PC World - Win 8 Users Rarely Use Metro Apps

That kinda explains the barren Windows Store, the fact that Companies aren't buying placements at Microsoft doesn't it.

I don't think any one would start any apps if it wasn't the fact MS high jacked the basics like Picture viewer with the shitastic Metro version. Once people set defaults app launches will be even lower.
 
I guess they are intertwined. If there is no compelling app, you won't use them. If there are few users, companies may be reluctant to develop them. I still think that given the choice between an often simplified or limited app version and a full-performance desktop application, those with capable hardware would use the desktop versions as the survey indicates. I guess what it means is that the Modern UI is really just the Modern Start Menu and not used as an interface at all. But what I think is interesting is that even those with touchscreen tablets appear to use the non-touch optimized desktop apps. I wonder how many of the apps that are used would even be used if Windows didn't default to them off the "modern start menu".
 
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Even on tablets, the devices best suited for Windows 8’s modern UI, just 56 percent of all users launch a Windows 8 app day in and day out.
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That. Is. Fail.

I really don't find it too shocking. I would want a Windows 8 tablet for its light weight and portability (I have a foldable BT keyboard in my bag) in order to do useful stuff, not use lame touch apps. It's Windows with a gazillion applications after all, not iOS.
 
yossarian said:
I still think that given the choice between an often simplified or limited app version and a full-performance desktop application, those with capable hardware would use the desktop versions as the survey indicates.
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Does this survey actually indicate this though? I didn't see any mention of the number of desktop apps launched daily. My guess is that even on the desktop the average user probably only launches a handful of apps everyday, a web browser, content players, some games and office automation and some top productivity apps. Heck even on tablets, the #1 app is probably a web browser followed by social networking apps, some productivity apps and games.

Indirectly this survey seems to support Microsoft's decision to build tablet capabilities into Windows proper and not a separate tablet version in that there is a high percentage of desktop use even on tablets.
 
Wow, what was essentially a long article without a single shred of supporting evidence. (Essentially, an opinion article and nothing more.) It kept claiming some company did research but does not even show use how they got that evidence or who they were even tracking.

Oh well, fail article is fail.

Edit: Now, show me the evidence and how they got it but otherwise, I stand by what I said. (Call me a Microsoft fanboy all you want but evidence is still required.)
 
ManofGod said:
Wow, what was essentially a long article without a single shred of supporting evidence. (Essentially, an opinion article and nothing more.) It kept claiming some company did research but does not even show use how they got that evidence or who they were even tracking.

Oh well, fail article is fail.
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They did use tracking software to build these numbers:

There’s a big caveat here: A Soluto representative told me that all of the data used in its study was culled from Windows 8 proper, as the company’s software does not yet support Windows RT. Since Windows RT tablets—like Microsoft’s own Surface RT—are limited to using only modern UI apps, their app usage rates would no doubt be much higher.
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heatlesssun said:
They did use tracking software to build these numbers:
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Oh, ok. I wonder, was that tracking software voluntarily installed or something that was hidden. Also, who installed it and what were they offering in return.
 
ManofGod said:
Oh, ok. I wonder, was that tracking software voluntarily installed or something that was hidden. Also, who installed it and what were they offering in return.
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Read the article. It's explained at the very beginning.
 
pxc said:
Read the article. It's explained at the very beginning.
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I read the whole article and did not see it. :D

Edit: I just reread the beginning and all it says is: "Of the 10,848 Windows 8 devices studied by Soluto", nothing more specific about that.
 
We took the 200 most popular Windows 8 OEM-branded PCs. This sample included 10,927 PCs, representing the following vendors (in alphabetical order): Acer, Apple, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba.

We had data from the following form factors: desktops, laptops with no touch screen, laptops with touch screen, tablets and convertibles. Since convertibles accounted for less than 1% of the sample, we disregarded them in this analysis, leaving us with 10,848 Windows 8 devices.

We then verified that the sample contained enough representative data - we looked at the average time we had data from each device - it was 27.4 days per device on average. Desktops had the lowest average (26.8 days) and touch laptops had the highest average (34.3 days). This number is significantly lower than our normal average across the entire user base, but it’s understandable that popular models running Windows 8 are relatively new. Regardless, this report is based on over a month of data from over 10k PCs.

Per form factor, we looked at the launch events of Metro apps aggregated across the app IDs. We could then analyze, for each form factor, how many app launches it sees per day, how many people launch Metro apps less than once a day on average, etc.

We could also look at the Metro apps being launched by most unique users per form factor, and the average times each user launched every app.
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Coming across this information is not particularly complicated considering it was linked to in the very article to which you're referring.
 
I do wonder why they don't mention the number of desktop apps used daily. They have the information if they are monitoring systems with software and tracking what programs got launched.
 
heatlesssun said:
I do wonder why they don't mention the number of desktop apps used daily. They have the information if they are monitoring systems with software and tracking what programs got launched.
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Because the study wasn't about Desktop apps.

