Someone has to say it, so it might as well be me: Windows 8 will be a giant mess

[dguy6789]

I've used 8 quite a bit. There's a very steep learning curve that is certainly off putting, I understand the reluctance to embrace 8; by default almost everybody hates unfamiliarity.

That said, 8 is clearly superior to 7 even for desktop and laptop use once you learn the new way of doing everything to where it's second nature. People tend to mistake not knowing how to do something with not being able to do it anymore and end up feeling like it is a step backwards.

Hitting the windows key to see if there's anything new in your gmail, twitter, facebook, weather, and everything else you ever try to keep up to date with at a glance all in an instant is really cool. It blows away how one would check all of that stuff in any previous version of Windows.

 

[Sheep]

If you think the change to the Windows start screen is too jarring for the average consumer - you really think a switch to Linux is LESS jarring? Its an entirely new experience, and on top of that it has different programs for everything they do. It would be a much bigger change than learning start screen vs start menu.

As someone who loves Windows 7 and barely knows anything Linux beyond the Ubuntu 11.10 install I put on my laptop for dual booting this past weekend, the transition from Windows 7 to Windows 8 was far more jarring than going from Windows 7 to Ubuntu 11.10.

The last time I tried Ubuntu was 4 or 5 years ago and I thought it was a complete mess back then. However Canonical really seem to have streamlined things and made it easier to novice users (at the expense of pissing off hardcore users who want to customize everything, from my understanding of the situation).

 

[ChronoReverse]

Hitting the windows key to see if there's anything new in your gmail, twitter, facebook, weather, and everything else you ever try to keep up to date with at a glance all in an instant is really cool. It blows away how one would check all of that stuff in any previous version of Windows.

In Windows 7 (and in Windows 8 too since I'm usually on the Desktop), I simply glance at either the Tray or the Task Bar and I can see if there's anything new.

I'm not convinced having to press WinKey to see them is an improvement nor worth the loss of being able to quickly search for an app or document worth it either.

 

[alent1234]

Heh, I suppose I shouldn't be shocked that iFanatics believe Apple controls any segment of the computer market. Expensive =/= does not equal high end. Cheapest Mac Pro model is 2500 dollars, is a mere quad core, and sports a Radeon 5770. You can get better than that for half the price.

But, back to the subject at hand. I thought it was pretty common knowledge that Windows 8 was going to be a fail train? We knew it was going to fall hard on tablets when MS said they expected pricing to start at 600 dollars. And we new it was going to fail on the desktop/laptop when Metro was going to be used. Even Ubuntu's Unity is better than that crap.

who cares about Mac pro?

Mac sales are growing at double digit rates and Wintel is shrinking. oh wait, it's thailand's fault

 

[Bateluer]

The last time I tried Ubuntu was 4 or 5 years ago and I thought it was a complete mess back then. However Canonical really seem to have streamlined things and made it easier to novice users (at the expense of pissing off hardcore users who want to customize everything, from my understanding of the situation).

Ubuntu has made substantial improvements in the last 5 years. Canonical should be commended for their work. I dislike Unity, but thats easy enough to change. On the whole, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, and a few others are all the point where they are perfectly acceptable desktop or notebook OSs that you would be comfortable setting in front of Grandma.

who cares about Mac pro?

I mentioned Mac Pro because that's Apple's desktop line and their most powerful line. And for 1500, you can get a MUCH better system than the entry level 2500 Mac Pro.

Macbooks, on the other hand, are pretty decent machines. My Air is damn nice . . . which reminds me, need to ask a question in the Apple forum about it.

 

[alent1234]

2/3 of computer sales are laptops. for apple the ratio is the same

very few people care about desktops and the Mac pro

 

[Ns1]

Ubuntu has made substantial improvements in the last 5 years. Canonical should be commended for their work. I dislike Unity, but thats easy enough to change. On the whole, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, and a few others are all the point where they are perfectly acceptable desktop or notebook OSs that you would be comfortable setting in front of Grandma.




I mentioned Mac Pro because that's Apple's desktop line and their most powerful line. And for 1500, you can get a MUCH better system than the entry level 2500 Mac Pro.

Macbooks, on the other hand, are pretty decent machines. My Air is damn nice . . . which reminds me, need to ask a question in the Apple forum about it.

I think you're forgetting the iMac which starts at 1199, or Mac Mini which starts at 599.

 

[finbarqs]

well one thing is for sure: We don't have to use the "$" whenever we say M$ anymore. It's more like "m-xbox-s" 'cause that's the only market they can compete in now... until Apple takes that over too!

 

[janas19]

If you think the change to the Windows start screen is too jarring for the average consumer - you really think a switch to Linux is LESS jarring? Its an entirely new experience, and on top of that it has different programs for everything they do. It would be a much bigger change than learning start screen vs start menu.

Not quite an "entirely new experience." As I said, Ubuntu 11 has an app store and dashboard. If a person can use Google, they can use Ubuntu's search bars.

