Watch the video again. It looks more like a tablet with the Windows Shell running inside it, not the Windows Shell with a tablet skin on top.
The immerse UI is apparently a separate shell, so I'm not sure how they actually do it.
Well... yes and no. Windows 8 running on an ARM SoC won't have any back wards compatibility with applications written for older versions of Windows. I saw Microsoft state somewhere there won't be a compatibility layer.
I think this is only the first of a long line of Windows 8 reveals. There is a lot of storage overhead in supporting legacy Windows, so I'm not sure how well that will fit the cheap "tablet as a consumption device" market.
I'm incredibly impressed from what they showed in the video. Microsoft appear to have created a tablet UI that it a lot more multitasking and "content creation" friendly. However I'm fully aware that it was nothing but a staged demo, so at this time I think it would be pretty naive and/or arrogant to make a call either way about this.
The big questions I have is can they make Windows 8 tablet:
Perform well on a relatively slow processor
Have respectable battery life
Fit the storage requirements of a relatively cheap tablet
I still wouldn't be surprised if they revealed multiple versions. The "full" version (as shown), and a ARM-only based "consumption" version with no backward compatibility where Microsoft dictate the hardware (resembling the WPx model more than Windows).
I like it, but it has some flaws. Having another UI paradigm to learn on top of the usual one may be a little too much for some. You can switch between applications by swiping but you can also put them on the taskbar, which is not always on... It's a good idea to try to put mobile and desktop together, but it still needs a lot of work.
I see here 2 things I would love in OS X and/or iOS :
- Tiles, no need to open an app to know basic information
Not to pick on anyone because there are a lot of comments here about how "nice" the thing looks, but I have to disagree.
The first thing I noticed was that the "Metro" UI is actually broken on this new effort.
On the Windows Phone, the tiles are all the same colour and you can pick your colour. This is because the incredible busy-ness of the tiles with all the updates, animations and blinking colours needs to be toned down by the bland-ness and clarity of single colour tiles on a deep black background. Makes sense.
This UI on the other hand, seems to allow the user to give each tile any colour the user wants on an individual basis. It also seems like they are thinking there might even be wallpaper behind this mess. Yikes!
How is a giant screen with even *bigger* tiles, with even *more* junk on them, all *different* colours and all arrangeable by the user anyway they want, going to end up as anything but an annoying, confusing swirl of crap? Sure it looks good on the demo, but how is the average users desktop going to look?
The first clue that these innovative designers don't really know what they are doing, is that dog's breakfast "inspiration wall" which is full of the most irrelevant, uninspiring junk I've seen in a long time. It's just a bunch of unrelated images grouped on the wall by colour. It's too stupid for words. It's most likely carefully staged screencraft for the video.
The only really new ideas I saw there were the idea of app icons being huge and live, and the way you can have multiple full-screen apps on screen at once by squashing them side by side. Everything else I have already seen on other products. But it's still good to see Microsoft trying to shake things up.
I agree. Still, those 2 things look cool and useful.
So a windows UI which looks nothing like Android or iOS is a copy of Apple? Does not compute. It is a copy of Windows Phone 7 which was a copy of Zune Software which was a copy of Microsoft Media Center.
I'm impressed with the fact that it looks pretty, but that's about it.
It's interesting that this fellow is a music major. Clearly he has developed some design skills and has many years of experience with MS so he is more than that, but it's interesting that MS has a few artists working there now.
A few points
The UI looks pretty opaque to me. I see no breadcrumbs or other hints, nor do I see a consistency that makes it navigable and memorable. Creating a mental map is vital, but it escapes me with this UI (of course seeing it is very different than actually using it.)
I'm thinking that in actual use this thing would be endlessly cluttered.
Clearly all of the content is canned, which explains the "fast, responsive interface." I doubt this would be at all smooth if it is building on the fly with dynamic information.
There's too much "magic" stuff. By that I mean interface features that appear from nowhere and without hints as to their presence. This is a sign that the whole thing is canned, opaque, and unlikely to work in practice.
I'm surprised that MS doesn't seem to realize that touch and pointer interfaces are very different animals and that they are not likely to coexist very amicably. I realize Apple is looking at this too, but I think they are taking a more careful look at how/if they can fit together.
I will say that it does seem like a bit of a different and more thoughtful approach for MS, but then it also looks much more like following (years behind) and much less like leading, innovating, or "schooling."
