I don’t mind hearing about that, in the relevant context of the question about tablets - for example, your response above was negative, but on topic:
That’s probably the only legitimate reason to use Android, IMO, 'cos otherwise it’s garbage.
I don’t understand how or why the existence of a tablet would possibly have changed how I thought about Windows 8 on my desktop computer. I never really had a problem with the OS on small screens, I could imagine how it might work well there. Had cheap tablets been on the market, I wouldn’t even need to imagine - I’d have been able to see how well Windows 8 worked on small screens, but I’d still have had the same issues with it on my desktop.
I’ve had an iPhone for the last 3 years, and my daughters have iPads, but if the next MacOS had an interface that looked like either of them, I’d want to break things. So I’d vote “no”. Even after having used tablet-like interfaces for a number of years, I still really dislike them. I understand why they’re necessary on tablets (and particularly phones), but I just feel like I’m fighting the interface all the time to get any useful work done. I don’t think any amount of familiarity and easing-in would help with that problem.
You can toggle into the desktop by doing that (as you can in all modern incarnations of Windows.) But there’s no start menu or anything.
Microsoft’s strategy with mobile has not been very good. They had an early lead with windows CE. My wife had a phone with windows CE on it before iphones came out. It did email and her work calendar well. It had a useable browser. But Microsoft let it languish. Then they came out with Pocket PC 2000 and 2002. Then were the various Windows Mobile releases. All of these had backwards compatibility issues. This meant that third party apps were expensive to develop because of the each release of an app could only be used on a small number of phones. There is windows RT and windows mobile 7. Now we have windows 8.
Windows 8 on phones and tablets was not well received because the market is saturated with ios and android phones and tablets. They both have tons of apps and a history of continued support from Apple, Google and phone manufactures. And Microsoft has a long history of changing mobile direction at the expense of people using Microsoft’s earlier releases really poisoned the well as far as third party developers go.
Then they made the big mistake of tying the desktop UI to their new mobile UI. This was Microsoft’s decision and it is why you can’t get a discussion of windows 8 on mobile going. Microsoft’s marketing worked. People think windows 8 is windows 8 across all types of devices.
No, I don’t think so.
I was using tablets and smartphones long before windows 8 came along and found the switching between the two environments very easy to do.
Never once did I think “I wish my windows desktop behaved more like my android mobile devices” There just isn’t any benefit for me in that and the frustration I have is in dealing with silly things likes getting downloads to go where I want them or getting apps to use files on network devices or using bloody “libraries” ends up being a waste of my time.
Where I currently work they have rolled out high-end windows 8 touchscreen laptops to everyone and pretty much no-one uses the touchscreen functionality. It hinders more than it helps and most have turned it off altogether, ignore the metro apps and reverted back to a fairly standard desktop. And believe me these are smart, tech-savvy people and certainly not change-averse but they simply aren’t seeing any productivity advantage in the Windows 8 new approach.
However, the one massive improvement is overall stability. The thing is rock-solid. Far more so than any other OS I’ve used and if they’ve learned well from the 8 experience we may just end up with a winner in Windows 10.
This sums up my experience as well.
To the OP - I think so. But NOT the 7-8inch tablets out now. I think the Surface Pro 3 is showing the potential of Windows 8. Personally I have had absolutely no issues with Win8 on my (non-touch screen) laptop since I bought it on Day 1. I prefer it to the Win7 on my work computer. I think that convertible type laptops/tablets such as the Surface Pro, Lenovo Yoga, etc. would have changed the entire conversation on Windows 8.
MS’s problem is that they were too early and unlike, say, Apple, MS gets crucified by the press for being too early with something rather than praised (remember when Apple eliminated the optical drive from its laptops - or is using USB C in its new Macbook - yeah). Win10 should rectify that.
or how the iPhone was more or less a featurephone when it was launched?
Could you decide which argument you’re making and get back to us?
He’s saying he didn’t ask “why you didn’t like Windows 8.”
Unfortunately, he kinda did ask that, as he assumed the incorrect reason for the dislike of Windows 8, making people feel they need to educate him. No one disliked Windows 8 because there weren’t enough tablets. The dislike has always been about Desktop.
The only way his idea works is if people would buy the tablets and then not use their desktop or laptop. And these smaller tablets are actually worse for that use case, not better.
Windows 8.1 actually fixed a lot of things for smaller tablets. Windows 8 was designed with the idea that 1024x768 was the barest minimum. Even today a lot of the budget devices use a lower resolution than that. “Metro” apps would just refuse to run at 1024x600. They would just tell you your resolution was too low.
And even those that don’t require you to raise the DPI, since the screen is smaller. And the way Windows handles lower DPI is to essentially simulate a lower resolution (but with higher resolution fonts and Windows). I’m sure the apps would still run, but the layout was not designed for it. They had to make the layout more flexible in 8.1.
Might I suggest you read the thread again? There is no such indecision on my part.
