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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

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Looks interesting, I wonder how, or even if he's reconciled the Metro based Windows Recovery interfaces... Metro also has a mountain of Windows Registry entries that I wonder if it's possible to clean up after the fact and get a Registry i/o performance boost for your effort... I'll register and ask on that forum...

:ph34r:

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Just two news items that are harbingers of the train-wreck the market sector Microsoft is trying to enter is headed for: the first should be a warning shot that while it only effects the Windows RT iteration of the Metro platform -- signs have been all over news for last three quarters that there would be a slow down due to economic hardship and market saturation; the second should rattle anyone fillings, as it's one thing to report a slow-down, but another thing entirely to show losses (even if a almost half a billion is a drop in the bucket for Foxconn, and this is Foxconn -- the company with a factory the size of the State of New Jersey that produces...well just about everything with a microprocessor on it, including make-up production for just about every brand in existence; if Foxconn is hurting you can bet everyone is going to feel it as well and sooner rather then later... Even if Microsoft's Windows 8 and RT Metro design was brilliant, the company couldn't pick a worse time to and push everything to a new platform...

:blink:

This is good news for 8-skeptics, thanks!

Interesting point about market saturation. After several years of iPads and Android tablets on the market, it's conceivable that we're approaching the point where most everyone who wants one of these thingies already has one.

Microsoft -- a day late and a dollar short (thank God)

the ramp of Microsoft’s upcoming Windows RT—the version of Windows 8 that will run on ARM-based machines—could prove slower than expected.

It doesn't matter much if a failure of Win8 is blamed on the economic slowdown -- as long as it falls flat on its 2D interface and we can move past the walled-garden model that MS is trying to push on users!

--JorgeA

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Looks interesting, I wonder how, or even if he's reconciled the Metro based Windows Recovery interfaces... Metro also has a mountain of Windows Registry entries that I wonder if it's possible to clean up after the fact and get a Registry i/o performance boost for your effort... I'll register and ask on that forum...

:ph34r:

Good luck, and let us know what you find out!

--JorgeA

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It doesn't matter much if a failure of Win8 is blamed on the economic slowdown -- as long as it falls flat on its 2D interface and we can move past the walled-garden model that MS is trying to push on users!

--JorgeA

I agree, the Metro (I'm still going to call it that) interface is so abject and lobotomized that I bet even casual passive consumption Users will see it for what it is -- a virtual shopping mall that's impossible to organize in any useful way as it's intended to force you to shop/browse and see everything -- just like real shopping malls that are designed make you walk a mile back and forth through multiple levels to get to the only store you really want to shop at.

Come hell or high water, or perhaps especially come hell or high water, it doesn't seem likely Microsoft will give up ambitions of it's own 'brand' of walled-garden; they may decide to play nice with it but there's just too much money to be made (they imagine) turning every computing platform into the equivalent of an Xbox 360. If things get really ugly I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft sue Apple for purloining some of the ideas or execution in the Console's virtual store front.

But what if Microsoft were able circa Windows 9 to evolve the Metro UI into a full-fledged and high power TWM, something like we we see in Military CCC centers, with features from the Surface Table, form and function along the lines of Minority Report interfaces, all highly configurable and customizable but with consistent, familiar and easy to use default behaviors -- would that appeal to you?

They certainly have the resources to pull something like that off, make it look really impressive, and to give it elegant form that follows function and offers real utility...

:unsure:

Edited by hoak
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Just two news items that are harbingers of the train-wreck the market sector Microsoft is trying to enter is headed for: the first should be a warning shot that while it only effects the Windows RT iteration of the Metro platform -- signs have been all over news for last three quarters that there would be a slow down due to economic hardship and market saturation; the second should rattle anyone fillings, as it's one thing to report a slow-down, but another thing entirely to show losses (even if a almost half a billion is a drop in the bucket for Foxconn, and this is Foxconn -- the company with a factory the size of the State of New Jersey that produces...well just about everything with a microprocessor on it, including make-up production for just about every brand in existence; if Foxconn is hurting you can bet everyone is going to feel it as well and sooner rather then later... Even if Microsoft's Windows 8 and RT Metro design was brilliant, the company couldn't pick a worse time to and push everything to a new platform...

Clearly Microsoft's streak of getting to a market late is in no danger of ending anytime soon. :lol: Seriously, they are poised to dive headfirst in to the swimming pool just as the water is drained out. In real life when you land on your head like that you wind up paralyzed. Of course, anything can happen, even a sudden interest in Metro interfaced phones, however I just cannot imagine this happening given the current flooded state of the market and the prospects described in your links.

