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Microsoft Previews Windows 8 with Cues from iPad and App Store
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It's so hard to activate a license, isn't it? And paying Windows prices for OSX? LMAO! You already pay dearly for OSX, don't you? You made me choke laughing.
Even if activating licenses is easy (it's not - why should i have to call Microsoft on the phone to install windows on a VM or when I replace my graphics card, as I've had to do multiple times), why would you PREFER having to do it?
The argument that Apple is somehow "tricking" people into paying for an upgrade they could steal for free is premised on the idea that they should somehow take steps to prevent the theft.
The first thing I’d note about windows 8 is that its going to be a single platform across device formats using a pretty unified code base. X86 vs ARM isn’t a big deal; you don’t write in assembler these days, you write in a higher level language and compile. The compiler optimizations take care of the actual code that the processor will use (and do so in an efficient way.)
It would be interesting to me if “native metro” win8 apps were exclusively and only HTML5 and JavaScript. I think its likely that the HTML5 and JavaScript will be the minimum app, that will allow a live custom view of a website, like a Facebook or Twitter app on iOS. I can’t see MS NOT releasing a metro friendly Office suite, and I can’t see them coding it in java. Anything is possible though, I suppose.
The big result of all of this is that there will be a gigantic market for the win 8 metro app ecosystem. The Windows 8 Desktop juggernaut will foster development of a metric f*ton of apps that will also serve their tablet offerings thus getting over the issue of lack of apps when entering a new market, and developers focusing on the mobile space will see adoption in the desktop space also.
This sympathetic device-agnostic approach is the real reason for this new approach to the OS. Its also crazy smart because no one knows exactly what mix of device formats people are going to migrate to in the future.
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As for the comments about tiles and icons…
In my experience, the desktop is a dumping ground; a badly arranged mixture of links, downloads and place to transfer from and to that only gets and stays well organized if you’re anal. MS has been developing the concept of more contextual directories, called libraries (Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos – plus Downloads.) These provide trivial to find and understand places to put your content, and find your downloads. You don’t need to put downloaded files on a desktop… their actual location is unimportant if their location is obvious and easy to access.
The need to have a place to put files was clearly addressed in the demo where pictures were selected not only from libraries but also from online services, natively and directly, in the insertion dialog. Probably a smart move, considering the growth of the cloud.
Indeed, the Ipad “desktop” has ONLY iconic links to the applications, and does not allow you to dump files randomly. I see few (or no) people complain that they can’t clutter their Ipad icon screens with individual downloads, decompressed folders and documents
The Metro tile system is much like the ipad *plus*. It has pages of icons, yet has live preview information. If the Ipad (and android) icons are dumb, the Win8 tiles will be smart… but there is a lot of functional similarity in navigation and usage.
1) You WILL be able to change the order and the appearance of individual tile backgrounds. Color coding and reordering is absolutely inevitable.
2) Recognizing an individual tab won’t be hard in any way: It may initially take a moment to look at a tile and read to understand its utility, but you will very quickly remember the location of the particular tile you’re looking for. Admittedly, you may have difficulty if you’re retarded.
3) For those complaining that you “USE 200 APPLICATIONS”, maybe. I’d be willing to bet large sums of money, however, that 90% of your usage could be satisfied on the first page of metro apps… and 99% on the second page and so on. If you need a rarely used app, you can use the more traditional foldered/scrolling system. You won’t need to use dozens of pages to start apps.
If you really hate the idea, its going to be easy to just do things the old ways. It wont be forced.
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A point that some people are missing regarding the Metro interface is that its NOT (ONLY) a touch interface, it’s a gesture interface.
A gesture isn’t something unique to touch interfaces; a gesture is a click (or tap) with or without motion in a location-aware way; for windows, like a double click (or tap) on a title bar toggling maximize and minimize of a window, or more recently dragging the cursor on a title bar of a window just to the edge of the screen will snap the window to that half of the screen.
All of the metro interface gestures are very simple; a tap and move from the left = click and drag from the left, a swipe of a page = click and drag in the middle of the tiles, a tap and move from the right = click and drag from the right.
(One interesting thing I’d note is that by having tiles with no random collection of files and downloads on the metro screen there is no need for the current click drag, which is to select multiple icons/files by area to delete or move.. you can see the foreshadowing of how things will be done.)