I wished to discuss whether the widespread availability of small, cheap, powerful full-OS-capable touchscreen tablets (such as we are seeing now), if they had arrived earlier, could have altered the fates of Windows 8.
Correct.
Incorrect. I made no such assumption - the premise of the question is that these small tablets would be an additional factor in the equation; by defintion, they can’t be part of the historic reason for the acceptance or rejection of Win8, because they did not exist at all; thus, the game, when it was played out, was played on a different board.
No, that’s the opposite of the scenario I felt to have been at least marginally plausible.
I do know there was interest in Windows 8 as a tablet OS, that was scared off by pricepoint.
I do know there were people who (for whatever reason, clever or stupid) took one look at the Metro UI and recoiled.
The current rash of Windows tablets are sufficiently cheap that people could buy them as a second or third device, without even any specific purpose in mind (for fifty quid, I am thinking of getting one myself, just because it’s a cool gadget) - using a new OS on a non-essential device is bound to be a gentler introduction to any change than finding it imposed upon you on your main computer.
What I said when Windows 8 came out was this: there will come a time where we expect every screen to respond to touch input. However, that doesn’t mean we will only (or mainly) use touch in all environments including desktop.
And I stand by that. I don’t think having more touch screens available would mean people in a desktop setting want to use touch input primarily (and run every program in fullscreen). And Windows8 doesn’t cater well to those users.
I don’t froth at the mouth about it as some people do however. I currently have 3 laptops, running Windows 7, Windows 8 and CentOS 7 respectively. If we want to talk about PITA, Win8 is sitting on an uncomfortable chair, whereas some distros of linux are Cartman trying to smuggle disneyland into prison.
I expect so. I guess it will become so cheap a thing to implement that there won’t be any point in omitting it from any screen device.
Not sure about that. It is certainly true that trying to use a non-touch interface on a touch screen can be a terrible user experience, but the reverse is not so substantially true; edge swiping is a minor pain in the ass on a non-touch screen, but most other things respond to clicks just as well as they do to touch.
I guess my point is that people already expect a tablet to be different to their main computer (so the Metro shock might not be an issue) - and once Joe Plumber has bought a cheapie Win8 tablet for his contacts and email, when he subsequently discovers he can run his (win32) Pipemaster Turbo application on it, it could possibly diminish his resistance to accepting Win8 on the desktop.
I do actually know a few people who have made the transition, and are comfortable with Win8 on non-touchscreen laptops. When they have to use an older machine, they are occasionally heard to curse “Bloody Windows seven” (for example when the charms menu doesn’t appear, or because the response to the windows key looks different or does not search so responsively) - I mention this only to illustrate that is is possible for actual humans to find themselves more comfortable on the other side of the fence - and I wonder if cheap, ubiquitous win8 tablets would have made an impact in helping more people cross over.
No, I still don’t think so, and I’m saying that as a regular Windows 8 user myself, as I alluded earlier.
Sure you can click huge tiles with your mouse, and sometimes it’s fine to just open things fullscreen, when playing a movie for example. But in a desktop environment, I’m frequently doing work, and that work requires making better use of the space available.
Sure, but I hardly use the Modern UI apps myself either. You’re not obliged to. I have small tiles set up to launch my most commonly used desktop applications. I use modern UI apps where there is one to match the equivalent windows phone app.
That makes no sense. If you do not think that Y was partially caused by X, then notX cannot reduce Y. You have to believe that the lack of available tablets was part of the reason people didn’t like Windows 8, or else making tablets available cannot make people like Windows 8.
And your further posts in this thread indicate this is the case. You are trying to make some sort of connection. You’re arguing that the lack of available tablets meant people were less familiar with the interface.
That’s an argument that can make sense, since you’ve connected X and Y. Problem is, people didn’t dislike Windows 8 because they were unfamiliar with the interface. They actively didn’t like it. A tablet interface is inherently limiting. What advantages it does get (touch gestures) are lost if you use it with a mouse and keyboard.
Look at what the biggest complaints were: A lack of a start button, the lack of a start menu, a lack of a folder hierarchy, the lack of the ability to run the new apps in smaller windows, not being able to easily close apps, not being able to multitask the new apps–all those are limitations designed for tablets.
There was not a huge complaint about people not being able to figure out the tablet interface, because people by and large don’t want to use the tablet interface with a mouse and keyboard. Even you admit you stay mostly in Desktop land.
The thing is, Windows 8 on tablets and Windows 8 on desktop are two unrelated experiences. The one thing they had in common was the Start Screen, and people actively tried to eliminate that from Desktop. The Charms bar may be present on Desktop, but it did nothing of use for Desktop–save for shutdown, maybe. (And that was only if you didn’t know about the right-click left-corner menu.)
No amount of use of the tablet interface could make people more accepting of the Desktop interface, because they aren’t the same at all. That was Microsoft’s big failure–not properly integrating the two experiences, and this is what Windows 10 is trying to fix.
X and Y really were only tangentially related.