I think the other big problem for them is simply when you compare the interfaces. To the independent un-biased consumer, which are most attractive? ...

WkEWP.jpg2xaKd.jpgacayh.jpg

I cannot believe that they have forced me into the position of saying that Apple and Android look nicer! Freaking squares and rectangles. Circles would have been better, or stars, or random blobs, or better yet simple user choice! What is just insanely ironic is that when you go to a party and there are 20 different smartphones, the Androids will all look different ( customized ), the Apples will look similar but still be different and definitely attractive, but the WP's will be the most uniform in appearance thanks to the gigantic blocks, and least attractive overall. Welcome to Big Blue, 21st century west coast division! Appearance is everything to the fickle consumer. Gazillions of dollars and hours of research have gone into appearance and packaging so that Jane public will grab box A instead of B since the product inside may vary only a little bit. Apparently Microsoft thinks they can just disregard this fact and people will flock to WP anyway.

No, we do understand the big picture now. The thrust for Windows 8 and Metro is primarily about a future Microsoft walled-garden kiosk PoS terminal. The question is, how many companies are going to crumble along the way when they climb onboard the Metro bandwagon thinking it will help sell their phones and computers only to discover they got suckered by a hyped Redmond sales pitch to launch a lines of WP's and other devices. There is going to be blood on the floor!

EDIT: arrrghh! not x86 or ARM phones!

Microsoft Windows 8 : Vistro! ( The name we should have chosen. )

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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( Way, way, way off-topic, but your link triggered some memories ) ... About those PCjr's, they made me and quite a few others from what I learned later quite a bit of money from about 1984 to 1988 or maybe 1989. You see we learned how to modify these units and by undercutting the official IBM expansion price raked in some really good dough. Most of the work was done through the PCjr's expansion bus which was on the outside of the computer using stackable sidecars. The PCjr was the only PC I ever saw that had an external bus like this, it was weird and way oversized. The sidecars were equal to the height and depth of the system unit ( and perhaps an inch thick ) attached to the side of the PCjr ( or to the previous sidecar ) with four special long brass screws, the long male bus connector protruded on the inner side and female recessed on the outer side of each addition attached internally to the main bus, so it was equivalent to adding ISA or PCI cards. The official IBM upgrade path had you buying the sidecars in 128 KB increments so with *four* 128 KB sidecars you could officially bring it up to 640 KB ( at GREAT cost!), or ... pay us to do it better. There were other kinds of sidecars as well such as parallel port and power supply adapters and others. So it was common for geeks to have 6 or more sidecars which greatly lengthened the system unit. Here is an image from Google, just imagine 4, 5 or 6 sidecars! ...

Wow, I'd forgotten about that aspect of the PCjr. Now that you mention it, I do remember seeing some models enhanced that way. I never did decide if it was a brilliant concept or if it just made the machine look odd, with these "growths" coming off the side.

Thurrott probably has some good sources ( although I have no doubt he exaggerates a bit ) so it is not unreasonable to believe he is spouting more than wishful thinking with that infamous quote. This is why I have said that This Is War Now.

Except for the spelling, there's an excellent comment to this article (previously linked to):

Let us see how long it takes for a developer to create a real windows style desktop alternative for win8. I bet it isn't 2 months. People will NOT assimulate. We will tell the borg, this will not happen. We will not upload to microsofts cloud. We do not need APPs. Microsoft will not bleed me dry. Sorry Microsoft, you are not the borg. My programs will stay on my machine, the cloud be damned. If I cannot do it on Microsoft, I will adapt to another operating system. I WILL NOT BE ASSIMULATED.

Bring it on!

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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But what if Microsoft were able circa Windows 9 to evolve the Metro UI into a full-fledged and high power TWM, something like we we see in Military CCC centers, with features from the Surface Table, form and function along the lines of Minority Report interfaces, all highly configurable and customizable but with consistent, familiar and easy to use default behaviors -- would that appeal to you?

I never did see Minority Report, so I can't comment on that. However --

The Metro interface can sure stand a heck of a lot of beautifying. But the tiling model is inherently limited -- you can usefully have only a few tiles in a screenful, in a few predetermined configurations/positions. On the Desktop, you can set up your windows that way if you want, but also in so many other ways as the situation or your preferences demand. It's simply so much more flexible.

In the end, the tiling model can't hold a candle to a real desktop that allows for multiple overlapping windows to be present on the same screen. It would be like going back to Windows 1.0. :w00t:

--JorgeA

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In the end, the tiling model can't hold a candle to a real desktop that allows for multiple overlapping windows to be present on the same screen. It would be like going back to Windows 1.0.

