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Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

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Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

#91

Post by oakgrove »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #40
ebbv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your theory is ridiculous. The Xbox 360 was a major success. The Zune failed because people didn't like it. Not because it's a Microsoft product. Same goes for Windows Phone 7, it is failing because people don't like it. Now whether it's a better product or not is a subjective debate that isn't worth having, IMHO (better for whom?) But to say that they failed because of the Microsoft stigma is absurd.

> Same goes for Windows Phone 7, it is failing because people don't like it. Really? How do you know this? Have you gone door to door asking people? You couldn't be wronger. In fact, it is ahead of Android. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/wp7-ahead-of-android-and-... http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Phone-Leads-in-Custom... Windows phones have some of the best ratings on carrier websites and Amazon. There is…

> Really? How do you know this? Have you gone door to door asking people?

Oh oh...an argument I don't agree with. Let me look into the know-nothing bag of rhetorical trick and trot out the old [citation needed]. It's an oldy but still delivers!

Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

#92

Post by klausa »

molecularbutter wrote: post #84

Has anyone tried using this with Boot Camp on a Mac yet?

It works, but I couldn't find a way to install Boot Camp stuff, so it's pretty miserable experience (no right click, no two-finger scrolling, have to manually find Wireless drivers, I don't have audio working, etc.).

Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

#93

Post by molecularbutter »

klausa wrote: post #92
molecularbutter wrote: post #84

Has anyone tried using this with Boot Camp on a Mac yet?

It works, but I couldn't find a way to install Boot Camp stuff, so it's pretty miserable experience (no right click, no two-finger scrolling, have to manually find Wireless drivers, I don't have audio working, etc.).

Bummer, hopefully it will be easy to set up. To get a good feel for this we really need multitouch support.

Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

#94

Post by buerkle »

ebbv wrote: post #16
ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #3

Competition from Apple and Linux (but mostly Apple) is the best thing to happen to Microsoft in a long time. No, the UI isn't perfect yet, the design decisions (for this beta) not always logical, but Windows is finally going somewhere amazing after many years of going no where. Because some of Microsoft's best products were great but went no where. Take the Zune and Windows Phone 7. People who own them love them, esp…

Your theory is ridiculous. The Xbox 360 was a major success. The Zune failed because people didn't like it. Not because it's a Microsoft product. Same goes for Windows Phone 7, it is failing because people don't like it. Now whether it's a better product or not is a subjective debate that isn't worth having, IMHO (better for whom?) But to say that they failed because of the Microsoft stigma is absurd.

Xbox 360 is a huge success based on number sold. Is it based on money made? I know they had massive hardware failure and their warranty costs were through the roof. I do not know the dollar figures.

Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

#95

Post by nazar »

leviathant wrote: post #66
greedo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course people who bought the Zune are going to like them. They're a self-selected sampling... Even if they thought that deep down, the Zune was a POS, human nature is to defend decisions you've made, especially ones that involve money. The real question is why was the Zune a failure. It was a failure because it didn't offer what the market was buying. The fact that the few who did buy the Zune liked it in no way c…

I got my first iPod around the time Zune launched, and my wife ended up doing some promo jobs for the Zune - and at the end of that summer, got a Zune out of it as a bonus. To rank my experience between portable music playback devices: iPhone > Zune > iPod She swears by her Zune, and having used both it and the iPod, the Zune is far and away a better device on every front. Having said that, the iPhone's interface is…

Exactly, Deskotp zune is soo cool visually, people always asking me what software I am using when they see it. Its way better than iTunes for music playback.

I saw it for the first time when my friend brought an windows phone 7 device. I was so fascinated by the Desktop zune, I didn't even properly played the phone itself(I saw it for the first time as well)

Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

#96

Post by huggyface »

Symmetry wrote: post #78
roadnottaken wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps for consumers, but enterprise/office-workers will never switch to tablets. Keyboard/mouse is just too damned efficient for data entry and manipulation. And, I always thought that office-work/enterprise was MSFT's bread-and-butter.

I think the idea is that you carry your tablet with you, then plug it into a dock with a keyboard/mouse when you are at a desk.

This notion gets a lot of play but I'm not buying it -- at least until several years down the road. Of course there are people for whom tablets are perfect -- inventory, front-line customer service, sales, etc -- however there are many where it is of questionable value.

A major issue at many corporations is asset management, with laptop theft or loss being a massive problem. Now take all of those desktops and replace them with roaming, fragile tablets?

Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

#97

Post by huggyface »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #3

Competition from Apple and Linux (but mostly Apple) is the best thing to happen to Microsoft in a long time. No, the UI isn't perfect yet, the design decisions (for this beta) not always logical, but Windows is finally going somewhere amazing after many years of going no where. Because some of Microsoft's best products were great but went no where. Take the Zune and Windows Phone 7. People who own them love them, esp…

but Windows is finally going somewhere amazing after many years of going no where

Windows 7 is an excellent operating system. It is secure. It is very robust. It is easy to use. It is feature rich. It connects to everything and uses everything. In what way is that going nowhere?