To me this is exactly what I want a tablet interface to look like. I like the iPad but whenever I see it I just think the home screen looks wrong. The space between app icons makes it seem like a streached iPhone (which it is) and generally a bit of a let down when you consider how amazing their other products we're on release.
Building in HTML5 also makes a nice slap back at Google and its Chrome OS.
Seriously you think 9 screens is nice! That's 8 swipes and a press just to get an app. 4 would be my absolute limit.
I imagine they will have a scrolling list with the jump list functionality to skip down to a letter, like WP7. A lot of people don't like this but to me it seems the best way to fill your device up with apps you hardly ever use without them getting in the way.
So long vertical lists nestled under huge tiles. That doesn't seem more convenient to me when you only have six tiles( the number of icons just in the iPad dock).
So long vertical lists nestled under huge tiles. That doesn't seem more convenient to me when you only have six tiles( the number of icons just in the iPad dock).
No huge tiles, just small app tile and it's title. WP7 currently does it this way with a normal list, which does cause a lot of scrolling. The Mango update has the list changed to the jump list that's used for contacts, artists, albums etc. Follow this link for a demo of how it lets you jump to a point in the list.
Not to pick on anyone because there are a lot of comments here about how "nice" the thing looks, but I have to disagree.
The first thing I noticed was that the "Metro" UI is actually broken on this new effort.
On the Windows Phone, the tiles are all the same colour and you can pick your colour. This is because the incredible busy-ness of the tiles with all the updates, animations and blinking colours needs to be toned down by the bland-ness and clarity of single colour tiles on a deep black background. Makes sense.
This UI on the other hand, seems to allow the user to give each tile any colour the user wants on an individual basis. It also seems like they are thinking there might even be wallpaper behind this mess. Yikes!
How is a giant screen with even *bigger* tiles, with even *more* junk on them, all *different* colours and all arrangeable by the user anyway they want, going to end up as anything but an annoying, confusing swirl of crap? Sure it looks good on the demo, but how is the average users desktop going to look?
The first clue that these innovative designers don't really know what they are doing, is that dog's breakfast "inspiration wall" which is full of the most irrelevant, uninspiring junk I've seen in a long time. It's just a bunch of unrelated images grouped on the wall by colour. It's too stupid for words. It's most likely carefully staged screencraft for the video.
On WP7 the colour of the tiles is dependant on the app. They can either be completely custom or follow the theme of the phone. They can also be updated by the app with an image as part of the live tile stuff. e.g. The weather app on my phone changes between different representation of the weather and shows the temperature so you don't have to open it.
My main complaint with WP7 is that you can't customise the tile colours individually. It's all down to personal opinion but if you can change it then you can make them so their not annoying.
... I feel like I'm blaspheming to say this ... but the thumb keyboard is pretty genius. In the video, the guy talked about how the standard on-screen keyboard takes up too much space. Decent point. A better justification for a "thumb" keyboard is, as you suggested, ergonomics: it works better with the way you hold your tablet. With the current on-screen keyboard design (which is what the iPad has), the most viable way to use it is to have the tablet in your lap or on a desk or other flat surface. If you're sitting on a train or a bus, you can't easily secure your tablet (well, there's always a couple inverted loops of duct tape, but then there's that gummy, sticky mess afterward, and what a pain that is!!) while you're typing. The bus hits a big bump, or brakes suddenly, and your tablet goes flying. With the "thumb" keyboard, you necessarily have to grip the device securely by the lower corners in order to thumb-type. And muscle memory will make thumb-typing very easy to do after not too long. ...
I tend to disagree with this.
The separated thumb keyboard they show is hardly new. It's been done on Android and I remember seeing it on tablet PC's of one type or another over the years. A bigger problem for me is that Microsoft has a long history of pushing "ergonomic" (split, humped, sideways) keyboards and they never catch on with anything but a tiny minority of users. For a touch typist, to separate the keyboard into two pieces means you have to look at your hands when you type and your speed is instantly reduced to a snail's pace.
I do a lot of typing on the iPad and luckily for me, my hands are big enough to use it in portrait mode, because I agree with you about the landscape typing being a big problem, especially while travelling. I use the regular keyboard, but in portrait orientation and I thumb type while standing up on the train or bus or walking down the street. I think this is the winning position, but I don't agree that splitting the keyboard in half is the way to go.
What I'd like to see .... (and I know it's unlikely because Apple has a long standing aversion to admitting that people aren't all the same shape and size and don't all live in California), ... is simply a couple of different sizes of iPads and iPhones. If the iPad were just a touch smaller for instance, (not 7" but more like 8.6" as opposed to 10.1"), it would be a breeze to thumb-type on and yet the screen would hardly be any smaller than the current model.
