Is it me or am I getting old... Windows 8
Hi Folks,
Now I understand that Microsoft Windows is not everyone's cup of tea and that others are Apple Mac, Linux fans etc.
However, I have been using Windows since version 3.0 and whilst not every release has been great it has been an incremental journey. Currently I am using Windows 7 64 bit and for me it works well, is quick, stable and I like the UI.
Which brings me to my question. I do not get the new Metro interface on Windows 8. It may look good on a Phone or Pad (not tried it) but as a desktop UI is looks awful IMHO. Microsoft has stripped all the finesse and cute graphics from the UI. It is like going back to 80x25 in DOS - I bet the new version of Word will look like WordPerfect 5.0 on DOS! :-)
I bought my wife a Google Nexus 7 for her birthday and I have to say that Android works well. They still have cute 3D UI elements (like Apple) so why on earth has Microsoft ditched this.
Am I getting old and are Microsoft is right...
Paddy
Now I understand that Microsoft Windows is not everyone's cup of tea and that others are Apple Mac, Linux fans etc.
However, I have been using Windows since version 3.0 and whilst not every release has been great it has been an incremental journey. Currently I am using Windows 7 64 bit and for me it works well, is quick, stable and I like the UI.
Which brings me to my question. I do not get the new Metro interface on Windows 8. It may look good on a Phone or Pad (not tried it) but as a desktop UI is looks awful IMHO. Microsoft has stripped all the finesse and cute graphics from the UI. It is like going back to 80x25 in DOS - I bet the new version of Word will look like WordPerfect 5.0 on DOS! :-)
I bought my wife a Google Nexus 7 for her birthday and I have to say that Android works well. They still have cute 3D UI elements (like Apple) so why on earth has Microsoft ditched this.
Am I getting old and are Microsoft is right...
Paddy
Post edited by Paddy Coleman on
Comments
Hi Beanz,
From what I have read there is desktop mode but no Start menu. Also, the applications are mix of "Classic" and "Metro" so you never know what you are going get. Also, Metro apps run full screen so Windows no longer has er... Windows! :-x
It would seem to be very similar to the situation we had back in DOS/Windows 3.0 days where you ran a mixture of character DOS apps and some Windows apps. It was not attractive then and it certainly is not attractive in 2013!
Paddy
Paddy
The non metro interface is frankly hideous too. It's almost like they've made it as ugly as possible to put people off it.
Things like window icons, title text and ui controls all aligned to different things etc. Who on earth looked at that and said "ok, that looks good, lets ship it like that"
Eww. How will that help? :)
Sad to hear... personally I believe they need to get 8.1 out there ASAP.
Paddy
LOL - well hopefully Apple will stick with their rich UI. Alternatively, I will stay on Windows 7 until Microsoft admit the error of their ways! No chance. :lol:
Paddy
Next version will presumably be called Windows 9.
I very much doubt they would use a point number. The "8" is just a name, like 7 was, having little to do with the version number which is 6.1 for Windows 7, and 6.2 for Windows 8 :-)
One menu bar on top of the primary display, shared between all applications is a rich UI? Pfft!
Hi Guesser,
I don't care what they call it. This new Metro thing just looks like a retrograde step to me. Having said that, I totally accept that I come from a different generation where 3D UIs were new and exciting. May be the youngsters of today prefer a nice flat text only environment?
Paddy
Perhaps Microsoft were hoping that it'd get people to go out and buy Windows phones and tablets to benefit from their new found experience with Metro, but it's copped such a backlash that I doubt they're going to do that either. I'd guess that they've figured out that the worst thing that could happen is that it'll be another Vista and people will stick with 7 like they did with XP, while they wait for a less borked version to come out.
Hi Matt,
Reading some more about Metro and how it came about. You got to love these tech analysts who apparently praised Metro before it was released - how it was new, fresh, clean, fast, user friendly. Shame the actual users are finding it rather unfriendly.
This could be serious for Microsoft if they are not careful. As I said, I have been a Windows user since version 3.0 - even wrote a book about it. That must be about 20 years and in all that time I have never considered moving to another OS - not UNIX, Linux, iOS, OS X, OS/2 you name it. For the first time I feel that I cannot move forward with Microsoft and so would consider an alternative.
If they run the risk of losing die hard users like me then I would be worried if I was them.
Paddy
I think it was new, fresh, clean, fast when it first appeared. It was an interesting new way of doing the UI for a phone or tablet. However, it really falls down when it is shoehorned into the desktop. The mish-mash of UI styles is really jarring. The worst is when some control panel starts off Explorer style then jumps to Metro for some option or other.