While some people may think there is no way how that you could use Metro with a mouse, I think most people would be vastly surprised.
It would be interesting to me if “native metro” win8 apps were exclusively and only HTML5 and JavaScript. I think its likely that the HTML5 and JavaScript will be the minimum app, that will allow a live custom view of a website, like a Facebook or Twitter app on iOS. I can’t see MS NOT releasing a metro friendly Office suite, and I can’t see them coding it in java. Anything is possible though, I suppose.
The big result of all of this is that there will be a gigantic market for the win 8 metro app ecosystem. The Windows 8 Desktop juggernaut will foster development of a metric f*ton of apps that will also serve their tablet offerings thus getting over the issue of lack of apps when entering a new market, and developers focusing on the mobile space will see adoption in the desktop space also.
This sympathetic device-agnostic approach is the real reason for this new approach to the OS. Its also crazy smart because no one knows exactly what mix of device formats people are going to migrate to in the future.
---
As for the comments about tiles and icons…
In my experience, the desktop is a dumping ground; a badly arranged mixture of links, downloads and place to transfer from and to that only gets and stays well organized if you’re anal. MS has been developing the concept of more contextual directories, called libraries (Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos – plus Downloads.) These provide trivial to find and understand places to put your content, and find your downloads. You don’t need to put downloaded files on a desktop… their actual location is unimportant if their location is obvious and easy to access.
The need to have a place to put files was clearly addressed in the demo where pictures were selected not only from libraries but also from online services, natively and directly, in the insertion dialog. Probably a smart move, considering the growth of the cloud.
Indeed, the Ipad “desktop” has ONLY iconic links to the applications, and does not allow you to dump files randomly. I see few (or no) people complain that they can’t clutter their Ipad icon screens with individual downloads, decompressed folders and documents
The Metro tile system is much like the ipad *plus*. It has pages of icons, yet has live preview information. If the Ipad (and android) icons are dumb, the Win8 tiles will be smart… but there is a lot of functional similarity in navigation and usage.
1) You WILL be able to change the order and the appearance of individual tile backgrounds. Color coding and reordering is absolutely inevitable.
2) Recognizing an individual tab won’t be hard in any way: It may initially take a moment to look at a tile and read to understand its utility, but you will very quickly remember the location of the particular tile you’re looking for. Admittedly, you may have difficulty if you’re retarded.
3) For those complaining that you “USE 200 APPLICATIONS”, maybe. I’d be willing to bet large sums of money, however, that 90% of your usage could be satisfied on the first page of metro apps… and 99% on the second page and so on. If you need a rarely used app, you can use the more traditional foldered/scrolling system. You won’t need to use dozens of pages to start apps.
If you really hate the idea, its going to be easy to just do things the old ways. It wont be forced.
---
A point that some people are missing regarding the Metro interface is that its NOT (ONLY) a touch interface, it’s a gesture interface.
A gesture isn’t something unique to touch interfaces; a gesture is a click (or tap) with or without motion in a location-aware way; for windows, like a double click (or tap) on a title bar toggling maximize and minimize of a window, or more recently dragging the cursor on a title bar of a window just to the edge of the screen will snap the window to that half of the screen.
All of the metro interface gestures are very simple; a tap and move from the left = click and drag from the left, a swipe of a page = click and drag in the middle of the tiles, a tap and move from the right = click and drag from the right.
(One interesting thing I’d note is that by having tiles with no random collection of files and downloads on the metro screen there is no need for the current click drag, which is to select multiple icons/files by area to delete or move.. you can see the foreshadowing of how things will be done.)
While some people may think there is no way how that you could use Metro with a mouse, I think most people would be vastly surprised.
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Fine, you have your opinion. It doesn't change the fact that Apple care less about their customers with a 5 year old Mac OS than they care about their customers with a 10 year old Windows OS, which is what our discussion was originally about.
I'd have absolutely no problem with having to type in a license key at the one time I install the OS, I can't understand how this can be considered such a big advantage of OS X.
And the pricing of OS X is a non-applicable argument, don't you realize that they make up for the cheap price with their HUGE margins on hardware?, they already have a huge pile of your money. You simply can't compare the price tags of Windows and OS X.