It's also pretty obvious that the larger screen Android phones we've seen recently, are popular in the USA because, well frankly ... there are a lot of larger type people in the USA that like the extra room for their fingers.
I don't understand why Apple continues to cling to this idea that there is one perfect size for devices when people range rather wildly in size, and one person's hand can be literally twice the size of the person next to them.
My point was that times have changed and most users no longer care to do file system management for themselves nor do they particularly want Apps to be presented with a raw filesystem view.
OK, point made. However, I can see how Apple is proceeding by reading about LLVM, Clang, Xcode4, etc. Yes, iOS hides the file system.
What I am struggling to understand is how the legacy Windows code can be ported to ARM referenced SoCs. It is not the porting as a possibility, but rather the processing power of SoCs supporting the ported legacy code. That, to me, is a very ambitious goal. MS is going to have to come up with the compiler optimizations, and also provide a viable developers platform.
I am saying that Apple is less ambitious because iOS is a severely stripped down Mac OS as I understand it. Even though Lion will make a surface convergence from a users viewpoint, I do not see iOS and Mac OS merging in the near future. Maybe Mac OS will fade out over time.
According to MS, "we have much more to reveal at our developer event, BUILD (Sept. 13 - 16 in Anaheim, Calif.)" At that point, how MS intends to accomplish its goal should be clarified. Later will come the nitty-gritty product reviews.
Actually, this probably will end up benefiting Mac and iPad users as well, as HTML5 is cross-platform. But we know the real reason why web apps have failed thus far... they just don't compare to the responsiveness and feature set of native apps. That, and there is no "store" for web apps to get discovered.
Microsoft's radical experimentation with Windows Vista in 2007 caused a negative backlash from Windows PC users, which has only settled down with the more conservative release of Windows 7.
what was the experimentation? to make it slow and buggy? I'm pretty sure that was what the backlash was all about
As someone who mostly uses Windows in a work environment - this is all pointless and annoying. Businesses account for a huge % of Windows installations, and no business is going to want to have this touch UI overlaying what's really important - the Office suite.
Moreover this smacks of developers being locked in a room together too long and developing something they think is cool and intuitive, but which for the ordinary user (read: pear-shaped people in Ohio) is going to be confusing and cumbersome. How do I know what apps I'm pulling from the mystery space on the side? How much time will I waste trying to organize my tiles?
What in goddess's name is wrong with icons on a desktop?
OK, say something positive... I do like the thumb keyboard idea (two halves of keyboard on each side of the tablet).
Seriously you think 9 screens is nice! That's 8 swipes and a press just to get an app. 4 would be my absolute limit.
I imagine they will have a scrolling list with the jump list functionality to skip down to a letter, like WP7. A lot of people don't like this but to me it seems the best way to fill your device up with apps you hardly ever use without them getting in the way.
A friendly suggestion here. Use iOS4 folders on the iPad. Instead of one dedicated screen per category. This allows you to get to any "category screen" in a random access fashion instead of requiring linear progression.
Not to pick on anyone because there are a lot of comments here about how "nice" the thing looks, but I have to disagree.
The first thing I noticed was that the "Metro" UI is actually broken on this new effort.
On the Windows Phone, the tiles are all the same colour and you can pick your colour. This is because the incredible busy-ness of the tiles with all the updates, animations and blinking colours needs to be toned down by the bland-ness and clarity of single colour tiles on a deep black background. Makes sense.
This UI on the other hand, seems to allow the user to give each tile any colour the user wants on an individual basis. It also seems like they are thinking there might even be wallpaper behind this mess. Yikes!
How is a giant screen with even *bigger* tiles, with even *more* junk on them, all *different* colours and all arrangeable by the user anyway they want, going to end up as anything but an annoying, confusing swirl of crap? Sure it looks good on the demo, but how is the average users desktop going to look?
The first clue that these innovative designers don't really know what they are doing, is that dog's breakfast "inspiration wall" which is full of the most irrelevant, uninspiring junk I've seen in a long time. It's just a bunch of unrelated images grouped on the wall by colour. It's too stupid for words. It's most likely carefully staged screencraft for the video.
I'm one of those that thinks the UI is FUG but I like the idea and thumb typing.
I have to admit that I thought it looked pretty good. I actually like the tiles metaphor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by See Flat
on the first look, seems like a nice interface. Remains to be seen is how well it is actually implemented in real life use.