Cheers Paddy,
You can say all that, but we really have been here before several times. The early versions of Windows NT, Windows ME and Vista were equally massive missteps that the market by and large decided to skip a generation over.
And for all its ills, I don't really think Windows 8 is worse than any of those. With Windows 7 having pretty much hit the mark, and offering extended support to 2020, they've got plenty of time to get back on track with the next version.
Seeing as the main problem with 8 is that they're trying to flog the dead horse that is Metro with it, there's not really a lot of fixing to do, other than just getting their priorities straight.
On the Start Menu, I think Microsoft hugely missed the point. They said that usage stats said a lot of people just didn't use it, so therefore that means we should drop it. However the huge blunder here (and it was hugely faulty thinking to do this) is that it's the "expert users" who don't use it - those who've had their computer a while and learned the shortcuts to their apps. (One of Shneiderman's 8 Golden Rules on user interface design is to "enable frequent users shortcuts"). What the Start Menu did provide was discoverability - you have a new computer or new application, and the start menu nicely enumerates ALL of your options making them easy to discover. Then later you learn the shortcuts to them.
Basically Microsoft took the discoverability away from the user interface, preventing users from even learning what's on their computer in an easy manner. This is why the desktop-mode part of Windows 8 is so flawed.
Or even high screen resolutions, which ironically apple have always been pushing higher and higher.
Again, it works fine if you have one fullscreen app but if you do multiple things at a time it means twice as much mousing about if you have to first go all the way to the bottom right of the screen to click a window so it has focus, then go all the way back to the top left to click a menu, etc.
Sure you could use keyboard shortcuts to change focus, but in that case you may as well use the keyboard for the menu actions too which renders the "you can crash the mouse into the corner of the screen" argument irrelevant :p
http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/
And it's FREE!
I know there are 3rd party options but this should not be necessary IMHO.
Paddy
In fairness my modified AmigaOS 3.1 install is more intuitive than metro.
Well, actually no, it's not a problem with higher resolution screens. The thing is Mac OSX isn't like Windows of Vista and older (which had no clue about your screen's DPI, meaning everything goes really tiny if you had a high res display), Mac OSX pretty much since it was new has been aware of your DPI. My screen is 2560x1440 which is as high resolution as you get on a desktop on a single screen, and the menu bar is no further away mouse-wise than the menu bar on my ancient PowerBook which has a 1024x768 display.
The Windows GUI has always been designed to be mouse-driven, yet despite this, Microsoft moved the start menu from the desktop, made it a giant full-screen size which was accessed from the desktop by moving the mouse into the corner of the desktop via the 'charms' bar. RSI-tastic!
They also decided to party like it's 1992, removing all the lovely GUI effects - stuff like transparent windows - and use a style more basic than Windows 3.1 - probably to save battery power on tablets.
There is plenty more I could moan about, but ina nutshell Win 8 is a confusing Jekyll and Hyde OS, trying to fit into a desktop world and tablet world at the same time, and being good at neither.
There's a reason why Apple keep iOS and OSX seperate, and Microsoft have failed to realize it's because tablet touch interfaces don't work well on 24 inch monitors with a mouse.
If you just make the text and all the windows bigger then there's little point having a high resolution display... :p
Most companies are a gen or two behind the newest operating system on the market, as it's generally bug-ridden.. I remember when Vista was new, back in 2007.. A colleague of mine who started just after me had come from a 6 month rolling contract with Microsoft on their support staff.. She said it was a joke, as they were providing support for Vista and the management had decreed that everyone's PC had to be running Vista also, as it was their flagship product.
She said that while they were trying to provide support to customers having issues with the OS, their own PCs were crashing every 5 minutes, making them feel and look very silly. Meanwhile, people were still using XP, which was very stable by then and continues to be so.
Best bet for a desktop UI for general layperson usage now (i.e. for someone who wants to surf the web, use iTunes to manage their music, edit the odd document or spreadsheet, is probably either Debian (which I've set up on a couple of laptops for non-tech people now as a Windows replacement, and they're perfectly happy) or, if you have the money to burn, a Mac.
Only downside of Debian is the reduced printer support compared with Windows, but as inkjet printers are pretty much disposable items it's not such a big deal to buy one that works with Linux. Also, the announcement that China is going to develop atop Ubuntu as it's national standard OS is great news for the future of hardware support (as that is where most devices are manufactured).
Only reason to stick with Win8 is if you want to play the latest Windows games - the stuff that doesn't work properly with WINE, etc.