Canonical has done some pretty great things.

 

[Deeko]

I meant more than just the OS UI. By going to Linux, you've got to learn new everything. Sure, there's OpenOffice, and it might do things that Office does, but not the same way. Similarly people will have to learn new music software, email software, (potentially) browsers, etc.

 

[bearxor]

I mentioned Mac Pro because that's Apple's desktop line and their most powerful line. And for 1500, you can get a MUCH better system than the entry level 2500 Mac Pro.

Ehhhh... The problem with Apple and their computer pricing in general is that the prices don't change. The problem with the MacPro is that it's not been updated in over a year. Even the entry-level iMac comes really close in performance.

When released, the Apple models are usually pretty good deals. The problem is they don't drop in price over the lifecycle like every other freakin' computer in the world once it hits 60 days old.

As for Windows 8, I like it. It's a step in the right direction. I know this isn't a great point of view in a technical forum, but I like to take a step back and ask myself 'If I were designing an operating system today, without any bias, what would it look like?'

Do I need file system access? Do I need a 'desktop'? The answer, I feel, is becoming more and more no. I'm taking a step back and saying 'A computer isn't a computer. It's a tool. A consumer electronics tool. It doesn't matter what it looks like on my desk, how powerful it is, how much GB's and TB's it has, what kind of WiFi's it has... Can I interact with it and get the job done?'

You're all laughing now, but in 15 years when there's practically no such thing as a 'computer' and everything you do is simply a screen displaying a machine you're using in the cloud, you'll start crying.

 

[pm]

I'm not seeing much about Mobile Devices or Gizmos in this thread. Windows 8 is aimed at tablets as well as desktop/laptops but we aren't talking about tablets in this thread. It's all about how desktop/laptop users don't/won't like Metro, which is a great discussion topic... but it belongs in Operating Systems and not MD&G.

I'm moving to Operating Systems.

Moderator PM

 

[Mopetar]

Patiently waits for the "I'm a mac...I'm a pc..." campaign to resume.
With Windows 7 all that could be said was you had to install from scratch, ie: no simple upgrade. This seems like fodder for a whole new campaign from apple.

I doubt Apple will bother. As a company, they've moved beyond PCs to the extent that a clear majority of their profits come from non-PC devices. Microsoft is currently a small player in the markets that Apple has been moving into over the past several years.

 

[Zaap]

i agree with this a lot.

http://www.alphaila.com/articles/failure/how-windows-8-looks-concept-dariod/

look at the "concept" of what he thinks windows 8 should look like. hell windows 95 had desktop widgets that never caught on, because well they sucked at the time. (they were more like embedded html pages)

but widgets are sort of like live tiles, but optional.

looks a lot like , well android ice cream sandwhich on a tablet, BUT with a start bar, and full win32 compatibility. the widgets are optional. just like on ICS. just like on a transformer tablet. if you watn a bunch of live stuff on your desktop you can have them. its like mac os x , meets ICS, meets windows 7. it is what a lot of people would be comfortable with.

http://www.alphaila.com/articles/failure/how-windows-8-looks-concept-dariod/

That's a great article. Thanks for posting.

That guy's ideas are 1000x better than the crap MS is pushing with Windows 8. His concepts are way more advanced and thought-through, and it shows.

The Metro UI by comparison is a primitive, clunky joke. You'd sort of expect the opposite to be true when it's some lone guy vs. a huge multi-billion dollar corporation with tons of resources. Yet with MS, it's not surprising. They seem to have some legacy developers on their staff, with outdated ideas that just need to be let go already. Pay whoever these people are huge severance packages, say, "Thanks for your services, bye" and then get some new talent in house that understands interface design in the year 2012 and beyond, not 1987.

I'm relieved that I'm not the only one that so far finds this several steps backward in the wrong direction. Metro is NOT good user-interface design, not by a long shot. I even disagree with the idea that it'll be 'great' on a tablet. People misunderstand tablet interfaces as well; having to move your fingers or a pen all over a screen just to launch something isn't any more helpful on a tablet as it is a desktop. I'd be much more impressed with that guy's ideas on a tablet interface than what I've seen so far from Metro.

 

[Sheep]

I meant more than just the OS UI. By going to Linux, you've got to learn new everything. Sure, there's OpenOffice, and it might do things that Office does, but not the same way. Similarly people will have to learn new music software, email software, (potentially) browsers, etc.

And you don't think people are going to have to relearn how to use the Metro versions of IE and other native Windows 8 programs?

 

[Deeko]

And you don't think people are going to have to relearn how to use the Metro versions of IE and other native Windows 8 programs?

Desktop applications work exactly the same as they did before. If you don't want to learn something new, you can put software you're familiar with on Windows 8 and it will work. The same cannot be said of Ubuntu.

 

[blurredvision]

That's a great article. Thanks for posting.

That guy's ideas are 1000x better than the crap MS is pushing with Windows 8. His concepts are way more advanced and thought-through, and it shows.