Quote:
Originally Posted by n1954679
I have to agree, it does look good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vvswarup
The UI looks nice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Splash-reverse
It does look nice
Quote:
Originally Posted by jnjnjn
I must say it actually looked good
Quote:
Originally Posted by xSamplex
That said, sure, it looks cool. But coolness doesn't really do much for me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClemyNX
I agree. Still, those 2 things look cool and useful.
This is all "damning with faint praise."
Sorry to quote you guys in this context-- some of you are my favorite critics -- but why do so many feel compelled to say it looks "nice" and "cool"?
I'll tell you why: BECAUSE THE TILES ARE RECTILINEAR, BLAND AND INSTITUTIONAL!! And in the worst possible "safe" school/kitchen/Seattle-office-cubicle colors! They are worse than tasteless, they are in bad taste! And they are getting past your filters only by being left-brained-rectangular and animated.
"Beige fascism" has devolved into pastel fascism. If Microsoft can put this over on the world, we are further doomed. Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft -- you have to get rid of that baby blue! Combined with the horrible, lifeless green, orange and chalky eggplant . . .
The Professor has made one of his best posts ever:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody
Not to pick on anyone because there are a lot of comments here about how "nice" the thing looks, but I have to disagree.
The first thing I noticed was that the "Metro" UI is actually broken on this new effort.
On the Windows Phone, the tiles are all the same colour and you can pick your colour. This is because the incredible busy-ness of the tiles with all the updates, animations and blinking colours needs to be toned down by the bland-ness and clarity of single colour tiles on a deep black background. Makes sense.
This UI on the other hand, seems to allow the user to give each tile any colour the user wants on an individual basis. It also seems like they are thinking there might even be wallpaper behind this mess. Yikes!
How is a giant screen with even *bigger* tiles, with even *more* junk on them, all *different* colours and all arrangeable by the user anyway they want, going to end up as anything but an annoying, confusing swirl of crap? Sure it looks good on the demo, but how is the average users desktop going to look?
The first clue that these innovative designers don't really know what they are doing, is that dog's breakfast "inspiration wall" which is full of the most irrelevant, uninspiring junk I've seen in a long time. It's just a bunch of unrelated images grouped on the wall by colour. It's too stupid for words. It's most likely carefully staged screencraft for the video.
Then there is this good catch:
Quote:
Originally Posted by kerryb
That guy is like "so west coast?" sentences end going up and as in with a question and not a statement.
But it misses the geographical/cultural/generational mark. "Upspeak" is bicoastal. It is infantalism, like those colors are infantile.
The separated thumb keyboard they show is hardly new. It's been done on Android and I remember seeing it on tablet PC's of one type or another over the years. A bigger problem for me is that Microsoft has a long history of pushing "ergonomic" (split, humped, sideways) keyboards and they never catch on with anything but a tiny minority of users. For a touch typist, to separate the keyboard into two pieces means you have to look at your hands when you type and your speed is instantly reduced to a snail's pace.
Im a touch typist, yet even when the iPad is in landscape mode I have to look at the screen. The glass all feels the same to me and I simply don't trust the outcome of my efforts without looking.
Now that you mention the problems with split keyboards, causes me to pause. I haven't considered the additional effort required to continually refocus one's eyes from each side of the tablet as you type. Good point. This could very well be an issue. Don't know till I try it.
Giving this some more thought, I think I would be just as happy with an iphone sized portrait keyboard along either the right or left side of the ipad in any orientation. Either at a user pre-defined location or using some kind of proximity sensor to determine where you are holding the ipad with your hand(s).
Im sure there are plenty of designers at Apple thinking about this issue on the iPad already.
I also agree with you about smaller sized iPads. I think the ergonomics of the smaller unit that you can easily hold with one hand without getting tired would feel nice to me.
Comments
Watch the video again. It looks more like a tablet with the Windows Shell running inside it, not the Windows Shell with a tablet skin on top.
The immerse UI is apparently a separate shell, so I'm not sure how they actually do it.
Well... yes and no. Windows 8 running on an ARM SoC won't have any back wards compatibility with applications written for older versions of Windows. I saw Microsoft state somewhere there won't be a compatibility layer.
I think this is only the first of a long line of Windows 8 reveals. There is a lot of storage overhead in supporting legacy Windows, so I'm not sure how well that will fit the cheap "tablet as a consumption device" market.