1. People hate Windows 8 so much they don't use it all. (But the metrics would show that the computers have an average of 27.4 days worth of data)
2. People completely bypass Metro all together or had OEM software bypass Modern apps.
 
Wrench00 said:
Because the study wasn't about Desktop apps.

1. People hate Windows 8 so much they don't use it all. (But the metrics would show that the computers have an average of 27.4 days worth of data)
2. People completely bypass Metro all together or had OEM software bypass Modern apps.
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Without knowing how many desktop apps were used as well there's no way to know if the use of Metro apps is all that low in comparison. My guess is that most people only launch a handful of desktop apps daily as well.
 
It seems obvious that most users (assuming the desktop app launching is much higher, as heatlesssun pointed out we don't even have that info) who have the ability to install this presumably desktop software don't use metro apps, they purchased a desktop version of the OS after all. I still see metro apps as a nice option, since they are safe and simple to use alternatives. I will never understand why some people assume Win 8 has to be about metro apps, you simply unpin them and populate your start screen with desktop apps, then it's just a favorites launcher. I don't think there was any expectation of desktop users massively using metro apps, it's just an added bonus which is very good to have in some cases, like say you have a family member with a PC that does very casual computing, point them to the store and they can download and play with things until their's heart's content, and you will rest assured they will not mess up the PC.
 
heatlesssun said:
Without knowing how many desktop apps were used as well there's no way to know if the use of Metro apps is all that low in comparison. My guess is that most people only launch a handful of desktop apps daily as well.
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Lets just ask Microsoft. Oh Wait they will not reveal such metrics. They did reveal that it took an average User an hour to find and figure out charms bar. Which is pathetic and sad.
 
heatlesssun said:
Probably none of them have touch capability. Makes sense at this time.
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Actually they do have touch. Just no one uses them plus its a corporate environment and they are not allowed to use unlicensed software. Most users that work in an office environment hate when people touch their monitors. I told them that they are touch but the novelty wore out about in 4 minutes and got all pissy cause they had fingerprints. Also a lot of users work on financials and have privacy screens attached to monitors which really defeats touch.

These are all in ones.
 
Wrench00 said:
Lets just ask Microsoft. Oh Wait they will not reveal such metrics. They did reveal that it took an average User an hour to find and figure out charms bar. Which is pathetic and sad.
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If this is supposed to be a 3rd party independent survey it shouldn't be using any data from Microsoft, otherwise by definition it wouldn't be a 3rd party independent survey. They installed software on PCs to specifically track the programs being launched but said ZERO about the desktop apps. That's a problem because there's no frame of reference.
 
heatlesssun said:
If they're not using touch then why buy touch capable hardware?
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Why Not?

These were bulk purchases and met requirements of the customer the only extra they had touch and they were in stock. Needed 40 computers that what they had in stock.

Again touch is a gimmick most people in a corporate environment on Desktop DON'T give a shit about. How many times do I have to explain this to you?
 
Wrench00 said:
Again touch is a gimmick most people in a corporate environment on Desktop DON'T give a shit about. How many times do I have to explain this to you?
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Huh? I just asked why you bought touch capable hardware if you didn't need or want it and you just called it a gimmick in a cooperate environment. I have no idea why you want to go on with stuff that never comes up. Chill.
 
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wow didn't take long for the MS supporters to come out and try to explain this one away....

Let me help you out here.

I do not buy a OS so that I can use MS Metro Store, I buy an OS that runs most of my stuff without having to unpin this and that from my Start Menu.....so Windows 7 it remains

Windows 8 would have been so much better if it had launched to a traditional desktop with the option of running metro on the side. But, nope, MS had to try and ream our rear ends with this totally jacked up version of windows...
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
Windows 8 would have been so much better if it had launched to a traditional desktop with the option of running metro on the side. But, nope, MS had to try and ream our rear ends with this totally jacked up version of windows...
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But MS wanted to force-feed the apps so they made you wade through them to get to the desktop "app". Even then, desktop users are using less than two apps a day even at this point. Can you imagine how little use of apps there would be if the setup was reversed and Metro was an icon on the desktop screen? MS would never get the critical mass it needs for developers to justify the effort in creating them.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
wow didn't take long for the MS supporters to come out and try to explain this one away....

Let me help you out here.

