It was exactly this mindset that doomed the windows slate PC, that you can just port a table-based computing system onto a tablet and expect it to just work. People want ipads, not imacs that rest on their laps.
Working and working well are 2 different things. I can VNC my computer to run diablo3 from my ipad. Good luck trying to control the interface using the touchscreen with any degree of competency.
It is taking Apple long hours of R&D just to figure out how to converge their OS and IOS lines, and even then, they are doing this in small, incremental steps (ie: consolidating apps/features across both platforms, rather than releasing one unified OS for both).
I don't believe Microsoft can magically just crack the secret to this in that short a period of time. Apps that run well on a desktop don't necessarily work as well on a touch-screen tablet, and vice versa.
Exactly. iOS and OS X are the same OS underneath, as is obvious if you jailbreak an iDevice and take a look at the file system. But Apple has kept the UI discrete, to optimize one for the tablet experience and the other for a desktop experience. It has been slowly growing iOS for years now, and many developers have started to follow Apples's example by offering both desktop and tablet/phone versions of their apps. You visit an app's website, and pictures with three versions of the app -- desktop, tablet, phone -- are becoming more and more common. It's going to take Windows 8 years to catch up, and some devs are going to be lazy and not update their apps because they think the desktop version runs ok on tablets. Apple forced their devs to write a separate tablet version if they wanted to be on tablets.
Also, because of the initial separation of iOS and OS X, we've got devs who started out writing phone/tablet apps expanding into desktop versions, as well as the other way around. I believe this makes for more variation and innovation in apps, as those coming from one direction is bound to see and do things differently than those coming the other way. I think Wndows 8 might eventually get devs who start out with the tablet side of things, but initially, it's overwhelmingly going to be desktop apps being ported to tablet format. I just think it's going to be a huge challenge for Windows 8 to achieve the same robustness iOS has as a platform.
Finally, I'm not in love with the Metro interface. Live tiles are good, but when I tried the consumer preview, I realized that most of my apps aren't going to be live tiles -- only apps I use regularly that could take advantage of it is mail, calendar and weather. So I'm left with screenfulls of same-looking tiles that are harder to tell apart than traditional icons. Differentiating them by color ony goes so far.
But most significantly, after decades of trying and failing to bring a usable tablet to market, Microsoft doesn't have my trust as far as tablets are concerned. I do like Windows 7, but am cross with the idea that Windows 8 messes up the desktop experience to promote tablets. I'm planning on hanging on to W7 until Microsoft sorts it out with Windows 9 -- and I'm very close to jumping ship to OS X. Only thing holding me back is I don't want to deal with the Mac version of Microsoft Office (!), and I need Office for work.
I don't know how many users there are out there like me, who always used Windows and never looked at Macs, but who were gradually more and more pulled into the Apple ecosystem through iPods, iPhones and now iPads. Piggie thinks Microsoft will be able to entice users to their tablets by familiarizing them with the UI on the desktop. Well, Apple's years ahead of them in enticing users to the Mac through familiarity with iOS. Point is, there are already users like me. As of now, users familiar with Metro interface -- well, there are the people using Windows Phone 7, and that's it. Microsoft has a huge mountain to climb.