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Christmas gift for someone you hate | 134 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Christmas gift for someone you hate
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 07 2012 @ 11:05 PM EST
On Elementary last night Holmes was using a surface on the
toilet, a few scenes later he was back on a regular laptop.
Microsoft can 't even get product placements right.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Microsoft isn't Consumer oriented
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 07 2012 @ 11:35 PM EST

And they never have been. Apple is consumer oriented.

So are the KDE, Gnome, XFCE, E17', etc. projects. On Linux it is realized
that not everyone wants or can work with the same interface.

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Christmas gift for someone you hate
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 08 2012 @ 01:52 AM EST
is it possible that Microsoft's products are now so weird because it signed a patent license agreement with Apple and promised not to copy anything exactly?

No, I think it's due to them following a different strategy due to having missed the market. They are in a panic over this and so need to come up with a quick solution. As for "now so weird", I think you mean "now so bad". Well, I don't think good interface design was ever one of Microsoft's fortes.

The different strategy is that they want phones, tablets, and PCs to have a common interface. This is actually their original strategy from long before Apple got into phones or tablets. In Microsoft's case, they tried to put the Windows PC desktop on phones and tablets. The result of that was a miserable failure. They've now reversed that by coming up with a phone interface, and then are trying to put that on tablets and PCs. The fundamental idea is to try to use their traditional monopoly on PC desktops to extend their market into phones and tablets.

I don't think the strategy is fundamentally unworkable. The problem is that it is poorly thought out and implemented. The phone interface was designed as a purely phone interface, and it is probably much better than anything that Microsoft has previously attempted in that area (although I'm not claiming that it's better than iOS or Android). I don't think the concept extends well to PC desktops however. The dual Metro/classic interface on the PC (and x86 tablets) looks like something that was bodged together in a hurry. Instead of coming up with a compromise that works well with both keyboard/mouse and touch, they just crammed two different interfaces in and let them fight with each other (you'll know what I mean if you've ever used Windows 8 on a PC).

Balmer rather famously openly laughed at the iPhone when it came out. The Nokia partnership however is sinking. The new tablet strategy looks like an attempt to salvage something from the wreckage of the phone effort. I don't think there is any deeply laid long range plan however. Microsoft is just flailing about blindly at the moment hoping to find something that works. Apple and Google both started with phones, built those up gradually, and then expanded into tablets. Microsoft is throwing handfuls of darts at the board, trying to hit multiple targets at once.

In contrast, Ubuntu Unity is taking the approach of trying to come up with a compromise that works for both keyboard/mouse and touch interfaces without just having two different interfaces. Ubuntu has the advantage however of a faster release cycle which allows for some experimentation. They can also if necessary directly patch the UI on the more popular packages to take advantage of Unity features so they have less of a "legacy UI" issue. However, Ubuntu isn't trying to cover phones. They would be happy to cover PCs to tablets, as well as any hybrid devices. Microsoft could have taken a similar approach, but they would have needed to start on this around the time that Vista came out, and they would have had to come up with a solution to the "legacy apps" problem.

I think that we will also see Apple trying to bring their "Mac" and "i" product lines closer together. However, they can afford to do it more gradually and they won't need to completely merge the two. They could simply let some phone apps (like games) run on Macs, and your App Store account would let you have the same app on your phone, tablet, and PC with a single purchase. ARM versus Intel won't be a problem here by the way, as the Apple compiler could simply compile for both architectures and the App Store would provide the appropriate one to the user.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Wait a minute: Christmas & hate ?! n.t.
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 08 2012 @ 06:18 AM EST
.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Windows Tablets DO have a Home/Start key.
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 08 2012 @ 07:51 AM EST

Just to correct one glaring error in the article, Windows 8 touch tablet specifications call for a hardware Windows key/button/whatever that will immediately take you to the Start screen.

I know most folks here won't want a link to an MS site, so here's one to a neutral location that calls out the logo specs...

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php%3fs=567a6a 43df0d596cda9bb49ee4455e1a&p=2939528#post2939528

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

s/b Christmas gift for someone you h8 - n/t
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 08 2012 @ 09:50 PM EST
Tufty

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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