I do not buy a OS so that I can use MS Metro Store, I buy an OS that runs most of my stuff without having to unpin this and that from my Start Menu.....so Windows 7 it remains

Windows 8 would have been so much better if it had launched to a traditional desktop with the option of running metro on the side. But, nope, MS had to try and ream our rear ends with this totally jacked up version of windows...
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Huh? All I was wondering was why this survey didn't mention the use of desktop apps. You can spin it anyway you want. It's not like many people that you would call Microsoft supporters agree with what you're saying at least to some degree. But it is not a very useful survey if we don't have the numbers for ALL applications being used by Windows users. It's a completely fair point to bring up and probably the kind of point that Windows 8 proponents would bring up because they tend to be the ones questioning the utility of the Windows desktop as much as they are called fanboys.
 
yossarian said:
But MS wanted to force-feed the apps so they made you wade through them to get to the desktop "app". Even then, desktop users are using less than two apps a day even at this point. Can you imagine how little use of apps there would be if the setup was reversed and Metro was an icon on the desktop screen? MS would never get the critical mass it needs for developers to justify the effort in creating them.
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And think about that for a moment. NO ONE credible source has said that desktop use was one the rise and indeed they've all said that desktop use was in decline. So you are a Windows desktop user and then one day you realize that all the software you want to use is on iOS or Android. What good did Microsoft do for you by letting all software development go mobile and letting you rot?
 
Wrench00 said:
Lets just ask Microsoft. Oh Wait they will not reveal such metrics. They did reveal that it took an average User an hour to find and figure out charms bar. Which is pathetic and sad.
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This presupposes that the user was looking for that functionality. Not much in the charm's bar that's not elsewhere, the rest doesn't seem to be vital, so it's not a surprise to me that users don't find it right away, even so, once you find it, it's not like you spend an hour looking for it every time, you immediately know where it is. Sometimes I think the Win 8 haters are the biggest Win 8 fans there are, "everyone didn't commit hara kiri when they couldn't get windows 8!" well yea duh but tells us more about you than anyone else.
 
devil22 said:
This presupposes that the user was looking for that functionality. Not much in the charm's bar that's not elsewhere, the rest doesn't seem to be vital, so it's not a surprise to me that users don't find it right away, even so, once you find it, it's not like you spend an hour looking for it every time, you immediately know where it is. Sometimes I think the Win 8 haters are the biggest Win 8 fans there are, "everyone didn't commit hara kiri when they couldn't get windows 8!" well yea duh but tells us more about you than anyone else.
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The Charms bar is an integral part of Metro. Again I don't know what kind of a stupid fuckwad decided its a good fucking idea to put a passive element in a "product line" that predominantly designed around active elements. Kinda fucking hard to miss the big Start button.
 
Wrench00 said:
The Charms bar is an integral part of Metro. Again I don't know what kind of a stupid fuckwad decided its a good fucking idea to put a passive element in a "product line" that predominantly designed around active elements. Kinda fucking hard to miss the big Start button.
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Ok, so now we're assuming that because Windows was built with activate elements, that that's the best way to do things. So if Windows had previously had non-activate elements, Win 8 would be ok? And if active elements are not the best..then keep them any way because they've always had them? And so on...
 
devil22 said:
Ok, so now we're assuming that because Windows was built with activate elements, that that's the best way to do things. So if Windows had previously had non-activate elements, Win 8 would be ok? And if active elements are not the best..then keep them any way because they've always had them? And so on...
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WTF? Its called continuity for the last 20 years we have been using Visual cues in Windows. Its bad enough that people have a hard time figuring out double click and click and drag/drop which are both non active interactions. How the hell do you then expect some one that has a hard time with that function to find a integral part of the OS that has been obfuscated?
I hope your being facetious with your post, because I can't figure out if your post is that or is just plain drivel.

And to answer your question yes. If MS had socialy engineered everyone to use Gestures and Non Active Elements then Passive elements would be considered the norm but they are not. *sarcasm on*Believe it or not everyone is proficient at figuring out and using technologies.*sarcasm off*
 
yossarian said:
But MS wanted to force-feed the apps so they made you wade through them to get to the desktop "app". Even then, desktop users are using less than two apps a day even at this point. Can you imagine how little use of apps there would be if the setup was reversed and Metro was an icon on the desktop screen? MS would never get the critical mass it needs for developers to justify the effort in creating them.
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Actually I think it would have worked out better for them. Metro causes a lot of distain because of how it is implimented. People go out of their way to get rid of it. If the system had just loaded to a standard desktop with a link to the metro app, people would be more accepting of it. Just like people use the app store on their phones. it's there but not intrusive.
 
Wrench00 said:
WTF? Its called continuity for the last 20 years we have been using Visual cues in Windows. Its bad enough that people have a hard time figuring out double click and click and drag/drop which are both non active interactions. How the hell do you then expect some one that has a hard time with that function to find a integral part of the OS that has been obfuscated?
I hope your being facetious with your post, because I can't figure out if your post is that or is just plain drivel.