Here I must respectfully disagree; a modern TWM bares absolutely no resemblance to any interface features in Windows 1.0, and almost none to what we're calling Metro in Windows 8.. For an introduction to just one (of hundreds) of TWMs that exist for Linux for example, I'd suggest you have a look at Bluetile and watch the introductory video which only gives a cursory look at the features of one very simplistic TWM.

More modern and sophisticated TWM's incorporate more modern and sophisticated features like: infinite tiled desktops that can be scrolled (in any direction), zoomed and 'snapped'; various kinds of icon driven program launcher paradigms (most TWM's incorporate or support several, like your 'Desktop' as a window that can be tiled, full screen, or zoomed out into a toolbar), interface control inheritance, PiP or WiW and windows as objects support.

As there are nearly as many TWM's as there are popular Linux distributions (scroll down in the Wikipedia article to see only a few that have their own articles) deciding you don't like the idea, would be rather like deciding you thought Linux was a horrible OS after trying one distribution that didn't properly support your hardware because 'Linux didn't support your hardware'.

Tuomo Valkonen is considered to be one of the most thoughtful early proponents of TWM design and development, but sadly his 'manifesto' on TWM design that discusses some key concepts and feature is no longer online, but you can still see a brief recitation he wrote about his over a decade old TWM called 'Ion' here...

While many early TWM's eschew the use of a mouse, modern TWM's make better use of it then the more familiar CWM (cascading window manager) popularized by Windows, with mouse features that are much more intuitive, fast and natural when used with prefab configurations you can customize your mouse interactions to do amazing things from 'snapping' a group of your favorite applications into a preconfigured tiled layout inside yet another window/tile, to fast navigation with a mouse wheel snapping different menu bars, or switching off real estate consuming 'chrome' with a click.. The benefits of using a TWM are hard to ignore:

· can be designed to less resource intensive then cascading windows systems

· make drag & drop or cut & paste operations across applications much easer

· automates window management

· vastly less redundant mouse movement

· less eye strain

· allow for shared 'inherited' interface widgets further simplifying the interface

What's more virtually every commercial production application; from all the Adobe products, Autodesk's applications (the entire CAD and Architecture industry for that matter), Graphic Arts, Pre-Press, Audio Production, Animation, Non-Destructive Editing, Chip Design, Office Suites -- and so many more implement TWM design in their application's root interface anticipating your full screen use of the application and all its tools.

Summarily a TWM is about getting the window manager to do the window management not the User -- and while I think everyone is entitled to prefer a CWM, for many I rather think it's like saying they prefer fish to poultry if when they've never tasted poultry...

Sorry, got a little carried away there...

:)

Edited by hoak
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I never did see Minority Report, so I can't comment on that.

I thought Minority Report was pretty well done and the computer scenes will probably stand up longer than many other movies.

Personally I've always had a soft spot for the Start Trek TNG interface called LCARS as they somehow nailed down the LCD look long before anyone actually had one ( it was 1987! ). Windows was still in its first version and Windows 2.0 came out a short while later.

c15dETR.pngIpddf6U.jpg

Windows 2.0 ( 1987 ) vs. ST:TNG LCARS ( 1987 )

( originals: 1, 2 )

The many home-made LCARS Windows themes are pretty good too and there are a surprising amount of LCARS GUI applications around. Not everybody likes it to be sure but one thing is for certain, they were way more consistent throughout the show than Microsoft has been with Windows 8. :lol:

More LCARS from ST:TNG ...

zFXVFK4.jpg

KBS8YmU.jpg

g0pRP3r.jpg

mdXJdiB.jpg

( originals: 1, 2, 3, 4 )

EDIT: updated image URLS, and again

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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I cannot believe that they have forced me into the position of saying that Apple and Android look nicer! Freaking squares and rectangles. Circles would have been better, or stars, or random blobs, or better yet simple user choice! What is just insanely ironic is that when you go to a party and there are 20 different smartphones, the Androids will all look different ( customized ), the Apples will look similar but still be different and definitely attractive, but the WP's will be the most uniform in appearance thanks to the gigantic blocks, and least attractive overall. Welcome to Big Blue, 21st century west coast division! Appearance is everything to the fickle consumer. Gazillions of dollars and hours of research have gone into appearance and packaging so that Jane public will grab box A instead of B since the product inside may vary only a little bit. Apparently Microsoft thinks they can just disregard this fact and people will flock to WP anyway.

