If you find the Win 8 start screen context switch to be an issue, I'd hate to see you enter a new room in your house... metro apps are for tablets but can have benefits on the desktop, but the OS itself is good or better than Win 7 for desktops, you just launch your app and use it on the desktop. Besides the "omg the screen changed" what really hurts the user in that scenario? Organizing apps will be less of an issue as time goes on, I'm already seeing apps not put a bunch of crap in the start screen, compared to when Win 8 first RTM'd.
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Windows 8 Adoption Rates Behind Vista Rates
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*shrug* For what it's worth, I did say "may" instead of "is". As in, your opinion may only be relevant to you. Or more accurately ( based on the numbers ), may be legitimately shared ( as apposed to those paid to share it ) by a minority.
The core argument is not that your opinion is wrong, but rather what the general market's opinion is and what MS could have done differently to make W8 more attractive. Because initial signs are that the market doesn't like W8 ( as predicted by yours truly ).
So you fail to give a single reason why it's better, say the context switch doesn't matter, totally ignore the fact that common links, MRU are no longer there, and claim the mess with organizing apps is not an issue.
That is some defense.
OK fair enough, you said may, not that it matters. anyway, yea I agree I never thought Win 8 would be popular, but I think the reason matters, and my 'opinion' is that it's because most users are too stuck in the old ways, not because Win 8 is not better.
And that's certainly a point we agree on.
Where I think we disagree is where you think users can change, or even that they should.
It's fewer clicks to open an app, more visual oriented, you can get vasts amounts of information from apps in the start screen, without them sucking resources, or infesting, slowing, or crashing the system, etc. Verified apps app store for safe casual style computing. that's just the visual additions to win 8. What's win 7 got? Folder names for apps that many times don't match the app name causing confusion? Great. - OK fun as this is, I'm going to get a few hours in the sun since I'm in Hawaii right now, later.
It's a better kernel. It's not a better UI and thus OS for anyone not on a tablet/hybrid. You need to have some facts before you start accusing people of being 'stuck in the old ways'. And you know what, it doesn't matter. The OS should make people's lives easier, not force them to work in some bizarre way someone at MS thought is good for everyone with zero usability research.
Why are you talking about RT apps? The discussion is about the start screen/menu. And you again ignored the many points about lack of links, MRU, context switching etc.
Passionate as we all tend to be about this stuff, maybe cut back on the silly names? While I agree with a lot of the points you raise, reading the name calling runs fingers down my spine. It undermines the legitimately good points you do make.
That's still a Microsoft problem.
It's the same as heatless blaming poor sales on OEMs not having enough devices or Microsoft relying solely on Intel* for these new convertibles. Those are Microsoft problems because they affect Microsoft's bottom line and limit the number of products out in the market. Google deciding not to bother with a YouTube app is a Microsoft problem. Facebook declining to make any Win8 apps is a Microsoft problem. It's Microsoft's job as the OS provider to see that these things (with respect to apps) don't happen. It's Microsoft's job to see that they design something compelling so Win8 products are flying off the shelves, and if the OEMs can't do it then it falls on their own shoulders - that's the reason they've made the Surface RT and Pro. But when they, too, don't sell then the blame lies on Microsoft's shoulders.
It's the first time in who knows how long that a new Microsoft OS is released and sales actually slipped further down. People aren't buying. People don't give a fuck about Win8 or its convertibles or even the phones. These are all Microsoft problems.
I understand that you might like it and that someone else might dislike Metro, but personal sentiments toward a product mean little here. Microsoft isn't looking for a pat on the back from you but rather to make a lot of money. If they're not making money and the products aren't a hit, then they've failed.
- *and it's not about fab capacity, heatless. Intel's fabs are running idle so they're not capacity/yield constrained. The issue had to do with getting drivers and firmware up to snuff. You know all about the WiFi issues that Samsung had, and still has, to deal with because of the SoC's WiFi. The same concept applies for power consumption as well. Refer to Tom's benchmarks:
http://media.bestofmicro.com/6/X/365721/original/hdbattlife.png
http://media.bestofmicro.com/6/W/365720/original/gamingriptide.png
The Acer Clover Trail hybrid-tablet-laptop-thing had fewer issues due to Intel working so closely with Acer when building and designing the device. But that's what happens when the biggest pro of the device is "we can do x86 too!" but only line up a single supplier with a horrible history in driver and firmware updates.
wonderfield
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Users are just accepting it wrong.
heatlesssun
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You pointed out several times an NPD number that said that Windows 8 tablets accounted for less than 1 percent of Windows 8 sales. All I was pointing out where how few Windows 8 tablets there were and currently still are, particularly Clover Trail devices. With only a handful of devices out and many of the better ones still not available, that number wasn't a shock. Indeed if only a handful of devices accounted for anywhere near 1 percent of sales, those devices probably are selling pretty well.
heatlesssun
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First of all, if anyone were paying me or anyone else to be Windows 8 evangelists here they'd be wasting their money.
