I have an opinion. If you don't agree then what can I say? I've listed many times why Metro is better than iOS. Can you tell me why iOS's UI is better than Metro's?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Microsoft Previews Windows 8 for Tablets and PCs
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I have an opinion. If you don't agree then what can I say? I've listed many times why Metro is better than iOS. Can you tell me why iOS's UI is better than Metro's?
wow! where did all these WinBoys come from 
With regards to innovation, anyone remember Microsoft Freedom to Innovate marketing spiel when the DOJ and EU came knocking?
----------
With all those OEMs it's pretty obvious, vendors don't have much choice really... wait don't tell me there is they should deploy Linux on those PC's!
Look at statistics of decline in PC sales as posted earlier in this thread...
Even your bog standard minimum dollar spend PC comes with Windows, hurray for their channel partners!
With regards to innovation, anyone remember Microsoft Freedom to Innovate marketing spiel when the DOJ and EU came knocking?
----------
With all those OEMs it's pretty obvious, vendors don't have much choice really... wait don't tell me there is they should deploy Linux on those PC's!
Look at statistics of decline in PC sales as posted earlier in this thread...
Even your bog standard minimum dollar spend PC comes with Windows, hurray for their channel partners!
You're not writing like it's an opinion. You're stating as though it's absolute fact.
UI is not my concern. My issue is with productivity. You say it is completely impossible with iOS. I don't agree. While the apps may be dumbed down comparatively, you can still produce well formatted documents, speadsheets, and other things like that. And it certainly doesn't take a full computer to fill out a form.
It's says Apple does substantially more with less.
Microsoft has outspent Apple roughly 8-1 in R&D over the last decade. Yes, 8 to 1.
And in that time - roughly 10 years - Apple has produced Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, lots of groundbreaking Mac models (multiple iMac versions, the iBooks, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, MacBook Air, Power Macs, etc.), iPod, iPod Touch popularized Podcasting, iTunes, iTunes Store, iPhone, iOS, Apple TV, the App Store, Mac App Store, and, of course their current game-changer: the iPad (and now an even bigger hit, the iPad 2.)
Microsoft, on the other hand, for 8x the money, has come up with: another back-asswards Mac OS X clone - a Windows rehash that they're trying to shoehorn onto tablets with varying degrees of failure, some bloated Office retreads, the Zune, Kin, Bing, and Windows Phone 2007. If it wasn’t for the Sony-inspired Xbox (Red Ring of Death included) and a Nintendo-inspired Xbox controller, Microsoft would have nothing but a string of failures to show for roughly 80 billion dollars. The ratio of R&D to revenue for both companies couldn’t be more telling. Of course, they put a lot of R&D into their Enterprise software. Which doesn't function any better today than it has years ago. Lots of folks are still on XPee at work. It's hard to get excited about Exchange and Outlook, and hard to actually enjoy using them. Which no one really does.
That's right. $80 billion for a PlayStation clone, an accessory to make it work like a Wii, an also-ran search engine, and what's left of Nokia.
MS is still stuck doing the exact same things they were doing 10 years ago: Windows and Office.
That isn't innovation (not in a tech world that includes Apple, and now Google.) That's fear of change, and the bad decisions that it causes.
Last edited:
Are you kidding? That site is totally Windows biased that is something they are hoping to happen, not even truth. And please Mac being robust? They stop being robust the day the Intel era began and they soiled themselves.
I was using it today and i liked it. All my windows friends were complaining because they will have to use it but I could care less because my mac is my main computer. I'm going to try to install it on bootcamp soon.
Personally, I think MS innovates plenty. 7 has many really cool features "under the hood."
It's QA and Microsoft that I find incongruous.
I've participated in private betas for them and seen many bugs I and others would report as critical that sailed right on through every release to the RTM version.
IMHO the Achilles heel of Windows is the backwards compatibility. In this day and age offering a Classic/Rosetta/XP Mode type solution seems preferable to watering down your OS to continue to support older applications.
This is also one of my disappointments in Lion. Apple should have kept SL and Rosetta around even if just as a VM.
Also, Microsoft has a long history of over-promising and under-delivering with major OS releases. Features are delayed or removed outright by the time we get closer to RTM. We should be in a far different place if most of the features developed and demonstrated for "Cairo" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_(operating_system), including WinFS, had been delivered.
I will play with W8, but I don't expect it to replace Lion or W7 on any of my current crop of machines.
