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Metro

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Re: Metro

#141

Post by nickheer »

gbog wrote: post #128
raminf wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I am ok with the idea that on a given app market, website, content provider, the proprietors can and should curate the content the way they decide. What I am not ok with is that the makers of a machine I buy keep a too strict control on what I can do with this machine I bought. We are grownups, we should be allowed to use the things we buy in the way we please. As far as I know, if I do something illegal with a Porsc…

> As far as I know, if I do something illegal with a Porsche or an iPad, their respective makers are not responsible of that misbehavior, and therefore should not be entitled to forbid me from doing it.

You are correct, but I am unclear as to what you could be referencing. You can add pirated MP3s, eBooks and movies to iOS devices, if you so choose. You can even jailbreak them to customise them even further, provided you don't also expect warranty service.

Re: Metro

#142

Post by pbz »

lloeki wrote: post #119
pbz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He later goes on to suggest that perhaps there will be no "traditional" Windows on the tablet, only Metro, which he discusses having the same sorts of backgrounding-and-suspending capability iOS enjoys." Which, again, proves he didn't watch the keynote. At one point they brought up the scenario of using a tablet on the couch and then, after finding a bug, being able to pull up Visual Studio on the same device. Even…

It's an Intel tablet. Gruber envisions a possible scenario where Metro-only is on ARM tablets.

That's a very narrow definition of a tablet. Regardless, they also showed at a different conference the actual Windows desktop with Office running on ARM. If it can run the full desktop it can Metro as well.

Re: Metro

#143

Post by Symmetry »

zizee wrote: post #42
glhaynes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point - though I believe they were called windows on previous GUI systems. EDIT: Though now that I think about it and, IIRC, Xerox's stuff didn't have overlapping windows either. Apple's Lisa and Mac did. I think Englebart's demo had windows but I'm not sure if they overlapped.

I recall a story (maybe an urban myth) about Steve Jobs visiting Xerox's labs and seeing their UI in action and thinking "we've got to have that". He went back to tell Woz all about it, telling him that Xerox's UI supported overlapping windows and that Apple needed to do the same. Woz was amazed that it was possible to have overlapping windows on such a resource constrained machine. But if Xerox engineers could do it…

He didn't actually mis-remember, though. The Alto, the OS used internally at Sun had overlapping windows but Xerox Star, the version that they sold outside the company couldn't handle them. http://www.osnews.com/story/20365/pt_X_the_Window

Re: Metro

#144

Post by _djo_ »

evinfinite wrote: post #116
technoslut wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not power productivity suite user but I would have to believe close to all of Office's features can be implemented with the proper UI with the advanced features of the apps hidden away from the eyes of the average user. If it's a question of specs or software maturity then it really is just a matter of time.

It is at this point that I feel obliged to point out that Apple already ships an office suite for the iPad and, bizarrely enough, even the iPhone: http://www.apple.com/apps/keynote/ - http://www.apple.com/apps/pages/ - http://www.apple.com/apps/numbers/

I recently had to write a one-page letter on my iPhone and email it to somebody to print out, sign and hand to a third-party. It wasn't by choice, it was just an urgent request and I had nothing else with me.

Surprisingly, it wasn't nearly as painful as I expected. It didn't take me long to write the letter (the default templates helped a lot), making edits was fairly easy and I had no trouble being able to read over what I had written.

So for small edits to existing files and quick docs it's usable, though clearly not as good an experience as using the same suite on an iPad.

Re: Metro

#145

Post by cptskippy »

This isn't really a ground breaking revelation but something that MS has been hinting at for months if not years. Win32 was never suppose to be so tightly integrated in the Kernel, it was suppose to be a user mode subsystem just POSIX.

MinWin was a kernel cleanup effort that was suppose to be part of Longhorn and then Win7. If MinWin is finished in Win8 then Win32 would just be a subsystem along side Metro and neither would be dependent on the other or necessary for the other to operate.

I can't find the reference but I remember reading somewhere a few months back that Win32 may not even be installed by default in Win8 and that it would only be installed when you attempted to load an application that needed Win32.

Re: Metro

#146

Post by zackattack »

pyre wrote: post #98
mechanical_fish wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Inappropriately applied dichotomy, my brotha. "Figure it out yourself and lead" vs. "Manipulate someone else into doing it for me" ---- a lot of people would rather do it themselves if it were easy enough.

Re: Metro

#147

Post by r00fus »

ericdschmidt wrote: post #90
eykanal wrote: post #44

If I'm reading this right, Gruber's effectively saying, "Metro, and Metro alone (i.e., no desktop), is a good competitor to the iPad." That's wonderful; a real iPad competitor. But what about all the rest of the computers? You know, those big things on your desktop? We all know just how smart most users are when it comes to figuring out how to use stuff on a computer. Its taken years to get to the point where your ty…

It won't be long before most people have only one computing device: a very powerful smartphone. When used as a mobile device, the interface looks like iPhone/Metro. When you are at your desk, you dock it and the interface that pops up on your 30 inch monitor is like Windows 7 (WIMP). And you can also dock it in a range of shells (for lack of a better word) from a 7-inch tablet (touchscreen UI) to a 17-inch laptop (WI…

I actually prefer the more logical conclusion to this thread: Sun's SunRay concept... everything is in the network (cloud), you use key(s) to access/control them.

However, I'd extend that and say that along with the "key" is a smartphone that can also (in a limited fashion) view/manipulate your cloud data and send/receive messages.

The important thing to recognize is that there will always be need for "more and faster" than a smartphone will be capable of providing.

Re: Metro

#148

Post by blasdel »

sambeau wrote: post #140
steele wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought he was an Apple shill first and foremost.

Nope. You should read his rants about Helvetica…

But those aren't really from a design perspective either. There's little about what makes 'his' font work better, just potshots at the 'other' fonts that suck because they don't copy his closely enough (except where they do, then they're ripoff assholes).

He's a sportswriter, and his home teams are Apple, the Yankees, and Helvetica.

Rooting for dominant winners like that isn't so bad in itself, but he does it as if they were still downtrodden losers in need of defenders — that's the core of what makes him so insufferable

Re: Metro

#149

Post by cbs »

nickheer wrote: post #141
gbog wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am ok with the idea that on a given app market, website, content provider, the proprietors can and should curate the content the way they decide. What I am not ok with is that the makers of a machine I buy keep a too strict control on what I can do with this machine I bought. We are grownups, we should be allowed to use the things we buy in the way we please. As far as I know, if I do something illegal with a Porsc…

> As far as I know, if I do something illegal with a Porsche or an iPad, their respective makers are not responsible of that misbehavior, and therefore should not be entitled to forbid me from doing it. You are correct, but I am unclear as to what you could be referencing. You can add pirated MP3s, eBooks and movies to iOS devices, if you so choose. You can even jailbreak them to customise them even further, provided…

>You can even jailbreak them

Not if Apple had their way and were able to win that arms race.

>I am unclear as to what you could be referencing.

You're _playing_ the fool here I hope.

I put rockbox on my iPod classic, I love rockbox. Apple encrypted the device in a way to prevent aftermarket modifications and set development for that device back years while they worked to get around the restrictions apple put in.

That kind of practice is what he is referencing.

Re: Metro

#150

Post by spa942 »

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…

I'm not sure how Apple is trying to shoehorn touchscreens in Lion. They have made a very clear distinction between OSX and iOS, and instead added more gestures to the touchpads instead of trying to make a Mac with a touch screen.

I agree though, that trying to mix both is a mistake (one that's been tried for 10 years without much success).

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