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Metro

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Re: Metro

#91

Post by eropple »

ashr wrote: post #59
jonpaul wrote: post #35

I feel like one of the few who sees the emperor with no clothes. Let me first start by stating that I do believe that touchscreen devices will continue to revolutionize industries, as they already have. But, why in God's name are Microsoft and Apple trying to shoehorn the touch-screen onto the desktop? Mac OS X Lion is probably the last OS X version that we'll see. With each version it's gotten closer and closer to b…

Have you ever experienced coworkers discussing something in front of the computer and touching the monitor screen time and again to point out things? It is not the most popular use case, but it does show that touching a screen to interact with a desktop is a natural inclination. Even with a desktop.

I don't agree that it's a natural inclination for working. For talking to someone else, okay, but touching the monitor for actually doing work is a fast route to gorilla arm.

Re: Metro

#92

Post by eropple »

kijinbear wrote: post #74
DaveMebs wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually used a touch screen on a Desktop? I'm not being snarky here; I genuinely believe that you should actively try to use a touch screen with a Win8 desktop before deciding one way or the other. I do it every day, and while it is not great for everything, there are some places where it is really nice. For example, I love having a touch monitor when I'm reading a long Word document. Why hold a mouse and u…

That would make sense on laptops and other small devices, but not so much if you're sitting 2-3 ft away from 2-3 large screens. Which is not uncommon for programmers and designers these days. Right now, from where I'm sitting, I can't touch my desktop monitor without leaning forward uncomfortably. Even if large touchscreens become cheaper over the next few years, my arms aren't going to get any longer, and my field o…

The other practical problem I see: fingerprints. I never touch my laptop screen because I'm looking at it all day and even at full brightness you can see previous fingerprints.

Re: Metro

#93

Post by [deleted] »

DavidSJ wrote: post #73
cooldeal wrote: post #30

Gruber's wrong on this. The ARM version will include the regular Windows desktop, Office etc. Microsoft has shown this multiple times. They have demoed even ARM desktops with a mouse and a keyboard! Video back from January: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvzJmRBS84w (watch from 2 mins in).

Just because they demoed it that way doesn't mean they'll ship it that way.

[deleted]

Re: Metro

#94

Post by rplacd »

cooldeal wrote: post #41
toddmorey wrote: post #20

I think metro is very minimal and very clean. But it's also... cold. A bit too austere. The goal for an interface isn't to impress--it's to connect. Somehow, I've never felt a sense of connection with the Metro interfaces. It feels like design borrowed from the annual report of a faceless international corporation. All design; no personality. I like simple and clean. And I like minimalism. But I also think you have t…

Metro can have a lot of personality. Eg. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qghf4e2n0Yc&hd=1 http://immersivenick.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/hohm-window... http://www.mobileguerilla.com/images/windows-phone-7-xbox.jp... http://www.mobileguerilla.com/images/windows-phone-7-office.... http://www.mobileguerilla.com/images/windows-phone-7-zune.jp... Can you really say that the app above has no personality? In-depth M…

Hotlinking means bandwidth theft, bru.

Re: Metro

#95

Post by raminf »

gbog wrote: post #84
alex_c wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we'll be seeing a more and more pronounced split in computing and, therefore, interfaces. On one side (the majority) will be "consumers": web, email, Facebook, maybe some light photo editing. On the other side will be the "producers": people who use Photoshop, or Matlab, or AutoCAD. Office falls somewhere in the middle... Office itself may eventually be divided along those lines, with a lightweight, tablet-…

I don't like these ideas Gruber and friends are repeating and repeating again. In the article, it is carved in marble: "the advantages that come from NOT allowing you to do so many [things]". The reasoning behind is that Steve Jobs or other said genius should be choosing for you what you are "allowed" to do. It feels awfully 1984 for me. I live in China and I can tell you it is painfull, sometime, when someone else c…

If you cast the app universe as 'open' vs' 'closed' as some have tried to do or 'free' vs. 'controlled,' then yes, of course, open and free are better.

But there are a few other ways to look at it:

- Chaotic vs. orderly. - A pile of laundry vs. neatly folded - Unfiltered vs. filtered - Amateur vs. professional - Unedited vs. curated

Pick whichever way you want and your perspective might be different. It's really in how you define the context.

As far as I'm concerned the app store is a shopping mall and the proprietors have chosen to limit what kind of businesses can open shop there (no head shops or brothels). There are shoppers who are happy to go there and those who don't like the brand-name selections. There are businesses who are prospering happily and those who are struggling.

And then there are those who like to stand outside with pickets and complain that the management is squelching free speech.

Comparing it to dystopian nightmares and totalitarian regimes is quite a stretch.