B
Perhaps you should look at your Time Machine and notice that Windows 7 shipped many months "early" compared to the initial projections.
Was Win7 "rushed", or were the initial estimates very conservative?
...setups which are now running Avid and Adobe Premiere, often under Windows x64.
Although, Microsoft can't take credit for drawing those people into the Windows ecosystem - Apple gets the credit for actively throwing them out of the Apple ecosystem.
Final Cut Pro X - LOL!
You can't have one without the other. UI dictates what kind of productivity you do.
If you look at Metro you'll notice that the collection of tiles look just like banner ads. This is a revolution in UI design. Tiles are squares and rectangles and because they're flatly colored without textures it's easy to distinguish between them. Live tiles also convey lots of information every couple of seconds so they compete for your attention. Also, tiles peek out from the right. Just like banner ads.
Microsoft said, "Metro is founded on clean, beautiful typography." Indeed. Metro relies on less eye candy and more on text because they understand that text is better than visual cues. It's quicker and more intuitive. Look at Metro's Start screen. No distractions. Just brilliant design.
Then there's iOS. Icons make up the Home screen. Icons are just rounded squares that reflect what the app is. A number badge indicates if you have a new message or e-mail or update. They convey no information. This is far more confusing than tiles.
And in contrast to Metro's plain colors and flat shapes, iOS uses lots of textures, gloss, gradient, and shading to distinguish different parts of the UI and gives users a sense of look and feel of the app. This makes it harder for the user to use the app.
This is why I think Windows 8 is a serious competitor. Metro's UI allows for more productivity.
Last edited by a moderator:
What the **** does a home screen have to do with a word processor or any other productivity application?
Going back to the healthcare example, a physician isn't going to spend much if any time on that home screen. Rather they would be handling everything in a proprietary app.
Last edited:
Unbelieveable! Earlier I was bashed for citing a reference from a "Mac biased" website.
So then I post the same story from a non-Mac site and now I get bashed because its "Windows biased."
Alright, let me see if I can find the story on a Linux website.
The only one worried is Microsoft. After all, they rushed Windows 8 to market to compete with iPad 3. I am just wondering why they didn't bother competing with iPad 1 ?
Microsoft Will Rush Windows 8 To Market To Compete With The iPad3
http://www.cultofmac.com/102557/microsoft-will-rush-windows-8-to-market-to-compete-with-the-ipad-3
Why is it being rushed? Because some guy on a mac site says so?
So then I post the same story from a non-Mac site and now I get bashed because its "Windows biased."
Alright, let me see if I can find the story on a Linux website.
Well, the Home or Start screen is where you begin so if you have to navigate to find your word processor which would be easier: icons or tiles? Icons just represent the app itself and maybe a badge number. Tiles are much more complex thus tiles are easier to navigate through.
And you're right. Then there's the app itself. As I posted before iOS makes use of a lot of visual cues while Metro doesn't. The lack of visual cues makes it easier for professionals to use an app because as Microsoft said, There's no chrome, only content.
It is much to addicting... I want more tiles in my Start menu now!
Anandtech just posted an AMD Trinity demo video from IDF as well.
I found myself staring at the Piano application during playback. Now I want to learn how to play.
I will try out the developer tools to see what I can make for my own usage.
I found myself staring at the Piano application during playback. Now I want to learn how to play.
I will try out the developer tools to see what I can make for my own usage.
This thing is destroying my love for Lion....
And just how hard has it been to navigate graphical operating systems for the last three decades? Are you suggesting that it wasn't really possible to be productive before Metro?
And what are all these unnecessary cues, besides icons?
No, I am not suggesting that productivity was not possible before Metro. I'm saying Metro allows for better productivity. The visual cues that Metro has eliminated are textures, gloss, shading, and gradient. These types of razzle-dazzle make up the "look and feel" of iOS apps and allows the users to distinguish between different UI parts. Thus, it's harder to use than Metro's flat UI.
Only to be replaced by gaudy-coloured boxes that look like a bomb went off in a paint factory. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to this UI. Metro has been on the market since 2006 and it has so far created no appreciable return for MS.
MS is basing the Windows 8 UI on an interface that is a total market failure, and which currently is doing absolutely nothing to help pitifully low WP7 sales.
Smooth move.
But all is not lost. This time around they're hoping they can just force it on users via universal-licensing lock-in. The sensibility of this strategy remains to be seen. As always, consumers have a choice in the marketplace, and non-MS products in recent years have become an increasingly attractive choice.
Last edited: