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Jonathan Amend

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 13, 2003
90
0
Montreal, Canada
Check out http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=14694&category=main to get an idea of what Longhorn will look like (no, this doesn't have the new Aero stuff yet, although Microsoft is supposed to show that off at the PDC). I think it's pretty damned sexy, although I must admit it looks a wee bit like brushed metal. I especially like how the menu bar and address bar were integrated into the caption bar in the new Internet Explorer.
 
Originally posted by Jonathan Amend
Well I like it very much... and sorry for spelling the thread name wrong (Longhorn). There doesn't seem to be a way to fix that.

Well it's subjective, I guess.
Though they have greatly improved the look, it's still too much "in your face" for my liking. I can just imagine all those pop-up "help" messages à la office companion. Damn they annoy me :mad:


[edit] missed a few words ;) [/edit]
 
I thought they were going to drop the whole Playmobile® color scheme. Why does it still look like it belongs on Saturday morning cartoon shows? :confused:

P-Worm
 
windows seems to be getting worse. the interface just seems too complicated. things look more organized in KDE.

longhorn is something i'll never use. i'll be all mac/linux by the time it rolls around.
 
Microsoft, king of wasted pixels. Does every window really need 200 pixles wasted. And whats with that lame sidebar still? Nothing like a 400 pixel wide sidebar for wow, of all things an analog clock...because I guess a digital one that takes up 1/20 of the space isn't good enough.

Why do all the windows have a giant blue back button or whatever? And what exactly does a star represent on the right side?

How are you supposed to get any work done with an OS like that? It's laughable to see all the windoze drones on that site get so excited, i guess they never actually have to do anything important with their computer other than download and install warezed versions of Photoshop so they can make "cool" lense flare graphics.
 
Well that is ugly as hell, but in all fairness, the final product will probably barely resemble that. XP didn't get it's final (also ugly) look until late in the beta cycle, and Longhorn probably won't see daylight until 2006.
 
I think I am going to throw this on a slave drive and see how well it works, and I am assuming not very well.

iJon
 
I have to admit that I actually think it's pretty catchy (for Windows). It's not for me, but I can see that many people will love it.

Dan
 
Looks awfully metallic. Not that it's a bad thing. It's a nice alternative to the garish colors in XP.

I like how much more muted the default grass wallpaper is. I guess It's supposed to be prarie grass (since I'm in Kansas I should know) but it looks like the picture in XP except the lawn is old and long,

...and brown and dead.

The new IE: YUCK! Simplified looking interface, buttons too big. If that's how it looks in the final release I am going to make Mozilla Firebird my default browser for Windows, despite the features I miss from IE.
 
they had to swipe the brushed metal, didn't they. aqua wasn't good enough for them. and i thought xp was a real screen space hog... damn. what the hell is that sidebar for? there's a sidebar in each window already, plus a taskbar to cram things in. why is this needed? probably the same reason only a third of a window displays what's in a given directory. why is there a picture in the sidebar? just sitting there? it's not enough to have something pretty on your desktop, there has to be a second picture in a space where nothing can be moved over it? are they ever going to implement a real graphics subsystem?? this is lame when compared to quartz. ms, the clowns of interface design. even after forgiving that it's an alpha, i'd bet it works just as bad as it looks.

worst. os. ever.

end of rant.
 
Pretty nasty looking. You'd think they'd have learned from Xp that trying to be stylish a 'la Apple is not Microsoft's strongsuit. Come to think of it, I don't think microsoft has a strongsuit...
 
Sorry dude, but it doesn't look good. It looks terrible. Looks like my cheapy PC will be keeping 2000 on it for a little while longer. You can skin it all you want, ugly is ugly. My work PC is skinned to look more 2000, but it still bugs me.

If M$ would make a good OS, believe me, I'd use it.

BTW, I was at Night of the Panther in Bellevue, WA last night. I talked to a couple of guys who work at M$... they were buying Macs. Talking about walking around Redmond wearing their Apple shirts. Complaining about how much Windows sucks. :D

Yeah, I thought it was funny too.

One of the guys from Apple HQ was there, talking about the work they had done on 10.3 and showing us all some cool tricks. 10.2 was ok, but OMG 10.3 looks so amazing. Expose was reason enough, but THAT is how you do an OS.
 
Nice find on the pictures, and I do appreciate them.

HOWEVER.

It amazes me how MS can package the same microkernel 12 different ways with their never-ending versions of windows. By the way, what IS the REAL difference between xp home and xp pro?

Longhorn doesnt look any different from XP with the exception of visual enhacements. I'm guessing usability still sucks.

Sure, there may be better things under the hood, but I view windows and pc's as a 83 datsun with 850 horsepower. Sure it's fast, but driving it just sucks. All this great hardware but the OS, well... you know.
 
If we ignore the aesthetics and actually look at the functional aspect of this design then it's pretty bad. On every other version of Windows the menu bar appears directly below the title bar. Take a look a the explorer screenshot. The menu bar is 200px below the title bar. What is all that rubbish between? Why change the habits of a lifetime? I think that this look will probably change a lot before release anyway.
 
Hi. I signed up just to leave a comment.

To everyone slamming that UI,
It's a placeholder. It's not the UI they are going to use. It's just dressed up to not look like xp. It might be ugly, but it's a little early (2006 release date) to start slamming them like a few of your are. (mangoduck)
I think the sidebar is just as stupid as the next guy. But who knows.
 
It's like Windows XP cross bred its self and had a deformed child that decided to repeatedly dunk it's head in low quality metallic paint.

One word: sucks...
 
It certainly looks ugly to me right now, but then again in all fairness it is a couple of years away from final release and I'm sure there are some good things in it. Lets hope IE's look changes from this one as it is worryingly going the route of MSN Explorer. But it does look like they are trying to go the brushed metal style way of Apple, the only problem being that Apple designers have style, Microsoft's don't.
 
MS is making buisness for themselves.
REASONING:

1) MS makes mice
2) MS makes windows
3) Browse web and need to scroll 100 times more
4) Scroll wheel needs/wants replacing earlier
5) Go buy a new MS mouse with scroll wheel
6) GoTo item 3
 
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