This profoundly saddens me. :(

It is another sign that I am really getting old :ph34r:

The thought that a telephone must make phone calls, and that a smartphone should do (besides other things) smarter phone calls ;) and that more generally the final goal is to make and receive phone calls (and OK, check quickly your e-mail or search a word or info you are missing on an online dictionary or Wikipedia) is so radicated that I never thought about the use of them as a social facilitator at parties :w00t: .

But I guess you are right.... :unsure:

... then, the human race is doomed :}

Should anyone need them, I do make courses for people aspiring to become qualified phone sanitizers, Basic, Intermediate and Advanced.... :angel

jaclaz

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yet the now un-named Metro/NCI already dubbed as 'Modern'.

why are heck they named it as 'modern'?

I mean, Microsoft design team already said that this Metro/NCI were inspired by signs commonly found at public transport systems,

and usages of such signs were already exist since... well... more than a centuries ago?

its definetely already existed way before the IBM PC began, and now they want to call it as 'Modern' ?

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This profoundly saddens me. :(

It is another sign that I am really getting old :ph34r:

I know we're both getting old brother. :( So we gotta find some way to stop aging because these young'ins are sure messin' things up!

To be sure, I meant the average, fickle, commodity consuming public which is what, 90% of the phone market? ( I would say the number is far less for desktops and laptops but gradually increases inversely proportional to screen size ). As the cost and features of plans get more similar and other variables like signal coverage become ubiquitous ( well I don't know about your town but around these parts there are few dead zones left ) and cost of the phone ( subsidized ), and functions like an app store or notifications or pinching and everything else converges, all that's left for the average consumer to decide about is the final visual appearance. When they see them side by side I very much anticipate most of them to be unimpressed with the WP immediately, but perhaps they'll ask the salesman: 'can I change this to look like that?' ( pointing at the snazzy wallpaper on an Android or raindrops on an iPhone ) and they'll balk when he stutters: 'ummm, well, we *can* change that little bit of wallpaper you see behind those giant rectangles, but ...'.

If I were a Microsoft board member I would be worried now. It seems as if they set their grand plan in motion without ever sitting down and comparing the final product visual appeal with the other two players like in those photos above. How could that happen! Well, somehow they did it with the Metro name thing so I guess it is no surprise. The thing I mentioned about a gathering of phones was triggered by an actual event I was at recently. There were at least 100 people and probably 75 phones ( no WP's that I noticed ). At times when most were sitting at tables you could see all the phones in operation and as I walked around I was imagining if 1/3 had been WP's that *they* would have been the most uniform and conservative and boring since almost everyone else's was already customized with fancy wallpaper or baby or wedding pictures. Many times people were checking out each others phones, usually drawn by the main picture, something unlikely for WP's I think. And few if any of them were computer geeks, trust me, as I got roped into a pile of stupid jobs ("I got this problem on my home computer, it says the FBI wants me to ..."). :realmad:

This reminds me of a seldom mentioned but one of the worst features of Metro, and that is the paradigm of the start screen announcing the presence every software you own and use right within easy eavesdropping ( eyesdropping ? :wacko: ) range of view so that a 'spy' doesn't even have to squint to know your business. On a phone I imagine this to be more difficult than larger computers but they do get to see your inbox email count or facebook and twitter notifications and other things at a glance. However on laptops and desktops this is terrible. People will begin to really miss the 'soft security' provided by subfolders and sub-flyouts in the Start Menu where only you know how to find your 'stuff', and can do it so quickly and easily that someone standing right next to you still won't be able to figure out what you did. The Microsoft fanboys and the actual softies that discuss this in the forums always describe this as a benefit: 'no more digging for programs, they're all right there on the start screen', but as usual they have it bass ackwards. On a phone ( like using an ATM ) you will soon develop a spy-blocking hand-shielding skillset, but on larger screens this will be a completely new problem leaving us wishing for the older, inferior LCD's with narrow viewing angles that forced you to have your head placed squarely in front of it.

Anyway back to what I was saying, people like us are obviously far more discerning, no doubt about it, and would go for substance over style. But once again, WP, or more specifically Windows offers nothing in this form factor. I'll probably wind up with a Windows 8 tablet or Surface eventually, and at that size it just might work out okay, but I guarantee that if it's at all possible I will have a real keyboard and mouse hooked up eventually ( just for some twisted satisfaction because I can :w00t: ) after I get tired of cleaning the screen and making mistakes on the toy keyboard. I just don't see it getting past a few years ( the Surface ), like a fad. At the phone form factor I *can* see it surviving, and actually do hope it does because that would be great competition for the other two. But Microsoft will have to do better than Metro, honestly. I'm talking about major customization putting some real zing into it, the opposite that they seem to have as a plan. If they are so intent on branding lock-in I dare them to get the manufacturers to make the ringtone non-customizeable permanently set to whatever jingle their brilliant marketeers decide.. Of course they won't because they know full well there is a limit where the people will kiss them goodbye. However they certainly have advanced the limitations this time more than ever before.

