I can't speak for everyone else but the problem is that the touch UI so far looks like a thin facade and everything will just default to the standard Windows UI as it has every other time Microsoft has tried something like this. It is a fear that Microsoft will do the same thing yet again (over promise, under deliver). It feels like they're making fancier widgets.
When did Microsoft try something like this before? Windows Media Center? Theres not a single instance I can think of that would kick you out of WMC and back to "default" Windows UI, unless you had your hardware set up wrong to begin with. Thats about as close as they've gotten to something like this. And Windows Media Center works great for what its designed for. Theres a reason MS continues to expand upon WMC while Apple removed Front Row from Lion.
And when has Microsoft "over promised and under delivered?" Vista did everything they promised. Practically every bad thing you heard about Vista was either not true, or a twisting of facts. Windows 7 has done everything MS promised. The Xbox 360 has constantly had new features added to it, while its main competitor has had features removed. Including crucial game changing features like backwards compatibility. Even the Zune did everything Microsoft promised. It just didn't take off with consumers.
Oh, regarding ARM processors, the main argument for the old UI seems to be to run apps like Photoshop or Excel or something similar. I'll be seriously impressed if an ARM processor can run those apps satisfactorily.
Why wouldn't ARM be able to run them properly? "Numbers" runs just fine on iPad with its limited UI, so why wouldn't ARM be able to run a full version of Excel? And why not Photoshop either? Photoshop makes extensive use of GPU acceleration these days. And if nvidia's roadmap is true
http://blogs.nvidia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Tegra_MWC_Update1.jpg Kal-El will be faster than a 2GHz Core 2 Duo which runs both apps just fine.
Again, Microsoft is long on promises and short on actual delivery. We'll see how this turns out when they release it, but I'm not holding my breath.
Well, again, I'd like to see where MS has "failed to deliver" on promises. The only thing they've done that I can recall is be late with Vista. But its not like they had any real competition during that time. To this day, XP can still do things that OS X can't. Like play blu-ray discs or modern games.
While I see your point regarding the whole ecosystem thing, your theoretical device would have to be running an x86 processor to be able to runs all of those applications. In other words the whole hardware piece would also have to be comparable to iOS hardware in performance, including battery life. Maybe by the time Windows 8 is ready for launch, Intel will have their power consumption down to the level where a x86 10 inch tablet can have the performance of an ARM tablet with the same battery life. But I doubt it.
Clock for clock, Atom (any x86 CPU really) is faster than ARM. Theres no reason to believe Intel or AMD won't have a faster chipset out by that time with similar battery life.
But it is rumoured that MS is looking to run versions of W8 on ARM architecture - thus creating a bit of fragmentation requiring applications to be designed in both processing environments, right?
Another poster who didn't read about Windows 8 or watch the video. MS claims that "Windows 8 Development Foundation" or whatever they're calling it is cross platform. So anything made for Windows 8 will work on both architectures.
I'm not a programmer, but from what I've read that would not be a fun process, and it would go against MS policy of backwards compatibility going all the way back to DOS.
Which is why Windows Vista x64 and Windows 7 x64 doesn't support anything like that?
Windows hasn't had "proper" DOS support since Windows 98, FYI.
Theres a lot of Windows 98 apps that won't run on Windows XP. Theres quite a few XP that won't run on VIsta/7. Theres no Windows 3.x apps that will run on any x64 edition of Windows.
HOWEVER, I would be thoroughly impressed with MS if it did take this leap and actually dare to forge ahead as Apple continuously does with their products. What's the problem with supporting things for a max of 3-4 years? File formats are one thing, but programs and legacy operating systems themselves? Come on, people, that just destroys and puts a ball and chain on innovation, and that is what finally made me throw in the towel with MS in the first place!
Yes, Apple FORGES ahead with their technology. Thats why Apple still doesn't have proper video decoding in OS X, and the most advanced optical disc OS X can work with is a 14 year old DVD format.