I'm incredibly impressed from what they showed in the video. Microsoft appear to have created a tablet UI that it a lot more multitasking and "content creation" friendly. However I'm fully aware that it was nothing but a staged demo, so at this time I think it would be pretty naive and/or arrogant to make a call either way about this.
The big questions I have is can they make Windows 8 tablet:
- Perform well on a relatively slow processor
- Have respectable battery life
- Fit the storage requirements of a relatively cheap tablet
I still wouldn't be surprised if they revealed multiple versions. The "full" version (as shown), and a ARM-only based "consumption" version with no backward compatibility where Microsoft dictate the hardware (resembling the WPx model more than Windows).This entire post literally reeks of astroturf.
Just sayin.
I see here 2 things I would love in OS X and/or iOS :
- Tiles, no need to open an app to know basic information
- Putting apps side to side on fullscreen mode
It does look nice. ...
Not to pick on anyone because there are a lot of comments here about how "nice" the thing looks, but I have to disagree.
The first thing I noticed was that the "Metro" UI is actually broken on this new effort.
On the Windows Phone, the tiles are all the same colour and you can pick your colour. This is because the incredible busy-ness of the tiles with all the updates, animations and blinking colours needs to be toned down by the bland-ness and clarity of single colour tiles on a deep black background. Makes sense.
This UI on the other hand, seems to allow the user to give each tile any colour the user wants on an individual basis. It also seems like they are thinking there might even be wallpaper behind this mess. Yikes!
How is a giant screen with even *bigger* tiles, with even *more* junk on them, all *different* colours and all arrangeable by the user anyway they want, going to end up as anything but an annoying, confusing swirl of crap? Sure it looks good on the demo, but how is the average users desktop going to look?
The first clue that these innovative designers don't really know what they are doing, is that dog's breakfast "inspiration wall" which is full of the most irrelevant, uninspiring junk I've seen in a long time. It's just a bunch of unrelated images grouped on the wall by colour. It's too stupid for words. It's most likely carefully staged screencraft for the video.
The only really new ideas I saw there were the idea of app icons being huge and live, and the way you can have multiple full-screen apps on screen at once by squashing them side by side. Everything else I have already seen on other products. But it's still good to see Microsoft trying to shake things up.
I agree. Still, those 2 things look cool and useful.
It's interesting that this fellow is a music major. Clearly he has developed some design skills and has many years of experience with MS so he is more than that, but it's interesting that MS has a few artists working there now.
A few points
The UI looks pretty opaque to me. I see no breadcrumbs or other hints, nor do I see a consistency that makes it navigable and memorable. Creating a mental map is vital, but it escapes me with this UI (of course seeing it is very different than actually using it.)
I'm thinking that in actual use this thing would be endlessly cluttered.
Clearly all of the content is canned, which explains the "fast, responsive interface." I doubt this would be at all smooth if it is building on the fly with dynamic information.
There's too much "magic" stuff. By that I mean interface features that appear from nowhere and without hints as to their presence. This is a sign that the whole thing is canned, opaque, and unlikely to work in practice.
I'm surprised that MS doesn't seem to realize that touch and pointer interfaces are very different animals and that they are not likely to coexist very amicably. I realize Apple is looking at this too, but I think they are taking a more careful look at how/if they can fit together.
I will say that it does seem like a bit of a different and more thoughtful approach for MS, but then it also looks much more like following (years behind) and much less like leading, innovating, or "schooling."
To me this is exactly what I want a tablet interface to look like. I like the iPad but whenever I see it I just think the home screen looks wrong. The space between app icons makes it seem like a streached iPhone (which it is) and generally a bit of a let down when you consider how amazing their other products we're on release.
Building in HTML5 also makes a nice slap back at Google and its Chrome OS.
Seriously you think 9 screens is nice! That's 8 swipes and a press just to get an app. 4 would be my absolute limit.
I imagine they will have a scrolling list with the jump list functionality to skip down to a letter, like WP7. A lot of people don't like this but to me it seems the best way to fill your device up with apps you hardly ever use without them getting in the way.
So long vertical lists nestled under huge tiles. That doesn't seem more convenient to me when you only have six tiles( the number of icons just in the iPad dock).
So long vertical lists nestled under huge tiles. That doesn't seem more convenient to me when you only have six tiles( the number of icons just in the iPad dock).
