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The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

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Re: The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

#11

Post by dragontamer »

gabemart wrote: post #8
dragontamer wrote: post #5

--- Tim Cook could not have said it better when he summarized Microsoft’s confusion. “..they’re trying to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs.” What was the first criticism of smartphones that I heard? They're trying to take PDAs into Cell Phones, and trying to turn Phones into PDAs. Its like these bloggers can't even imagine a new model of computing. Converged computing is the future. A single device that doe…

> When you have a keyboard / mouse, then TYPE on the start screen. You know, the auto-search feature? The Start Screen is one of the best keyboard-interfaces I've ever used. For me, the problem is that, on the desktop or laptop, the Start Screen uses 100% of my screen real estate for a task (typing a search query, hitting enter) that would be better performed with, at most, 10% of my screen real estate. Having a full…

You know, leaving your current program and starting up a new program is horrible for maintaining flow as well. But lets be frank here: you're entering the start screen because you're starting up a new program.

Its not like your programs disappear when the start screen pops up ya know. Its all there...

Re: The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

#12

Post by therobot24 »

freehunter wrote: post #9

Stupidity? Stupidity is people making criticisms without actually using the product they're criticizing. >Treat the Metro UI and desktop as different modes and encourage developers to build applications that work on both. When you’re interacting with windows from a tablet switch into metro mode. When you’re using windows from a desktop with a mouse switch into desktop mode. This happens today. It's called... Windows…

on a side note, windows 8.1 makes windows 8 look like a failure...the difference in terms of response and functionality is ridiculous

Re: The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

#13

Post by MrDosu »

I dont get why people think about the new start menu as a replacement of the old one. It's more like they buffed up the Alt+Tab functionality to include openin programs and search into a single feature. Old start menu is gone and not needed any more. Can't think of a single use case.

Re: The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

#14

Post by brudgers »

What Windows 8 [and Windows Phone] do really well, is keep shit from piling up. By making the icons big, there's less room to save another icon to the desktop/home_screen. And applications don't get to place stuff there by default.

Having run Windows Phone for two years, and my new Android phone for less than a month, the Android homescreen is already more disordered than the Windows device - and despite my more active management. And please don't ask me how many useless icons are on the classic desktop of my under the desk box. It's too many to count and I don't care enough to clean it all up. I hate filing. It's the sort of clerical work that we shouldn't be doing here in 1973.

The second screen on both Windows 8 and Windows Phone shows everything in a simple text based scrolling list. It's fucking genius - the idea of using words to organize things with names rather than hieroglyphics.

This of course begs for the question of why Android rather than WP8 for the new phone. The answer is that as much reading as I do, the phablet form factor made the sale. If there were still Windows Phones with keyboards like my old Dell Venue Pro, I'd still be on Windows Phone. But there aren't so I ain't.

Re: The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

#16

Post by freehunter »

therobot24 wrote: post #12
freehunter wrote: post #9

Stupidity? Stupidity is people making criticisms without actually using the product they're criticizing. >Treat the Metro UI and desktop as different modes and encourage developers to build applications that work on both. When you’re interacting with windows from a tablet switch into metro mode. When you’re using windows from a desktop with a mouse switch into desktop mode. This happens today. It's called... Windows…

on a side note, windows 8.1 makes windows 8 look like a failure...the difference in terms of response and functionality is ridiculous

Yup - there were some growing pains associated with such a big change. The first versions of Windows after they switched from DOS were pretty painful, too. I don't think the desktop became useful until Windows 3.1.

Re: The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

#17

Post by phr4ts »

therobot24 wrote: post #12
freehunter wrote: post #9

Stupidity? Stupidity is people making criticisms without actually using the product they're criticizing. >Treat the Metro UI and desktop as different modes and encourage developers to build applications that work on both. When you’re interacting with windows from a tablet switch into metro mode. When you’re using windows from a desktop with a mouse switch into desktop mode. This happens today. It's called... Windows…

on a side note, windows 8.1 makes windows 8 look like a failure...the difference in terms of response and functionality is ridiculous

That means Microsoft did something right. Same way a new i-whatever is supposed to make the old i-whatever look old, slow and ridiculous.

It's called incremental update or improvement.

Re: The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

#18

Post by MrDosu »

davidblueit wrote: post #2

The surface shows that microsoft, rightly or wrongly, have a different idea about where the whole mobile / desktop vision may converge. it's not a desktop, laptop nor a tablet and, for all the shit it gets, quite refreshing and innovative. metro UI also works very well on it, as it does with touchscreen laptops

Personally I bought a surface just because i wanted to be able to play old games on it, but turns out now i use it as: A standalone desktop replacement with a blutooth keyboard/mouse combo (seperate keyboard on a mobile device is heaven). Replacement for note taking with the wacom digitizer. An on the move gaming console for even modern games (blutooth game controller + steam) A picture frame on the coffee table that tracks all messenging applications (only need to look to the side, not go for the cellphone everytime something updates)

Re: The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

#19

Post by daigoba66 »

Okay. So I've been using Windows 8 nearly every working day for the past year. I'm a programmer, multi-monitor user, and a "power-user". And how do I use Windows 8? Pretty much exactly as I used Windows 7. I've never used a "metro" app outside of playing with a few on day one. The learning curve was insignificant given my many years of experience using all sorts of different computers and operating systems.

So am I less productive now using Windows 8 than I was using Windows 7? Not at all. However I'm also no more productive than I was. Which is disappointing in way: many of the previous OS revisions have seen huge gains in usability and productivity (2000 -> XP -> Vista -> 7). But not this one.

But even though the changes in Windows 8 haven't affected my day-to-day productivity, there are plenty of annoyances that I've learned to live with. Such as:

- Start menu search is nearly unusable in Windows 8 despite the "improvements" in 8.1.

- Metro UI "leaks" in some places such as Outlook notifications, and the Open With -> Other dialog. Though that open-with dialog gets worse in every Windows revision.

- Before 8.1 the charms bar and hot-corners sometimes got in the way.

Edit, more comments:

So why upgrade? It's probably safe to say that being on the most up-to-date stable version of any OS is ideal for any number of reasons ranging from security, platform features, and general "future-proofing" of the software you use.

Re: The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

#20

Post by phr4ts »

josefresco wrote: post #6

When I saw Windows 7 I thought I knew where Microsoft was heading. I saw the new task bar with it's "finger friendly" buttons and thought to myself "MS is slowly integrating touch into their interface....makes sense.". However between awesome Windows 7 and the mess that is Windows 8 something must have happened. Someone inside MS must have preaching that you can't simply make Windows touch friendly. They must have ar…

Windows 8..n can be bad and good.

It's awful when used on old hardware - just like vista.

It's sweet when ur using hardware that supports it fully. 1. Gesture aware trackpad 2. Touch screen

These are very important, without them, windows 8 will hell. i've been there, hated it until I got gesture sensitive mouse. I'm sure touch screen will do wonders.

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