Wow, really? His own mock-ups look absolutely horrible. W8 looks startlingly more polished and mature than his jumbled mess of info.

 

[Zaap]

Wow, really? His own mock-ups look absolutely horrible. W8 looks startlingly more polished and mature than his jumbled mess of info.

Did you read the article, or just look at the pictures?
I was talking about his ideas, and the thought behind them, not just what things look like.

And W8 looks like a baby's fisher price interface. The word 'mature' doesn't even apply. In fact, I can't imagine any serious professional at *anything* wanting such an obviously dumbed-down looking mess as Metro anywhere near their work environment. Most people stopped organizing things in big blocks of fluorescent colors after they were maybe 7 years old.

 

[blurredvision]

Did you read the article, or just look at the pictures?
I was talking about his ideas, and the thought behind them, not just what things look like.

And W8 looks like a baby's fisher price interface. The word 'mature' doesn't even apply. In fact, I can't imagine any serious professional at *anything* wanting such an obviously dumbed-down looking mess as Metro anywhere near their work environment. Most people stopped organizing things in big blocks of fluorescent colors after they were maybe 7 years old.

I did read the articles and I thought his ideas weren't that great, either. I think your notion that W8 is "baby's fisher price" is strongly misguided. OMG, Microsoft is using colors!!! Somebody stop them!!! Please.

 

[Sheep]

Did you read the article, or just look at the pictures?
I was talking about his ideas, and the thought behind them, not just what things look like.

And W8 looks like a baby's fisher price interface. The word 'mature' doesn't even apply. In fact, I can't imagine any serious professional at *anything* wanting such an obviously dumbed-down looking mess as Metro anywhere near their work environment. Most people stopped organizing things in big blocks of fluorescent colors after they were maybe 7 years old.

Annnnnnnnnnd we've come full-circle to when people complained that XP looked like Windows Fisher Price Edition compared to 95/98.

 

[Zaap]

I did read the articles and I thought his ideas weren't that great, either. I think your notion that W8 is "baby's fisher price" is strongly misguided. OMG, Microsoft is using colors!!! Somebody stop them!!! Please.

I'm guessing you were an ME and Vista defender too.

It's not like MS doesn't have a record of screwing up royally every other OS version.

 

[Zaap]

Annnnnnnnnnd we've come full-circle to when people complained that XP looked like Windows Fisher Price Edition compared to 95/98.

Weren't you just saying that Metro was more jarring than a switch to Linux?

XP was a decent OS, and the theme could be turned off if need be. Even the expanded start menu set back to the way it was previously. Few complaints against XP were against the entire concept of the OS and it was clear MS still understood what users wanted.

Metro sucks for a lot more than just it's dumbed-down infantile looks- it's several steps backward in user interface design.

 

[Sheep]

Weren't you just saying that Metro was more jarring than a switch to Linux?

XP was a decent OS, and the theme could be turned off if need be. Even the expanded start menu set back to the way it was previously. Few complaints against XP were against the entire concept of the OS and it was clear MS still understood what users wanted.

Metro sucks for a lot more than just it's dumbed-down infantile looks- it's several steps backward in user interface design.

It might not have been clear, but I'm actually in agreement with you about Windows 8 being a GUI disaster of two different OSes bolted together. I just found it amusing that you chose to describe Windows 8 as Fisher Price when that's exactly what some people used to describe XP a decade ago...the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

[Dominato3r]

As I said in the other thread, things are changing and ou've got to adapt. SOme of the stories I'm hearing are as if the person just walked out of a war zone. The biggest difference is the start screen replacing the start menu, and I can say 100% without a doubt that the start screen is in every way, shape, or form better than the start menu.

 

[_Aurel_]

As I said in the other thread, things are changing and ou've got to adapt. SOme of the stories I'm hearing are as if the person just walked out of a war zone. The biggest difference is the start screen replacing the start menu, and I can say 100% without a doubt that the start screen is in every way, shape, or form better than the start menu.

There is no way in Hell that some of the apps I use will ever be adapted, nor will they ever work for a touch-based GUI. Apps like Maya, Photoshop, 3DS Max have tons of menus and options, and you need precise control with your keyboard and mouse to navigate. Because of this, if I ever upgrade the Windows that I have to use for these apps becomes worse. So why should I upgrade to something that will immediately be a downgrade? And pay $130 for the privilege?

The moment you put a mouse/trackpad and keyboard attached to your tablet, which is something Microsoft wants you to do to use these 'legacy' apps, navigation is immediately more efficient using a gestures with your mouse or track pad. Even if you can use a touch interface, reaching across with your hands to that screen will strain your arms.

Besides that, another major reason why Metro sucks is that it's information-sparse. It uses mostly typography for menus and navigation (with a lot of wasted space), there's less stuff that I can see at once in my screen, making it more of a hassle to have to scroll or navigate to get to what I want.