This whole "Windows legacy support" nonsense needs to stop. It's simply not true. Microsoft completely rewrote the driver interface for Windows Vista and further improved upon it in Windows 7. The only software from the 90s that still runs would be SOME, but not all, games. And that would only be because the original developer or publisher or the fan base keeps the games alive.
An XP app from 10 years ago that still runs does so just because. Not because Microsoft actively supports it.
What's with all of you tech savvy forum users going all shy on user interface changes? Trackpads and mice are 40 year old technologies! Touch already is more efficient when implemented correctly, and has the potential to exponentially improve the productivity of interacting with a computer compared to a mouse or trackpad in the future.
It's good for certain types of devices and applications, but far from a "one size fits all" universal UI.
That said, I love the new interface. I'll use the classic interface on my computers and will hold off on an iPad 3 to see how well this works on tablets.
Am I the only one here who truly has replaced their home personal computing network from a server-desktop-laptop to an iPad and a Mac mini as a server? The only thing I can't do is upload files to websites. Everything else a personal home user could ever want to do is just as easily done now with this setup - whether it be streaming music/video all over the household to writing up resumes, family budgets, expense reports, printing, file sharing, blah blah blah, you name it! It may be done slightly differently, but it is just as easy if not easier than it was with a traditional PC/Mac setup of just a couple of years ago.
After a long day, I can't sit down and just relax and play a game on that set up. I mean, a real game. Not Angry Birds or some other nonsense. I want to play a REAL game like Crysis or Battlefield 3. Can't do that on your setup.
None of those devices are capable of playing blu-ray discs or even blu-ray quality video. Don't tell me "iPad 2 can output 1080p" yeah, but let's see that iPad 2 decode 45Mbps H.264 at 1080p with lossless high definition audio.
Oh, not to mention the fact that just about any internet connection over 3Mbps is fast enough to open virtually any website instantly on a PC or notebook. Yet iPad 2 is slow to the point where you have to wait several seconds for the page to open. It's like going back to dialup all over again.
I am fully aware that the computer professionals out there still need the powerful creating tools that currently only traditional machines can provide - but the UI's of those systems are inevitably going to merge with these newer devices as they become more mainstream, and very soon one will not be able distinguish the performance and capability difference at all and due to demand these creation tools will become available on the new devices.
And let's not forget that the PC gaming industry is larger than Apple's entire computer market share. All of those people still want and need traditional extremely powerful setups.
The UI is different, but I wouldn't go calling it innovative - yet, because ms has no faith in it. They need to cut the cord with all of the legacy garbage.
What legacy garbage? Like I said, Microsoft rewrote the driver interface in Vista/7. "Real" DOS support hasn't existed since Windows 98. 16-bit Windows 3.x era apps have long since stopped working. Microsoft DOES NOT actively support or maintain backwards compatibility with "legacy" software or hardware. This is yet another myth made up by the Apple fans.
If there is someone using a 5 year old machine with XP on it... they are certainly not gonna run out and buy a copy of Windows 7 (would it even run?)
It would. Vista is 4 years old now. Windows 7 and Vista only call for a 1GHz "modern" CPU, other hardware with supported drivers, and 512MB of RAM. Realistically, there are people who have gotten Windows 7 running on original 1GHz Athlons. Athlon Thunderbird and Athlon XP systems supported 2GB of RAM. So as long as theres drivers for your chipset and GPU, you could most definitely run Windows 7 on a 1GHz+ Athlon or P3 that has enough memory. Throw 2GB of RAM in those systems and it'll run. Won't be fast, but it will run.
It feels like a skin on top of Windows 7 much like Windows ME was a skin on top of DOS.
Wow, really?
I hope you're being sarcastic. If not, let's not forget the fact that Windows ME still had pre-emptive multi-tasking, some Mac OS was JUST about to get at that time, after Windows had it for half a decade by that point.
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