Same on the server side with Windows Server 2008 R2.

I think the competition provided by Apple is proving terrible for Microsoft. They are abandoning their core strengths while poorly trying to duplicate what led to Apple's recent success (which, it should be noted, is largely the same design philosophies that Apple has been using for decades, through their rout as well). It is a classic cargo-cult where Microsoft desperately tries to copy the playbook.

In the end they diminish the advantages they hold, while continuing to be deficient by the Apple playbook. They are following so they can never lead.

I must say again that it is telling that the people who are most impressed with Microsoft's makeover are the people who would never buy their products -- the Apple faithful. They still think that Apple is leading, which is natural when one follows the other, but they like what Microsoft is doing. That's great if second place accolades could carry a business.

Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

#98

Post by jakeonthemove »

Just tried it - it's pretty much as I expected... awesome! It's like Windows 7, only more polished.

Metro UI is quite cool, but you can spend most your time in the desktop mode if you wish (you'll have to use Metro to search for stuff and open apps).

One big drawback is that my favorite tool, Dexpot (virtual desktops manager) does not work - I hope it's not because they removed VD support, that would seriously suck...

Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

#99

Post by tjoff »

nextparadigms wrote: post #17

Engadget's conclusion: "We really liked Windows 7 when it launched. It felt like a big step forward in the short time that had passed since Vista. Now, as we creep closer to a likely release near the end of this year, we can't shake a sense of doubt. Windows 8 still feels like two very different operating systems trying to be one. The potential is hugely alluring -- a single OS to rule both the tablet and the desktop…

I'm sorry, I don't get what everyone is on about.

The first thing a power user will do is to go to the old-desktop and stay there, basically not interacting with metro at all. There is no point, it's about as useful as the winkey+tab is on Vista/W7. "Cool" but useless for real work.

And there seems to have been numerous improvements to the windows experience (outside metro), the ability to pause file-copying etc. proves that they still have some focus for the enthusiast.

For everyone but the average Joe the new "metro-UI" is nothing but a bundled application that you will only use when you want to demo something or for some very light use (on a tablet for instance).

Just as Media Center is today!

How does a bundled application make the whole windows experience clumsier? If it is clumsy, close it! Sure, the start menu is different but who uses the start meny on windows today? All apps that you actually use are pinned to the task bar...

And that is how everyone that does real work will use their windows 8 machine, just as they do today in windows 7. And no. MS will not phase out the "regular windows", that's just moronic. Contrary to popular belief but people will actually do work in the near future as well, not floating around in a fluffy cloud with touch devices.

You read it here first. The mouse and keyboard are not dead.

Curious to see how broken the metro is on a multi-monitor setup is though. Any UI that doesn't scale well to multiple monitors has failed miserably in my eyes (hello OS X + Unity + Metro(?)). And that's not an edge case (at least it shouldn't be for anyone favoring productivity).

Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview released.

#100

Post by tomkin »

lloeki wrote: post #87
tomkin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh. I think they are going the right way, too, but they're up against the types of those who think Facebook or YouTube should never change the UI and leave it alone forever. Apple is slowly converging OSX and iOS into one platform, "inspired by iPad", etc. Microsoft isn't doing that. They are smashing the two together at once, when they should really have created an OS that ran alongside the PC market until the prov…

> Apple is slowly converging OSX and iOS into one platform, "inspired by iPad", etc. Microsoft isn't doing that. They are smashing the two together at once, Apple emphasizes that iOS and OSX fundamentally different platforms and will stay so, and says they're borrowing relevant ideas from one and bake them into the other (and vice versa). Microsoft says their strategy is the Windows Everywhere convergence, and stitch…

> Apple emphasizes that iOS and OSX fundamentally different platforms and will stay so, and says they're borrowing relevant ideas from one and bake them into the other (and vice versa).

I agree. But I think you think that this mentality is set in stone, just as console gaming must have a standard controller, or personal computing must have a physical keyboard. Touch is the marvel of today. Voice may be the marvel of tomorrow. Eventually a keyboard and mouse will be the old way of doing things. Your knee-jerk reaction to that sentence is also mine. I can't see a world without keyboard and mouse, but that is because nothing better currently exists. Remember: Unreasonable men with unreasonable ideas.... Touch only supplants certain features of the keyboard and mouse. Apple was unreasonable. Nintendo was unreasonable. What technology will be the next to pull us out of our comfy habits? The technology that improves upon the existing infrastructure wins, not the one that asks us to change our habits or do more work.

Microsoft is asking their users to do just that – more work. Does it work in Metro? Standard?

With iOS, I don't have to ask. I know. It is too underpowered to handle intensive applications. I don't have to look it up in the "app store" to find out. I don't have to look for "designed for X" stickers or buttons. I immediately know because my technological emersion and knowledge of what is possible makes this argument for me.

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