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Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#71

Post by jbigelow76 »

codereflection wrote: post #56
sixbrx wrote: post #3

"We now have more than 70,000 apps in the Windows Store (the online app store for Windows) – apps such as Twitter, ..." Did anyone else chuckle that he felt he had to describe parenthetically what the Windows Store is?

And he didn't mention what percentage of those apps are of any decent quality. They're ruining the experience by pushing quantity over quality.

That's what makes the whole app store count metric such a farce. MS is feeling envious because it doesn't have 800,000 apps like Google Play does? Who cares? Of those 800,000 apps maybe only 8000 are decent, 800 actually good, and maybe only 80 truly essential to the platform.

Until about a month ago I had been an Android user since the Google 1 phone, I think over the course of several phones I probably used about 30 or so apps, most getting only infrequent use aside from the ones like Twitter and my banking apps. Losing any of them wouldn't have been a deal breaker as long as my phone continued to work as, well you know, a phone.

I switched to a Windows Phone recently, of my essential apps from Android I lost only one (INGDirect banking app). Whenever I browse through the Windows app store I keep hoping that Msft will purge about 69,000 of their 70,000 apps because almost all of them, as on Android and iOS, are pathetic facades over simple mobile websites.

M'eh, rant over. Journalists will keep flogging app store penis sizes causes it russles the jimmies of each platforms respective fanboys and runs up the page views and retweets. I fall for it too but less frequently these days. But Microsoft does have a serious problem with the platform in not being able to play XBox video (even though WP7 can), they launched without it and it doesn't sound like 8.1 is addressing the problem either. Cutting themselves off from their own service, after they already had it no less, reeks of incompetence. It's almost comical that the only video you can play on WP8 would be considered "pirated" video. Apple would never have pulled shit like that.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#72

Post by FireBeyond »

codereflection wrote: post #56
sixbrx wrote: post #3

"We now have more than 70,000 apps in the Windows Store (the online app store for Windows) – apps such as Twitter, ..." Did anyone else chuckle that he felt he had to describe parenthetically what the Windows Store is?

And he didn't mention what percentage of those apps are of any decent quality. They're ruining the experience by pushing quantity over quality.

Have you seen some of the horrific efforts that populate both the App Store and Google Play now? Let's not pretend that either Apple or Google are curating anything beyond "meets requirements/guidelines/rules", certainly not "brand-positive User Experience".

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#73

Post by MichaelGG »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #69

Story seems to be getting flagged and is going down the front page. Looks like some HN folks with good karma can't stand a Microsoft story that is not super critical and bitching about them. Those stay on the front page for days. http://i.imgur.com/wFN21wY.png Even announcements are not spared. Can anyone who flagged this post care to tell us why? I suspect the answer is "lol M$'.

I didn't flag it, but the article is fairly content free. It's just saying they're going to release an update. Well, yes, of course - it's safe to assume Windows developers are still working.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#74

Post by speeder »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #33
grecy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how awesome Windows 8 is and how well it's doing Ironically, if that were the case, it wouldn't need an update.

MS always does this. Windows XP had three or four major updates (service packs). Mac OS X is on v10.8 (i.e. they've updated version 10 8 times). Do you expect them to release it and never release another version of Windows?

Windows service packs were free updates, OSX dot versions are paid.and usually.change everything...

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#76

Post by zmmmmm »

dangrossman wrote: post #43
bcoates wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. I don't actually miss the onscreen start button (although I can imagine the discoverability hit to casual computer users). I miss the actual start menu , which was vastly more useful than the gimmicky thing they replaced it with.

What about it was more useful ? I didn't change any of my habits after upgrading to Win8. It was only a cosmetic change as far as I can tell. I still just hit the start key and start typing to launch things, search for apps and files, or run commands. Meanwhile the new start menu also lets me search any app that registers itself as a search provider (i.e. search through my Kindle books, my Netflix account, etc), whic…

For me the worst thing is that I get completely thrown out of context. Usually I've got 3 apps open, I quickly need to bring up another window to do something (say, calculator to do some simple numbers) and now wham! my whole context is gone, my brain is jolted out of the 'flow' that I was in. It's a mental thing so it is hard to explain, but I just find it jarring, unpleasant, and kind of hostile, like someone coming into my office every 10 minutes and shouting in my ear or something.

But if you want a practical consideration, the start 'menu' now obliterates whatever I was looking at. So say you were following instructions in a web page (open start menu, type 'control panel', click in menu ...) - well you can't, because the web page you were looking at is not visible now, all you can see is a bunch of stupid tiles trying to distract you from what you actually wanted to do.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#77

Post by voltagex_ »

shubb wrote: post #57
bcoates wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. I don't actually miss the onscreen start button (although I can imagine the discoverability hit to casual computer users). I miss the actual start menu , which was vastly more useful than the gimmicky thing they replaced it with.

I started off really hating windows 8, but it turns out you are supposed to use the 'start screen' like gnome 3. I.e. you hit meta-key, then start typing - 'fir'. At this point, Firefox is the only thing on the screen. Hit enter. You do the same to get up settings, e.g. meta-w -> 'net' selects network settings. You can use the win 7 start menu like this, but the win 8 search is much smarter and faster. The tiles thin…

I didn't know about win+W. Is there a list somewhere?

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#78

Post by Someone »

k3n wrote: post #46
rm999 wrote: post #9

I found this announcement frustrating to read because it contains little useful content. Almost all of it is about how supposedly awesome Windows 8 is and how well it's doing. The relevant part could have been summed up as: there's a free upgrade coming out sometime later this year called Windows 8.1.

This sums up my experience with MS in general; conversations driven by marketing and nothing else. For many other tech companies it's a much lower marketing:info ratio. Google is fairly good about it, and Mozilla is pretty good, while Apple is just as bad as MS.

I disagree about the Apple part. If Apple tells you something, they will generally tell you what you will get, but not how it works.

Microsoft, in this example, tells you neither. The three items of information are "it's Windows 8.1", "it's a free update", and "we will tell you more" (that third one is counting liberally)

With Apple, this would either be a new OS X release that gets a page showing its new end user features, or it would be an update that simply showed up in System Update.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#79

Post by wiiittttt »

voltagex_ wrote: post #77
shubb wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started off really hating windows 8, but it turns out you are supposed to use the 'start screen' like gnome 3. I.e. you hit meta-key, then start typing - 'fir'. At this point, Firefox is the only thing on the screen. Hit enter. You do the same to get up settings, e.g. meta-w -> 'net' selects network settings. You can use the win 7 start menu like this, but the win 8 search is much smarter and faster. The tiles thin…

I didn't know about win+W. Is there a list somewhere?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/new-keyboard-sh...

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#80

Post by MichaelApproved »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #69

Story seems to be getting flagged and is going down the front page. Looks like some HN folks with good karma can't stand a Microsoft story that is not super critical and bitching about them. Those stay on the front page for days. http://i.imgur.com/wFN21wY.png Even announcements are not spared. Can anyone who flagged this post care to tell us why? I suspect the answer is "lol M$'.

Are you speculating or do you know it's being flagged? An alternative could be that only people with low karma are voting it up which is what's keeping it from having more staying power.
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