I understand the arguments made against Windows 8 quite well, I probably understand the weaknesses of Windows 8 than many of the most rabid Windows 8 opponents because it's my main OS these days. It just seems as though you want people who use Windows 8 with no problems to say otherwise. I Windows 8 users that like it aren't saying that it is perfect. But it certainly isn't anywhere near as problematic for us as you're describing, it couldn't possibly be, I'd be tripping up over everything constantly, nothing would be working and I wouldn't be able to you my desktop apps just like I did on Windows 7.
heatlesssun
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The market is saturated with desktops and laptops, even if Windows 8 were the perfect desktop OS by your standards, why would people go out and by the same thing they already have? Few people have Windows tablets. So it may not be a big market right now but there does appear to be some demand there if for nothing else that it's new and shiny.
That's an MS problem. MS picked a single supplier for x86. Intel doesn't have a long history of great drivers and more importantly close cooperation with OEMs and even MS when creating SoCs. If you believe the rumors, they've learned their lesson and they're now going with AMD; which is a nice way of giving Intel the finger. MS also told the OEMs about their own product on the day they introduced it to the public, thus giving their OEMs only a small window of time to prepare their own devices. On top of that, they have to pay that MS licensing fee for the OS or OS+Office, inflating their BoM and pricing them out of contention from the beginning.
It was MS who decided to go after Google and claim they're a monopoly while at the same time bitching that Google isn't making Metro applications. They should have learned that you shouldn't piss off somebody you need and you certainly shouldn't rely on your main competitor. Now they're learning the hard way that while they may be the big dog in the traditional PC space, they're just a tiny pest in the mobile market with nothing to offer.
That's also a Microsoft problem. The cure to that ailment was a new "sexy" type of PC that's a convertible tablet/laptop, but when you don't give your OEMs enough time, you charge skyrocket prices for your software and OS, and you can't even sell your own products, then you've got to question whether that solution ever made any sense in the first place. Intel tried the same thing -- to spice up the PC space with a new "sexy" product -- with Ultrabooks, and that hasn't exactly been working out well for them. People don't pay high prices for Intel or Microsoft stickers, but they sure as hell are buying Apple products.
1. Why did people upgrade to Vista and to Win 7? They'd buy because its a better OS, esp at the cheap price.
2. New pc's come with a new OS
Reminds me of how everyone except the banks and corps are blamed for the economy and recession.
I actually feel bad for the OEMs here. They're stuck paying MS prices (which have now gone up, thanks to MS bundling Office as well), told about the whole thing only a few short months before launch, and then when they weren't ready with competitive products they get blamed for the whole thing by MS and its fanboys. Meanwhile, MS has to cut its orders for Surface RT products in half and Intel is charging up the ass for a shitty Clover Trail SoC that's riddled with WiFi issues and very poor GPU performance.
I mean, how long before others follow Dell here and leave MS for good?
And if they were to leave, can you really blame them?
I mean, how long before others follow Dell here and leave MS for good?
And if they were to leave, can you really blame them?
A result of the arrogance from MS and Sinofsky who decided to hold back Win 8 details not just from oem's/partners, but also other divisions inside MS. Then they proceeded to act as if Surface was the next iPad, and I'm sure had a fantasy that it would be a huge hit with oem's beating down the door and willing to pay the ripoff license fees.
MS gets a lot of goodwill and revenue from their partners. When they decide to go it alone, they either fall flat (Zune, Kin) or lose billions for years before turning around (Xbox). With Surface they decided to not only have their cake but antagonize their partners and eat it too.
Unfortunately, Ballmer making nonsensical boasts doesn't result in sales. Quite the opposite.
Maybe I've been doing this wrong the entire time...