But yes, I would prefer to pay the price of Windows combined with the PC hardware for it rather than the price of OS X together with the Mac hw.
If you think activating a license is hard, I don't know what to tell you. Stick to simplicity then.
You haven't answered my question. Assume it's easy. Why is it that you would feel better if Apple added such a "feature?" What advantage is it to you?
Apple doesn't do it because they don't have an OS piracy issue. Much of the OS revenue is priced into the hardware, and an end user type can't run OSX on non-apple hardware.
License protection isn't a feature for users. Its a feature for OS makers with popular and portable OS products... and from the users perspective it helps when their OS maker keeps making new products.
Also doesn't answer my question. The claim was made that Apple is cheating users by trying to charge for an OS license they could just install without paying (an alternate claim was made that the upgrade license allowed installation on non-Leopard machines - I've already disproven that). The implication was that because Apple doesn't use technological measures to prevent such installation, they are cheating users.
What I'm trying to find out is why it is that these people would prefer that Apple does use such technological measures, and why that would somehow make Apple a less despicable company. I'm still waiting for an answer.
I kind of have a problem of you bashing MS for activation. it is a result of the huge piracy problems. Apple makes money on hardware so people skipping out on paying to upgrade the OS is not an issue.
MS money comes from the OS and so people skipping out on that is a problem for them so they have a much larger reasons to prevent it. It more so I believe to go after the business to prevent them from skimping out on it or people doing massing selling. MS is not so much interested in the individuals doing it but the ones giving it out.
As for activation it never been an issue for me.
As for calling only time you have to even call to get it fix is if you change to many points in the system. Changing your graphic card is only worth 1 point and you need to change 5 points for it to happen.
If I remember right the 10 point system is
1 point CPU serial number
1 point CPU model
3 point MAC address
1 point Motherboard serial number
1 point HD serial number
1 point Ram amount
1 point graphic card
1 point DVD/CD drive serial number
You need to change 5 points before activation issues come up and even then they are pretty nice about it. I tripped it because my first mobo fried so that took out 4 points and later on I replaced the graphic card. quick phone call and my point system was reset to 10. They mostly just ask why and you give a semi reasonable reason they go ok cool you are good to go.
But activation is there due to MS first intersted. If Apple started going software only you can sure as hell bet they would do it as well.
My mistake. I must have missed that. I didn't violate the license, though
Not that I didn't violate it in other ways since I have a Hackintosh as well as my macbook.
Where did I bash MS for activation? I merely asked (repeatedly) why as a Mac customer I should PREFER apple to do something similar, rather than letting Apple trust me to follow the license agreement? Everyone seems to want to answer a completely different question.
I assure you I've had to call them many times after making minor changes to one component at a time. This was for XP. The rules may have changed since then, or something might not have been working as intended.
Yes, that was the point I was trying to make a while back, although nobody noticed it
It goes all the way back to when Microsoft started out and is the basis of their success. Gates' big idea was that you could sell software without having to sell the hardware as well. Before Microsoft, companies sold hardware and the software was virtually free. Apple does the same today.
This is the basic difference between Apple's and Microsoft's philosophies and both have merit.
The major reason you can't use an iPad as a laptop is that Apple would prefer it if you bought both. Microsoft, on the other hand, would like you to buy anything that runs Windows. If Microsoft become very successful with their approach Apple will react - by copying it
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The 'advantage' (for you and xxBURT0Nxx) is that you can, if you are so inclined, 'skip Leopard' (illegally) to get a super-cheap upgrade to Snow Leopard. That is, after all, what you (and Mr xxBURT0Nxx) were suggesting users could do… is it not??
Apple has the right to charge whatever they darn well like for their hardware, as does any company. If you didn't think it was reasonable value, you wouldn't have bought it in the first place, and the cost of OS X upgrades would be entirely irrelevant to you.
Mate, thanks for trying to explain my point, and for taking the time to quote from the licence too. It's been put to them a few different ways now. Either they really don't get what we're saying, or they're just pretending not to get it. Either way, I suspect we may be wasting our breath.
point taken.
I agree Apple has no reason to do it. It not as big of a problem and 2 security wise it is not as big of an issue either as no one is selling illegal copies or copies trying to get around activation and it being a security issue.
I will say I have never had that issue at all on XP on hardware changes. Hell multiple hardware changes on the same computer including replacing Mobo and graphic card along with test runs of different CPU when testing parts for a friend.