Re: Metro

#96

Post by mechanical_fish »

gbog wrote: post #84
alex_c wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we'll be seeing a more and more pronounced split in computing and, therefore, interfaces. On one side (the majority) will be "consumers": web, email, Facebook, maybe some light photo editing. On the other side will be the "producers": people who use Photoshop, or Matlab, or AutoCAD. Office falls somewhere in the middle... Office itself may eventually be divided along those lines, with a lightweight, tablet-…

I don't like these ideas Gruber and friends are repeating and repeating again. In the article, it is carved in marble: "the advantages that come from NOT allowing you to do so many [things]". The reasoning behind is that Steve Jobs or other said genius should be choosing for you what you are "allowed" to do. It feels awfully 1984 for me. I live in China and I can tell you it is painfull, sometime, when someone else c…

There's a pretty significant difference in kind between design constraints and political or economic constraints. The "freedom" to mistype a URL and then get phished, or to misconfigure a backup drive and then lose all of your data, or to save a file inside an arbitrary folder with an arbitrary name on an arbitrary drive and then be unable to find it again, is very different from the freedoms of the Enlightenment.

Computer owners who don't understand their computers do not feel free. They feel a constant sense of discomfort, even dread. They fear making mistakes, they worry that the box will break at any moment, and they're embarrassed that they have to ask techies -- often expensive techies -- for help.

Re: Metro

#97

Post by pyre »

gbog wrote: post #84
alex_c wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we'll be seeing a more and more pronounced split in computing and, therefore, interfaces. On one side (the majority) will be "consumers": web, email, Facebook, maybe some light photo editing. On the other side will be the "producers": people who use Photoshop, or Matlab, or AutoCAD. Office falls somewhere in the middle... Office itself may eventually be divided along those lines, with a lightweight, tablet-…

I don't like these ideas Gruber and friends are repeating and repeating again. In the article, it is carved in marble: "the advantages that come from NOT allowing you to do so many [things]". The reasoning behind is that Steve Jobs or other said genius should be choosing for you what you are "allowed" to do. It feels awfully 1984 for me. I live in China and I can tell you it is painfull, sometime, when someone else c…

  > "the advantages that come from NOT allowing you
  > to do so many [things]".
I read this as referring to the examples he talks about later with regards to memory management and restricting the ability to background to preserve battery life. The idea being that tablets -- as devices -- a restricted in their resources, so the environment that the programs run in also have to be restrictive in allocating those resources. The bulk of current Windows programs are not designed to restrict their resource usage because they were never targeting such devices.

I don't think that the he was talking about a curated AppStore (with a 'totalitarian' gatekeeper), which seems to be what you're talking about.

Re: Metro

#98

Post by pyre »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #96
gbog wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like these ideas Gruber and friends are repeating and repeating again. In the article, it is carved in marble: "the advantages that come from NOT allowing you to do so many [things]". The reasoning behind is that Steve Jobs or other said genius should be choosing for you what you are "allowed" to do. It feels awfully 1984 for me. I live in China and I can tell you it is painfull, sometime, when someone else c…

There's a pretty significant difference in kind between design constraints and political or economic constraints. The "freedom" to mistype a URL and then get phished, or to misconfigure a backup drive and then lose all of your data, or to save a file inside an arbitrary folder with an arbitrary name on an arbitrary drive and then be unable to find it again, is very different from the freedoms of the Enlightenment. Co…

There are equally as many people that run rough shod over everything because they'll just ask their techie friend/family member to fix whatever broke for them.

Whether one falls into this camp, or the camp that you're talking about is probably just up to personality types.

Re: Metro

#99

Post by pyre »

redthrowaway wrote: post #72
alex_c wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we'll be seeing a more and more pronounced split in computing and, therefore, interfaces. On one side (the majority) will be "consumers": web, email, Facebook, maybe some light photo editing. On the other side will be the "producers": people who use Photoshop, or Matlab, or AutoCAD. Office falls somewhere in the middle... Office itself may eventually be divided along those lines, with a lightweight, tablet-…

>Office itself may eventually be divided along those lines, with a lightweight, tablet-friendly spinoff It'd be interesting to see how such a thing would differ from Google Docs, and if it would justify the kind of prices MS likes to charge for Office. An Office app for lightly-spec'd computers makes sense, but you'd have to charge app prices for it and I don't see MS sacrificing their second biggest cash cow any tim…

How about an offline version? That's something that Google doesn't really offer.

Re: Metro

#100

Post by _sh »

_sh wrote: post #77
krevis wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Woz, Bill Atkinson. http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story... "Smalltalk didn't even have self-repairing windows - you had to click in them to get them to repaint, and programs couldn't draw into partially obscured windows. Bill Atkinson did not know this, so he invented regions as the basis of QuickDraw and the Window Manager so that he could quickly draw in covered windows and repaint portions…

The 'regions' used in QuickDraw are an amazing (for their time) data structure, a testament to the genius of Bill Atkinson. I strongly recommend reading the patent to see how cool and useful they were to the original Mac windowing system ( http://patentdetails.patenttools.com/patent/04622545?searchi... click on the 'download pdf' link in the top left). Steve Jobs know how important regions were: http://www.folklore.o…

Obviously I meant 'Steve Jobs knew how important regions were'.

In a semi-related matter, does anyone know of the algorithm Bill used to draw RoundRects 'blisteringly fast'? http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...

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