Mobile computing ruining desktop experience.

S

SuperCell

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 24, 2005
Messages
314
I guess this was inevitable. I believe something like 50% of casual web users are now using touchscreen/mobile devices now.

Microsoft is now basing their operating systems primarily for touchscreen devices, with desktops an afterthought.

More and more websites are redesigning their layout for mobile devices with big clunky pictures and videos, with less and less actual content. Look at CNN's new website. Garbage.

Layouts designed for touchscreens and phones look so juvenile and dumbed down.

Sorry I had to vent. I know touchscreens are taking over, and that people are now using phones for almost everything, but it's just killing the desktop experience.
 
Well, Windows 8 was as much a mistake as a hint at the future of computing. Microsoft saw the iPad introduction and completely freaked out. It realized Apple had a superior approach to tablets (until then, Microsoft's strategy was "throw a pen at a desktop OS and hope that people like it") and designed the main Windows interface around the assumption that everyone would be using tablets or touchscreen PCs within a few years. The problem, of course, was that it ignored a basic truth which Apple already understood: that people still tend to prefer keyboards, mice and trackpads when they're at a desk. Touchscreens are playing an important role, but you shouldn't force everyone to use the same basic interface regardless of the device.

Thankfully, Windows 10 seems to be a return to good sense. Give people the best interface for the input methods they're using. I don't know that it'll stop the decline of the Windows PC, but it at least won't trigger the backlash that 8 did.

I partly agree on websites. You should make them mobile-friendly, but not to the point where you're seriously limiting what desktop visitors will see. The ideal is a responsive site that always shows as much information as a device allows.
 
I hate all of these websites going for a mobile lay out, a site i use here in Costa Rica for news is a prefect example of so much wasted space and even then it is a POOR mobile layout as well

http://www.ticotimes.net/
 
In fairness...CNNs website has been shit for a while, like their TV channel
 
Blame bad web developers. A properly designed web site should be usable across all devices. I've come across sites with drop down menus designed for mouse that doesn't do anything with touch.

Hate it all you want but desktops, clam shell laptops and relic iPad type tablets are taking a back seat to hybrids like Surface Pros, Helix, etc. I see a lot of people dumping Macbook Air and iPad combo for single hybrid that does more.
 
Care to back up those unfounded anecdotes with hard evidence? Oh, right, there isn't any!

Meanwhile, IDC estimates show that Apple climbed to become the fifth largest PC maker in Q3 (Q4 data isn't out yet), even when it lowballed Apple's official figures by half a million; Gartner uses different methodology that had Apple move up to 6th. The Windows PC market is continuing to contract as it has since 2012. If your friends are replacing their MacBook Airs and iPads with hybrid PCs, they don't reflect the overall trend. People are more often delaying Windows PC upgrades (in some cases because they bought mobile OS tablets), ditching PCs for mobile devices, or switching to Macs.

Look, as much as you might want to imagine that the Glorious Divine Windows Monopoly is coming back and that everything non-Microsoft will go away, that's the opposite of what's happening. You have to get used to a world where mobile OS devices and Macs are not only here to stay, but represent a growing influence.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top