I completely agree, but I think the regression was too much. It was good that it pushed and forced Microsoft to rethink what they were doing and create Metro/Modern. But at the same time so much functionality was lost that could have been there on tablets. I'm not sure which would have caused more damage, iOS regressing OS' backwards so badly or Microsoft never learning their lesson regarding what a mobile OS should have been.
As for a "computing appliance I want to read and relax on" I definitely differ in opinion in that Microsoft has made a SUPERIOR device to consume content and do non-work activities. Certainly this is in the eye of the beholder and your needs and wants may not be the same as mine. But I've been patiently and agonizingly "tolerating" iOS for these past years while I waited for windows (or I would have been happy with OSx) to come out on a tablet. There is not a shred of doubt in my mind that I have greatly compromised in having to use iOS and I would never in my wildest dreams ever regress myself to it.
In order to recreate something, it is often necessary to discard the old way entirely and build it entirely anew. Apple was willing to do this, Microsoft was not. If not for Apple, we would have gone down the road of Windows Mobile which was again, great for tech geeks and awful for everyone else.
I understand that different people want different things, but it has become quite clear over the years here that what you want from a tablet is way outside the norms of what most people want. Microsoft had tablets that did effectively what you wanted for years, and they sold effectively none of them. I don't want my tablet to be a laptop replacement, it's an appliance that does things
differently and yes, often better, than a regular computer does. Windows 8 is in no way ready to replace the iPad for any volume of users. Of perhaps the top 25-30 most used iPad apps of mine, perhaps 5 of them are available on Windows. Of the half-dozen or so magazines I subscribe to, one is available in the Windows store. I'm sure you'll say I have access to everything in desktop which is a) not always true as in the case of magazines, and b) fundamentally changes the use of the device as I go from a dead simple (read appliance-like) experience to struggling with Touch on the desktop or having to get out the keyboard which completely defeats the point of a tablet.
I hear some saying "simplicity" equates to things like users not wanting to set their clocks on their VCR, programming a thermostat or adjusting their car stereo. I would beg to differ and not say this is complexity but pure and utter laziness. The day a human being is truly stupid enough to not be able to program a VCR clock is the day that the human race has lost and might as well all give up and die. I understand that consumers are lazy and if Apple caters to that and it makes them money then more power to them, I just get annoyed at the "simplicity" mantra that everyone chants. Yeah my 90 year old grandmother or my 2 year old can use an ipad, that doesn't make it a positive for the vast majority of consumers IMO.
Why should people need to read manuals for things that with a bit more care on the development and design side could be done completely without one? Because it's cheaper to make whatever interface you come up with and offload the work of designing a great interface from your company (which costs you money) to your customers who then must each spend a small amount of time figuring out your convoluted interface. Make no mistake. Simple interfaces aren't common because they cost more money than complex ones.
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The point is since we are discussing user interfaces, given the choice, would you prefer a VCR clock that is easy to program, or one that you have to learn how to program. Technology should be an amplifier to our human abilities, interfaces should be as transparent as possible, allowing you to focus fully on what you are actually attempting to do with the technology.
Exactly. Tech geeks tend to forget this as for them, the tech is the
end itself. Yet the vast majority of users just need a tool to let them do the work for which the tech is the
means.
We also tend to forget that the logical thinking that goes into the creation of much software and technology applies best to the people who think like those who create it, yet in reality, that mode of thinking only applies to a small portion of the population. Yes, once I read the manual, 'I get it,' yet I can step outside of myself enough to see that just as I will never be capable of composing a great musical work or painting a masterpiece, other people of value have great difficulty understanding the logical method that comes so naturally to me and most of us who choose to spend time in places like this.