(goes back to pounding my Bushmills whiskey)
heatlesssun
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Going with AMD? Where's AMD's 10 hour battery life platform x86 that is fanless?
heatlesssun
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You say that Windows 8 advocates don't ever have any response to things that you say, but these scenarios have been discussed repeatedly and yet you seem to ignore what has been said.
Who told someone to hold out their arms constantly to use a vertically mounted display like this? Large touch displays like this that would be used for extended periods of time would be tilted or lay flat like a Cintiq device. One might occasionally touch the screen for quick things, I do this all of the time on my convertible tablet, it's just faster sometimes to tap a button right in front of you rather than reposition the mouse.
And there's a reason why they call them convertibles, no one is going to use a pen like that, they'd flip the screen down and then write with the pen.
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On a lot of the touch Ultrabooks, I think the intent is not to use the touchscreen all the time, but for things like scrolling/swyping, launch an app etc. i.e. touch won't be the primary input.
It actually is not that bad in practice. e.g. I've tried a Surface with Type cover, and I ended up using the keyboard and screen together. e.g. when browsing, I would often hit space to page down, and touch the screen to click a link.
That's the risk you take when you enter a close-to-monopoly market. It's x86 we're talking about here. It's either Intel or go home. That's a huge risk, because if Intel has issues with certain aspects of their SoC or can't hit performance targets, you're stuck overpaying for an underperforming SoC that's got growing pains - which is exactly what happened, btw.
MS rode that x86 monopoly (or duopoly) all the way to the bank for years and now it's punching them in the gut. Intel is never going to lower prices unless they've got a strong competitor. In the x86 space that competitor is AMD, which, if we're honest, hasn't been a true competitor for years. There's a reason why Intel chip price stagnation has coincided with AMD's downfall, and apparently MS didn't get the memo. Intel suffered a drop in chip sales and prices still didn't budge. Rather than dropping prices during a decrease in sales, Intel let fabs run idle. When Ultrabook OEMs claimed that they were actually losing money on their Ultrabooks due to the high BoM cost, Intel responded by offering to standardize a plastic that's cheaper than the aluminum/magnesium casings. But what about the sky high ULV prices? They wouldn't budge. Confronted with staggeringly low Ultrabook sales figures, what did Intel do? Opted to standardize Li-Poly batteries to (slightly) reduce costs, but again, they wouldn't budge on processor pricing. And now, MS is forced to use a Ivy ULV with high power consumption which that can't even stay within its TDP range and isn't even an SoC for about $200 a pop. Think that's expensive? Wait, we're not done yet. Add another $15-$20 for the chipset and then you've got to add the touch sensor, the WiFi, the LTE (if you have that option), the cooling, and on and on... And what about Haswell? Well, it's even more expensive.
MS shouldn't have bothered with supporting x86/Win32/desktop at all for Win8/Metro/RT. It was by far the stupidest decision they made. Users don't care about x86 legacy applications and for the few that do they aren't going to be using them on an underpowered tablet with a netbook processor. And those that want more power are going to buy an ultraportable/laptop anyway as it has double the battery life and more processing power and storage space. You don't cater to power users with Metro and a 4-hour battery life, $1000 tablet. Legacy x86 means a huge install and wasted NAND space. It means a larger OS that uses more RAM and requires more CPU and GPU power to function. If you've got an RT tablet then you shouldn't need the desktop at all when it can't even use desktop applications in the first place. It's the reverse of what the desktop folks are thinking: Why do I have a desktop on my tablet? Why is it wasting space? Why should I have to fumble about in a legacy UI that doesn't respond well with my finger and small display? Why is it even there if the only x86 desktop program I can run is MS Office? Was it worth the wasted space?
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heatlesssun
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Exactly. For some reason a lot of people are looking at this as a zero sum game. Keyboards, mice, touch and pens all have their uses, each one good at things the others tend not to be. Keyboards and mice and other pointing devices are great for fast text input and high-precision pointing but are designed to be used in a sitting position. Touch is great for mobility but not particularly fast or accurate. Pens, at least digital ones, are actually high precision pointers, even better than mice and are often pressure sensitive.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6529/busting-the-x86-power-myth-indepth-clover-trail-power-analysis
May be of interest since heatless and pelo talk about this stuff a lot
May be of interest since heatless and pelo talk about this stuff a lot
Which users are those? Because the only reason I buy Windows computers is because they run software I already own/accumulated.