And to answer your question yes. If MS had socialy engineered everyone to use Gestures and Non Active Elements then Passive elements would be considered the norm but they are not. *sarcasm on*Believe it or not everyone is proficient at figuring out and using technologies.*sarcasm off*
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Then MS gets stuck into doing the same thing indefinitely. They can never change it, no matter if they have better ideas. Seems like piss poor logic. People who can't figure out the interface, and can't be assed to go look at a 2 minute youtube video, are not worthy of consideration when designing user software, imo. The software should be designed to be *good*, not to keep the same interface for the rest of eternity to placate the most stubborn users you can imagine.
 
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yossarian said:
But MS wanted to force-feed the apps so they made you wade through them to get to the desktop "app". Even then, desktop users are using less than two apps a day even at this point. Can you imagine how little use of apps there would be if the setup was reversed and Metro was an icon on the desktop screen? MS would never get the critical mass it needs for developers to justify the effort in creating them.
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The desktop is one click away. "wade?"

Actually, when's the last time I clicked the Desktop tile? ... I don't know, I have Chrome on the Start screen, and I usually click that, which.. opens Chrome.. on the desktop.. just like the icon on my Win7 desktop does. So I achieve the exact same outcome with the same action on Win7 and Win8.

*shrug*
 
StatutoryApe said:
I've had Windows 8 since the initial preview. Metro has Apps? Since when? lol
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Love it! lol!

YeuEmMaiMai said:
Actually I think it would have worked out better for them. Metro causes a lot of distain because of how it is implimented. People go out of their way to get rid of it. If the system had just loaded to a standard desktop with a link to the metro app, people would be more accepting of it. Just like people use the app store on their phones. it's there but not intrusive.
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Very true. I still say that if MS had just let Desktop users use the OS the way they wanted on their machines, they could have avoided this entire shitstorm, but they aren't that bright. Instead they thought consumers would go along with being artificially forced into their new ecosystem.

devil22 said:
Then MS gets stuck into doing the same thing indefinitely. They can never change it, no matter if they have better ideas. Seems like piss poor logic. People who can't figure out the interface, and can't be assed to go look at a 2 minute youtube video, are not worthy of consideration when designing user software, imo. The software should be designed to be *good*, not to keep the same interface for the rest of eternity to placate the most stubborn users you can imagine.
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Problem is that, on a desktop, the new interface isn't good. Certainly not any better then the old interface. I believe that's the problem. You're right that you'll always have some detractors for any new idea, or UI. The problem is that the metro UI sucks for the desktop and a lot of people have no problem calling this out. There are people who are okay with the new UI, but even more who either don't like it, or use third party software to force the new UI to mimic the old. That's not exactly good news for MS. I think things are only going to get worse when they introduce the new version and people get even more pissed when there's finally a start button and it goes to the start screen. Now I notice MS has even released mice that have start buttons on them. So MS is not only stupid, they're being aggressively stupid. Not sure that's going to work out in a positive way for them.
 
wtburnette said:
Problem is that, on a desktop, the new interface isn't good. Certainly not any better then the old interface. I believe that's the problem. You're right that you'll always have some detractors for any new idea, or UI. The problem is that the metro UI sucks for the desktop and a lot of people have no problem calling this out. There are people who are okay with the new UI, but even more who either don't like it, or use third party software to force the new UI to mimic the old. That's not exactly good news for MS. I think things are only going to get worse when they introduce the new version and people get even more pissed when there's finally a start button and it goes to the start screen. Now I notice MS has even released mice that have start buttons on them. So MS is not only stupid, they're being aggressively stupid. Not sure that's going to work out in a positive way for them.
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Problem I have with that is you start from the conclusion, that metro sucks, and work backwards. I like it, many others like it, maybe not everyone but certainly a lot. When Win 8 was released, there were polls here showing over half liked Win 8. It is difficult to argue factually one way or another, but I don't think that means we should proceed like bulls in a china shop. And you can always have your opinion, but if you are going to just assert your opinion and leave out any facts, it's not real useful. I've tried to do some quantification of the interface, ended up annoying most who replied to me here, by counting mouse clicks, I still think it's a good indication of the overall efficiency of the interface, most other things being equal, and I found Win 8 came out on top. For an interface, efficiency is what matters to me, people complained loud but I still see this as the best, most direct way to 'measure' the interface, and like I said, Win 8 won as I saw it. Just giving some idea of what 'facts' could be in a debate such as this, maybe you have something else, that can't be boiled down to pure opinion..
 
But the statistics show xbox people love the big squares to navigate and Doritos ads, and you will like it too you just wait..
 
Well, the program icons are larger in the start screen, but you get more space (the whole screen), so that's not a numerical argument afaict. Second, 8.1 will allow tiny little icons there, so you should be happy. Ads, well that's how the apps are paid for, you don't see ads in the start screen, so just use apps that don't have ads (either because you paid for it, or because it's absolutely free), then you won't have to suffer the intolerable torment of glancing at a chips ad once in a while.
 
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