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The Windows 11 Trash Party

birchtree.me

441–450 of 523 posts

Re: The Windows 11 Trash Party

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep questions like why didn't anyone like Metro UI on Windows 8? :) Even on touch devices it sucked. I would say that was an obvious sign of a a sick organization when it effects that kind of carnage on its users. Only reason they got away with it, was that there were no real alternatives to Windows. Windows 11 is something in the same league, but i would say there are more alternatives now than ever before, so Micr…

Cause everyone already had learned how to "touch"-gui, but microsoft in typical arrogance, redesigned it from the bottom up, throwing all the learnings away, you either had from android or macos. And like introducing a third language, to do the same tasks you already can perform fluent in two other languages, it was just this constant stepping into the void of expectations. It came out 2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

> Cause everyone already had learned how to "touch"-gui, but microsoft in typical arrogance, redesigned it from the bottom up

Microsoft had a fantastic touch UI in Windows Phone 8 imho, but on desktop Windows they managed to botch it hard enough that everyone became allergic to tiles. They simply slapped a random UI with absolutely no thought put into it over the desktop, making it a constant obstacle for users to reach the UI they were used to. The old part of the UI was near unusable on touchscreens, the new one was unintuitive and not self-explanatory at all.

It felt like Microsoft wasn't sure what they actually wanted and couldn't commit to a choice until launch. I can't otherwise explain how they released a UI where the average Windows user needed minutes to find the shutdown button.

Re: The Windows 11 Trash Party

#442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excel is the big one. The web version is really, really good on its own terms, but desktop excel really is in a class of its own both in terms of capability and penetration. Yes, it does give people regular reasons to point and laugh at it, and it's probably dangerous how much of the modern world depends on it, but you only have to use a competitor for a very short period of time to realise that displacing it would b…

Except for compatibility (which will always be questionable with proprietary formats), I don't think most folks actually need Word or Excel. Most folks aren't delving into VBA and such, they just need a bunch of interlinked cells with a little math.

Compatibility is 90% of the problem, though. While it might be tempting to think that most people might not need Excel, the important thing to realise is that they think they do, the people who are sending them spreadsheets to look at think they do, and your beliefs aren't going to change that.

Re: The Windows 11 Trash Party

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"would do well" does not mean "in order to do well", it's more like cautioning someone on a dangerous path that appears to be fine at a glance.

Thanks for the clarification, I wasn't aware of that usage. I feel the same though. I don't see how these things backfire at Microsoft. Rather than them doing something particular, I see that every such entity is doing things like this, so it's more of just a sign of the times, and MS just doing what everyone else is doing.

So, I recall ballmer doing really well financially at msft during his time. Ignoring stocks, revenue was up. I think profits were up. But then they missed every major trend during that time, and were looked at as creaking in the wrong direction. The reason I said they should ask themselves questions about windows is because it feels the same way to me. A product that still makes its way to enterprise and other money minting categories. But it’s quietly losing its way in the young developer/business/influencer market. Maybe one day MSFT wakes up and looks at windows and realizes they’ve been going in a stupid direction of screwing the long game over the whole time.

Re: The Windows 11 Trash Party

#444
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A classic mistake Apple has avoided. The Mac is not numerically their big platform but it’s key to their ecosystem so they have not abandoned it. Also Azure sucks compared to most other cloud providers so that’s not a basket I would put all my eggs in.

Aren't Apple starting to roll out more ads in various places?

Inside of the Appstore on iOS

Re: The Windows 11 Trash Party

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "Linux" could ever fix the consistent sound mixer / bluetooth issues, it could really be the de facto OS. I don't know how but across multiple people and distributions sound issues always start surfacing after 2-3 months.

Would recommend trying out PipeWire[0] if you haven't already. I don't know what your sound issues are but I've had no problems since switching ~15 months ago. [0] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWire

Thanks a lot for this. The problems I personally had and seen others have/had are static when no sound is played, and intermittently bluetooth audio playback issues (no sound). Also in one instance heavily distorted sound was reproducibly played when the discord notification came on.

Re: The Windows 11 Trash Party

#446

With AI now being a real thing, I’m looking through all these “how it’s done” UI elements through a new lens. Like weather: Even when I want to know the local weather do I want to watch it in real time? No. I’m having to watch it in real time because I need to predict how it’s going to affect my plans. I’d much rather have an AI do the real-time stuff and nudge me to say “Hey, there’s rain about an hour away” or “The…

Sounds similar to the "digital concierge" thing that was posted here last week. Which honestly sounds pretty good. Fine line between digital concierge, nagging, and something like out of the (dystopian) short story "Manna", though (available here: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 )

I just read the story but I can’t find the digital concierge post from last week. Can you link it? I feels like a better place for a further discussion on the story’s topics.

Re: The Windows 11 Trash Party

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Linux (usually Ubuntu or a derivative), macOS and Windows 11 regularly. To me they all “suck”. They all have shortcomings, and my constant switching between them only proves that there isn’t a clear winner. I can think of at least two “dumb” things with each that are easy to address but for whatever reason…. Aren’t. I will say desktop Linux has been the worst experience for me, and it’s been that way since 2010…

>will say desktop Linux has been the worst experience Im surprised by this take, Ubuntu derivatives have had major improvements in the past decade. What is the worst thing youve run into?

I don't know about them but the last time I used Ubuntu, it was extraordinarily slow and non-responsive on my test system with a 6600k, 32gb ram, and a 1 TB Samsung SSD.

Pop-OS also had that issue, but stock Debian did not, and Fedora has been consistently a good performer for me.

Re: The Windows 11 Trash Party

#448

You're no longer the customer. You don't pay for the operating system, so you're the product.

>You don't pay for the operating system What do you mean? Windows 11 costs money. The cheapest version is around $100 in Hungary. It's not even free when bundled to stuff - backchannel business deals take care of that. So we both pay, and also we are the product. Always have been, I believe.

Hmm. We got it for free here in the states.

Re: The Windows 11 Trash Party

#449
post #156

You're no longer the customer. You don't pay for the operating system, so you're the product.

As if Windows or MS-DOS were ever good!

I liked DOS because it was an executable loader. You told it what program you wanted to run and it got out of your way.

(That being said, I use a real OS these days and don't want to go back.)

Re: The Windows 11 Trash Party

#450
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does on Wayland. X11 isn't likely to get it because it's EoL. Currently using it right now on Sway: https://man.archlinux.org/man/sway-output.5.en

And Wayland is compatible with everything one would expect?

Nope! I used it for a while and had issues with screen sharing/capture in Firefox and OBS (it did work in Chrome but then my webcam didn't work there - classic Linux).

I never thought it would take 3 decades for Wayland to be mature.

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