The "Aero" UI is included and can run side by side with the new UI.
And with anywhere between a year and a year and a half until release, who says they won't be by then?
Why "disconcerting" to read articles discussing Kal-El? It's going to be a great platform and, if nvidia is right, faster than a 2GHz Core 2 Duo. In theory, a notebook running Windows 8 on Kal-El should be faster than a current Core 2 Duo MacBook Air.
Whats this nonsense about Microsoft not optimizing their software? Snow Leopard uses just as much RAM at startup as Windows 7 and my CPU use in Snow Leopard has always averaged higher than Windows 7 on the same machine.
Thats not true at all. In the case of their computers, its putting profit first and customers second. In the case of iOS devices, its because they'd rather lock you into the walled garden of Apple and sell you limited devices and forced upgrades by adding incremental features that should have been there from the start. Look at the original iPad. Apple and Jobs knew the iPhone 4 was going to ship with FaceTime and 512MB of RAM. Jobs even got on stage and stated that the iPhone 4 had been in development for over a year and a half by that time, meaning that it was in development a full year or more before the iPad was announced. Theres no reason the original iPad couldn't have had 512MB of RAM and "FaceTime".
Again, Apple is the enemy of RAM because they put profit margins above all else.
I used Vista at launch. File transfer speeds were "normal". It was the way it was displayed in the dialog box that made people think they were slower.
Window refresh speed problems? Sounds like an issue with your system. I didn't have any of that.
Windows "upgrades" work as well as OS X upgrades. Meaning that users of either OS should do a fresh install and never "upgrade".
I can tell you that from experience.
Theres also the fact that PCs don't cost twice as much as they should, so people upgrade them more often than Macs.
Unless you're running PowerPC or Core Duo. Then you're out of luck.
Speed up? No speed up for me doing a fresh install of Snow Leopard compared to Leopard on the same hardware. In fact, one could argue that I had a feature removed for a year since multi-display support was hosed for the first full year of Snow Leopard's life and I had to always wake the system with the lid open for it to run on my external display and not just go back to sleep.
Like I said before, why not? A 5 year old machine (well, almost 5 year old if you want to be technically accurate) could be a Core 2 Quad with a GeForce 8800GTX. Could be a a faster Core 2 Duo system.
Only Apple stays behind the curve with technology, not other companies. Quad core processors were standard on PCs years before they were standard on Macs.
You worked for AppleCare and you don't know there was no PPC MacBook? The "consumer" notebook during the PowerPC days was "iBook".
The 'advantage' (for you and xxBURT0Nxx) is that you can, if you are so inclined, 'skip Leopard' (illegally) to get a super-cheap upgrade to Snow Leopard. That is, after all, what you (and Mr xxBURT0Nxx) were suggesting users could do… is it not??
Yes, users can, but Apple is officially claiming it can't be done, your point of the honour system would make sense if Apple wasn't outright lying. And what I meant was I can't understand why people use the lack of license key as a big advantage OVER WINDOWS, it makes little difference.
Legal discussions aside, do you still think it's ok that Apple require their new iPhone customers to pay an additional $129 for an upgrade for their 5 year old iBook while not requiring any such thing from a customer with a 10 year old Windows PC?
When did I say anything like what you're implying here? I was just pointing out why you can't compare the price of OS X to the price of Windows and that to cite the price of OS X as an advantage over Windows is stupid
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Exactly where is Apple lying? They say the upgrade OS is licensed only for installation over Leopard. This is true.
I made a mistake, I acknowledged that in a few posts up.
When I worked for AppleCare, I had to tell customers that installing the retail 10.6 from scratch wouldn't work, that the Mac Box Set was the only version that could do a clean install. I was lying.
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True - Costly
True - Gamble at this point as to whether it will take off or not.
False - Many existed before Apple's app store and Cydia existed before that too.
You are the only one who can tell if you had deceitful intent, but it's true that installing the retail update from scratch doesn't "work" - it violates the license agreement and is a breach of contract and copyright infringement. It might technically function, but "work" means more than that.
for all those chiding other companies for a failure to innovate, and with Lion likely to be pretty similar to Snow Leopard, seeing Microsoft take this big a leap has to satiate your desires