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Windows needs a change in priorities

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Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#661

Post by Loughla »

shp0ngle wrote: post #238

Well, what are you going to do. Not use Windows? Linux still barely works in 2022 (and if one distro will become really popular, with a big investment of money like Ubuntu did once, they will ad ads, like Ubuntu added Amazon), and MacOS works just on Apple HW (and has ads for Apple services baked-in too, just less obnoxious). You can use ChromeOS! Which is literally ad tech. Pick your poison.

I run Linux mint as my daily machine. It just works? I have yet to find a substantive issue with it (other than video gaming, but that doesn't really count for most people's use).

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#662

Post by hoosieree »

artificialLimbs wrote: post #190

I stopped playing Minecraft recently again. I first quit a few years ago, but wanted to show it to my young son. Trying to go back and EVEN JUST INSTALL it now is filled with Microsoft-ian circles of login catastrophe and "upgrade your account" nightmares. The installation process was so difficult, I will never play again.

I tried to use a different email address to sign in to Windows from the one associated with my Minecraft purchase, and what a nightmare that was.

Spent hours flailing with the Xbox store, Microsoft store, Mojang and Minecraft accounts, resetting passwords, etc. Eventually got it to work but I have no idea what fixed it.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#664

Post by rbanffy »

q-big wrote: post #634
rbanffy wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows and macOS users have different expectations. On a Mac, I expect my login account to also know my Apple ID and connect seamlessly with my iCloud, Apple TV, Apple Music, Messages, and all other Apple cloud services. I like being able to answer phone calls on the computer when the phone is nearby. When Microsoft tries to make Windows more Mac-like, it faces a couple problems - not everyone wants to be on Skype o…

> When Microsoft tries to make Windows more Mac-like Just a consideration: Aren't nearly all users who love the Apple/Mac experience already in the Apple ecosystem? In other words: Should Microsoft not rather assume that making Windows more Mac-like might be a bad idea considering their core customers?

> Aren't nearly all users who love the Apple/Mac experience already in the Apple ecosystem?

Not sure. Macs are not that available and, in some places, are prohibitively expensive. Others would love the everything-integrated experience while using software that runs only on Windows.

I'm not sure Microsoft even has that "core customer" as neatly defined as Apple (or Linux). Getting a Mac or a Linux box is a deliberate action, whilst, for the end user, getting a Windows box is the default when you get a "generic" computer.

One group I can think of is the corporate administrators, who want to deliver a locked down set of functions to corporate workstations - VPN settings, firewalls, blocked websites, custom update schedules, and so on. That same crowd also orders Macs and Chromebooks with the same goals.

What Microsoft can do is to offer tailored experiences for specific groups - people who want everything to just work (who'll be happy with Skype logging them on on boot, with OneDrive backing stuff up...), gamers who'll definitely not want Skype to interrupt them and who have nothing to back up to OneDrive, but, sometimes, want to record and stream their games, Windows developers who'll spend most of their time within Visual Studio and the MSDN KB (am I dating myself here?), and so on. I'm very sure they have a list of personas already built for that.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#665

Post by unsupp0rted »

ncmncm wrote: post #223
unsupp0rted wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Apple wants and what I want seems to intersect about 95% of the time, at least in terms of phones and laptops. Mainly what I want is to not think about my tools at all, and just pick them up or put them down whenever the need arises, without worrying about whether I'm making a secret catastrophic error or that my tools are pretending to be my tools, while actually their master is somebody else. I gladly sacrific…

In my experience, Apple customers mostly just convince themselves that they must want whatever it is Apple chooses to offer at the moment. This is most easily seen whenever the new version of an Apple product arrives, lacking a feature they had relied on. They immediately set to work persuading themselves they can make do without that.

How can I reply to this?

If I agree with you that Apple sucks, then you were right that Apple sucks.

If I say most of Apple's design and philosophy decisions are the best option for someone like me, then you were right Apple sucks because I'm trying to convince myself otherwise.

The only version of my experience you'd believe is the one you believed already: that Apple sucks.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#666

Post by thereddaikon »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #441
kyriakos wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point but maybe the reactions are because most of these efforts feel half baked? For example they are forcing teams on users, which I use as a daily driver at my work and I feel that it's the worst piece of software I have to use. On top of that the way things are integrated always looks and feels forced. Like going into lengths to hide control panel in windows 10 even if it's still there and while the set…

Absolutely. And everything is extremely confusing, even for "tech workers", which I am. The other day, I installed Win 11 on a work computer to give it a try. I figured since it's gonna be domain joined and whatnot anyway, might as well go all in. So when it asked for an account, I plug in my Office 365 account, and got all kinds of weird errors, such as wrong password, etc. In the end I gave up and created a regular…

The separation of Onedrive and Teams into plebs and business versions is asinine. Why cant both types of accounts use the same application?

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#667

Post by thereddaikon »

devmunchies wrote: post #358
srvmshr wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That misguided notion of product features and integration, where the user has minimum role, started out at Apple. The standard pattern used to be talking to OEMs and discussing what users wanted from them. That review phase generated update ideas for next release and so on. Apple turned that question on its head and made it "the one last thing" show business. We have employed a generation of PMs now who idolize Steve…

> We have employed a generation of PMs now who idolize Steve Jobs' mantra: "Users dont know what they want until you show it to them". just because a bunch of dumb PMs are pushing hot garbage to the user doesn't mean that statement is false. There almost always IS a way to improve and innovate a user experience—a new experience that the user hasn't thought of before. Its just that the PM incentives aren't aligned wit…

Agreed. I think it was Henry Ford who said that if he had asked customers what they wanted, they would have told him a better horse.

Innovation is the act of giving the users something they didn't know what they want.

But that's not what these anti-user dark patterns are. They are the end result PMs trying to hit their KPIs by any means necessary. And those happen to not track things like users satisfaction and trust.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#668

Post by a-dub »

confused software encourages confused habits of mind.

ditched windows (and its apparent organizational brain damage) 18 years ago and have only ever looked back when forced to in employment situations.

strongly believe that if you normalize broken computing by forcing developers to use broken platforms, then they'll produce broken software.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#669

Post by canbus »

phkahler wrote: post #633

Windows users need a change in priorities. FTFY. The OS has gone to shit, but people keep right on using it and complaining about how bad it's getting. What is your lame priority for sticking with it? Don't tell me gaming - get a console or VR headset, or steam on Linux. If you're that hung up on one game that doesn't run anywhere else then again you need to change your priorities. If it's using Excel or Word with a…

Maybe I use it for work? Or because WINE isn't perfect for everything that I need to use, and I don't want to spend hours trying to configure it?

What about basic users? They don't care whether they should be using KDE Plasma or a Gnome-based window manager etc - maybe they want something that 'just works'

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#670

Post by _Algernon_ »

TonyTrapp wrote: post #507
interstice wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory that the people who used the bar on the side and the people who turned the user metrics off are the same people (myself included). But I’m not sure how I feel about the results. In any case I hope shells like litestep make a comeback as a result of ever more hostile ui decisions, either that or everyone jumps ship entirely to put energy into making something else great.

> I have a theory that the people who used the bar on the side and the people who turned the user metrics off are the same people (myself included) I keep telemetry enabled in Firefox in the hope that they see that I use all of the features that they later remove anyway. It seems like nobody is using metrics to prove that it's not safe to remove a feature. Or they say "oh, it's only 1% of users using that feature", n…

I don't use telemetry in the hopes that they'll see that only X% of users use telemetry and that they thus remove telemetry as a feature.

Not working well so far.

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