The only thing Microsoft has going for it's tablets at all is legacy advantage.
Without that I would just get a less expensive, more powerful Android(Nexus 10)/iPad with a more robust ecosystem.
I know, but that's the problem. The people that do need the legacy stuff also need the power to run the legacy stuff. The software that doesn't require the power already has an Android/iOS alternative. For most users, the Android and iOS app stores have way more "apps" than the legacy Win32 stuff anyway.
Think about it: what does an average user *need* from Win32 that doesn't exist on iOS or Android?
There are enthusiasts and gamers and workstations that need Win32, but those people are only a tiny minority. Your average user isn't going to pay $150 for Photoshop to use it on a tablet. In fact, they've likely never even had Photoshop installed. They don't do video editing. They don't play games on their PCs and don't own the latest and greatest hardware. This legacy appeal only appeals to a small portion of the market, and they're often far more educated than the average user, which means MS has to impress them with something substantial and give them an incentive to buy into these new devices. And even if all of them buy these new devices, Microsoft still wouldn't have more than a 5% market share.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6529/busting-the-x86-power-myth-indepth-clover-trail-power-analysis
May be of interest since heatless and pelo talk about this stuff a lot
The CPU performance is decent, at least in tablets, but the GPU is quite poor. The MaliT604 ends up being many times faster than the PowerVR on Intel's SoC and beating it in perf-per-watt as well. I suspect Anand didn't do any GPU per-per-watt benchmarks because they'd make the Clover Trail SoC look a lot worse.
The problem is, even he noted that the CPU performance is subpar for Win32/x86 legacy. In the Metro world it's okay (provided you don't mind the subpar GPU performance), but as soon as you start using desktop applications things turn south quite quickly. x86/Win32 legacy requires significantly more CPU power than does winRT or iOS/Android, so offering a compelling and competitive product is a much tougher task for Intel and MS if they truly want to leverage that "legacy" thing. Though who's supposed to want it, I'm not sure. Also keep in mind that Intel charges more for that Clover Trail than the Tegra 3 or the Snapdragon SoC (I'm not sure about the pricing on the stock ARM A15's with MaliT604 yet). Pricing is nevertheless pretty drastic. Check out the comments to the article to see what I mean. Haswell's pricing is going to be even worse than the current Ivy pricing; which is already pretty bad given that you can buy a Google Nexus 7 for the price of just the Ivy Bridge i5 ULV.
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MS is the only company with a different OS for tablets (RT) and phones (WP8). They may both be based on the same kernel, but are different. RT is still a big fat OS, nothing like the slim iOS or Android, primarily because it still is a full Windows OS taking up huge space, only to allow running desktop apps like Office for ARM.
heatlesssun
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But that's kind of the point. Everyone already has desktops and laptops. Windows 8 proponents and opponents alike have said that there's very little reason for people to buy new PCs these days. Touch and tablets do give at least some people a reason to buy new hardware where there wasn't one before. No matter what happens with Windows 8 and is successors, touchscreen devices are going to become more and more common and likely to become a significant portion of the PC market sooner rather than latter.
Speech recognition has been in Windows for some time and is part of Windows 8 as well.
heatlesssun
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Yes there office automation apps for iOS and Android but none that come close to MS Office. And what about support for hardware like printers? And what about custom business applications? And that about browser plug-ins? Not everything that's useful under desktop Windows requires lots of CPU power.
People care for MS Office on ultramobile devices? Then how do you explain tablet sales? or tablets outselling PCs in Q4? tablets outselling PCs this year or next year? And what about the year after that? and smartphones?
The fact is these niche cases are already served by the old hardware they've already got that they weren't compelled to upgrade in the first place. If you've got one working PC then you've got one that can run Office or print or run your custom business application. It's the same problem Intel/AMD are facing. Once you reach good enough, you also reach the point of "what else is out there?" People are voting with their wallets and they'd much rather have an Android or iOS tablet than have the ability to print or access MS Office on the go. And in case they need Office they won't have to wait too long to get it anyway.
It boils down to a simple question: What do Win8 devices offer me? and for some users it's also a matter of: is it enough to pry me away from iOS/Android and my applications I've paid money for?
Office? Business applications? The last thing most people want to do is take their work home with them.
Apple has Siri, their brand name and the "aura" as well as some truly fantastic hardware (their SoC is second to none and as are their displays). They've got market momentum and over 700k apps. They've got that image that Microsoft desperately wants.