Here is where I once again offer to help Microsoft for free, waiving copyright and compensation! The Windows Phone should jump out in a visual comparison. If I was designing it, besides the obvious like ringtone, wallpaper and screensaver selection, every single parameter for the 'tiles' would be tweakable: size, shape, image, icon, spacing, color, textures, gradients, brightness, contrast, etc. Within the actual tiles themselves all parameters would be adjustable: layout, padding, margin, font, color, justification, etc. I would allow selection of scroll direction, speed, and introduce user selectable visual effects commonly found in every DV editing suite and transition effects found in every slideshow creator. *That* would have been groundbreaking for the current phone market and all it really involves are the traditional Windows features plus simple HTML and CSS styling. In other words, Microsoft could have accomplished this without even breaking a sweat.

EDIT: had to snip your quote Jaclaz, we hit the smiley limit this time.

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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More modern and sophisticated TWM's incorporate more modern and sophisticated features like: infinite tiled desktops that can be scrolled (in any direction), zoomed and 'snapped'; various kinds of icon driven program launcher paradigms (most TWM's incorporate or support several, like your 'Desktop' as a window that can be tiled, full screen, or zoomed out into a toolbar), interface control inheritance, PiP or WiW and windows as objects support.

Thanks for the additional links. Since you brought up a food analogy, let me extend it a little. Let's just say that, in my earlier post, I had eyed the offerings at the self-serve restaurant, and didn't find anything particularly appetizing. :)

(Ending the analogy) Now I've watched the video, read the manifesto excerpt and your exposition, and clicked on the images in the Wikipedia article to take a closer look. I still don't find anything compelling about the tiling model. I don't mind managing my own windows -- I get to arrange them as I prefer.

All that said, can you link me to demonstrations some of the more sophisticated TWMs in action? Thanks!

--JorgeA

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I think the other big problem for them is simply when you compare the interfaces. To the independent un-biased consumer, which are most attractive? ...

WkEWP.jpg2xaKd.jpgacayh.jpg

I cannot believe that they have forced me into the position of saying that Apple and Android look nicer! Freaking squares and rectangles. Circles would have been better, or stars, or random blobs, or better yet simple user choice! What is just insanely ironic is that when you go to a party and there are 20 different smartphones, the Androids will all look different ( customized ), the Apples will look similar but still be different and definitely attractive, but the WP's will be the most uniform in appearance thanks to the gigantic blocks, and least attractive overall. Welcome to Big Blue, 21st century west coast division! Appearance is everything to the fickle consumer. Gazillions of dollars and hours of research have gone into appearance and packaging so that Jane public will grab box A instead of B since the product inside may vary only a little bit. Apparently Microsoft thinks they can just disregard this fact and people will flock to WP anyway.

I have thought much the same thing. Put these side by side, and which one looks the most sophisticated? Or -- more to the point -- which one looks the least sophisticated?

We can rant and rave all we want about judging a book by its cover and the clothes don't make the man, but in the end it's a matter of economics. Time is our most precious, limited resource, and we don't have the time to devote to investigating the details of everything that we might possibly choose out there. Life is too short. So instead -- and depending on the perceived importance of the choice we're contemplating -- we may use the heuristic method of evaluating the amount of effort that's put into the substance, by assessing the amount of effort that's put into the appearance. From our perspective as the potential buyer, if the maker doesn't care enough to make the product look good, it's reasonable to wonder whether he cares enough to make it a good product. That puts the cruder-looking product at a disadvantage, even if it actually works better.

Then again, maybe MS is deathly afraid of Apple's lawyer corps and doesn't want to get accused of "stealing" their look.

--JorgeA

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Two brand new WP8 announcements ...

Nokia unveils the Lumia 820 ( NeoWin 2012-08-05 )

Nokia unveils the Lumia 920 ( NeoWin 2012-08-05 )

UPDATE: I added their photos to the previous smartphone comparison photos from upthread. The new WP8 photos were copied from the above two links, pasted into the originals very carefully ( I promise ) to make it as fair as possible. Here they all are ...

ZLZJm.jpg

8UqLu.jpg

acayh.jpg

NOTE: I couldn't figure out a nice way to make the 3rd photo work, so I left it alone.

Just asking, what does everybody think their chances are in this market? Is this gonna do it? Apple announcements are in the queue and I bet Samsung is going to revamp their 'droids as well.

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