is kept as Windows 7 is. Fanciness such as color and animations may be updated to give it a "modern" look but it's secondary to FUNCTION.

That way, you end up with fundamentals that are like mobile OSes but EXPANDED functionalities to fit the multi-tasking Windows OS while not sacrificing crucial features we enthusiasts like to see.
 
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Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
21,899
819
126
Well duh! That's why we have ipads and Samsung tablets. I see no point EVER for any windows based tablets. All tablets do is media consumption or POS. No one is doing anything hardcore on a tablet.
 

quikah

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,068
649
126
Personally I think windows 7 stunk, so hard disagree on your points around there.

Tiles were great, but never took off. They are just normal icons now really. Not sure what your complaining about by talking about having a list of icons. It is already does this.

Windows 10 you can just swipe from the left to go to the task switcher to pick another app or just select it from the taskbar (there is an option to show/hide it in taskbar settings, sounds like yours is set to hide in tablet mode).

I have no experience with Win11 tablet mode.

The real deficiency of Windows tablet mode is the lack of tablet aware apps.