Google has their google services: gmail, earth, youtube, etc. They also have a Siri-like thing (which works even better, imo). They also have an absolutely huge market place. The Android ecosystem has a wide variety of hardware and devices for the consumer to choose from. Want a better-than-Apple display but hate iOS? Buy HTC. Want bleeding edge hardware on a phablet? Go Samsung.
All of these things are what your average user and atypical power user can benefit from. The pros are universal in their scope. They appeal to everyone and anyone.
What does MS have to offer here? Legacy to a small selection of users who absolutely need to run their software on the go and nothing for those that don't? A UI that's pissed off more people than it has convinced others that it's a step forward? MS Office? A small selection of applications? The fact that it's missing absolutely key applications? (Gmail, YouTube, Facecbook)
MS needs that something. That extra feature or application that's worth the asking price and provides incentive for current iOS and Android users to drop the ecosystem they've bought into (literally) and change sides. If that extra something is Win32 legacy support *sometimes* (depending on the product [RT/x86] and processing power [Atom/ULV]) then they stand absolutely no chance. Like I've said before, MS needs Kinect, not Office. They need to start innovating again, not coming late to the party and bringing a pair of used underwear as a birthday present.
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Sales are low? Mother Microsoft is sad? Damsel in distress, fear not. The Cavalry is coming to the rescue!
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2012 The Defense Department has leveraged the buying power of more than two million information technology users to award a three-year, $617 million joint enterprise license agreement for Microsoft products, defense officials announced.
Under the agreement, the Army, Air Force and DISA can begin using the newest versions of Microsoft products, including Microsoft Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Windows 8, officials said, adding that Office 2013 provides enhanced security and content management tools.
http://www.defense.gov//news/newsarticle.aspx?id=118887
This should help the sales charts for the next months. Smile, Redmond!
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2012 The Defense Department has leveraged the buying power of more than two million information technology users to award a three-year, $617 million joint enterprise license agreement for Microsoft products, defense officials announced.
Under the agreement, the Army, Air Force and DISA can begin using the newest versions of Microsoft products, including Microsoft Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Windows 8, officials said, adding that Office 2013 provides enhanced security and content management tools.
http://www.defense.gov//news/newsarticle.aspx?id=118887
This should help the sales charts for the next months. Smile, Redmond!
heatlesssun
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How do you know this? PC sales are down true, but who is to say that they wouldn't be down regardless of what Windows 8 was? I have said many times maybe you're right about all of this but boy you're jumping the gun on this. Where we are now in the Windows 8 game is just the beginning. Many people including myself have said this is long term game for many months and never expected Windows 8 to jump out strong, if for no other reason than the severe lack of new hardware for which it was designed to run on.
If Windows 8 fails or flops it will eclipse all other non-Windows desktop OSes sometime this year probably. If a failed OS eclipses all other OSes on the desktop then it probably does mean the end of the desktop and the decline of Microsoft into oblivion. Fire up your Nexus, Kindle Fire or iPad and turn the page.
heatlesssun
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Let me ask this then; what are your "fail" conditions? At what point do you consider a MS operating system to have failed? Has any MS operating system failed, in your eyes?
The problem for MS is that it's going to take years to eclipse XP and Win7, and that's *if* it ever does.
The desktop doesn't matter here and is an afterthought to both MS, Intel and most any tech company on the market. The bigger growth is in mobile and that's where the money is. Win8's success over OS X and Linux on the desktop was never in question, but that's not how MS is going to make their money going forward. Intel's design goals going forward are 10W TDP SoCs and under with everything else binned from there. Yes, even Intel gives no shits about you.
As much as people want to argue about Metro and the desktop, it clearly doesn't matter. Microsoft forced Metro on you to sell their app store and shoved it in your face. They even went so far as to slap it on the server. That's a clear sign that mobile is the priority and the traditional PC, and even server, has taken a back seat.
Their new OS was designed with convertible and mobile devices in mind, so it's success and failure hinge on how well the market accepts these convertible devices, tablets and phones. Right now, that picture is looking bleak. If MS wants these devices to do well then they had better get working on providing a reason for the user to buy them. For the masses, x86 legacy certainly isn't it considering they're much better served by the iOS and Android app stores. Relying on a saturated market with a lengthy upgrade cycle isn't the way to future success, I'm sorry.
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