No huge tiles, just small app tile and it's title. WP7 currently does it this way with a normal list, which does cause a lot of scrolling. The Mango update has the list changed to the jump list that's used for contacts, artists, albums etc. Follow this link for a demo of how it lets you jump to a point in the list.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drBhdjHBj4Q
Don't get your comment about six tiles?
Not to pick on anyone because there are a lot of comments here about how "nice" the thing looks, but I have to disagree.
The first thing I noticed was that the "Metro" UI is actually broken on this new effort.
On the Windows Phone, the tiles are all the same colour and you can pick your colour. This is because the incredible busy-ness of the tiles with all the updates, animations and blinking colours needs to be toned down by the bland-ness and clarity of single colour tiles on a deep black background. Makes sense.
This UI on the other hand, seems to allow the user to give each tile any colour the user wants on an individual basis. It also seems like they are thinking there might even be wallpaper behind this mess. Yikes!
How is a giant screen with even *bigger* tiles, with even *more* junk on them, all *different* colours and all arrangeable by the user anyway they want, going to end up as anything but an annoying, confusing swirl of crap? Sure it looks good on the demo, but how is the average users desktop going to look?
The first clue that these innovative designers don't really know what they are doing, is that dog's breakfast "inspiration wall" which is full of the most irrelevant, uninspiring junk I've seen in a long time. It's just a bunch of unrelated images grouped on the wall by colour. It's too stupid for words. It's most likely carefully staged screencraft for the video.
On WP7 the colour of the tiles is dependant on the app. They can either be completely custom or follow the theme of the phone. They can also be updated by the app with an image as part of the live tile stuff. e.g. The weather app on my phone changes between different representation of the weather and shows the temperature so you don't have to open it.
My main complaint with WP7 is that you can't customise the tile colours individually. It's all down to personal opinion but if you can change it then you can make them so their not annoying.
... I feel like I'm blaspheming to say this ... but the thumb keyboard is pretty genius. In the video, the guy talked about how the standard on-screen keyboard takes up too much space. Decent point. A better justification for a "thumb" keyboard is, as you suggested, ergonomics: it works better with the way you hold your tablet. With the current on-screen keyboard design (which is what the iPad has), the most viable way to use it is to have the tablet in your lap or on a desk or other flat surface. If you're sitting on a train or a bus, you can't easily secure your tablet (well, there's always a couple inverted loops of duct tape, but then there's that gummy, sticky mess afterward, and what a pain that is!!) while you're typing. The bus hits a big bump, or brakes suddenly, and your tablet goes flying. With the "thumb" keyboard, you necessarily have to grip the device securely by the lower corners in order to thumb-type. And muscle memory will make thumb-typing very easy to do after not too long. ...
I tend to disagree with this.
The separated thumb keyboard they show is hardly new. It's been done on Android and I remember seeing it on tablet PC's of one type or another over the years. A bigger problem for me is that Microsoft has a long history of pushing "ergonomic" (split, humped, sideways) keyboards and they never catch on with anything but a tiny minority of users. For a touch typist, to separate the keyboard into two pieces means you have to look at your hands when you type and your speed is instantly reduced to a snail's pace.
I do a lot of typing on the iPad and luckily for me, my hands are big enough to use it in portrait mode, because I agree with you about the landscape typing being a big problem, especially while travelling. I use the regular keyboard, but in portrait orientation and I thumb type while standing up on the train or bus or walking down the street. I think this is the winning position, but I don't agree that splitting the keyboard in half is the way to go.
What I'd like to see .... (and I know it's unlikely because Apple has a long standing aversion to admitting that people aren't all the same shape and size and don't all live in California), ... is simply a couple of different sizes of iPads and iPhones. If the iPad were just a touch smaller for instance, (not 7" but more like 8.6" as opposed to 10.1"), it would be a breeze to thumb-type on and yet the screen would hardly be any smaller than the current model.
It's also pretty obvious that the larger screen Android phones we've seen recently, are popular in the USA because, well frankly ... there are a lot of larger type people in the USA that like the extra room for their fingers.
I don't understand why Apple continues to cling to this idea that there is one perfect size for devices when people range rather wildly in size, and one person's hand can be literally twice the size of the person next to them.
My point was that times have changed and most users no longer care to do file system management for themselves nor do they particularly want Apps to be presented with a raw filesystem view.
OK, point made. However, I can see how Apple is proceeding by reading about LLVM, Clang, Xcode4, etc. Yes, iOS hides the file system.
What I am struggling to understand is how the legacy Windows code can be ported to ARM referenced SoCs. It is not the porting as a possibility, but rather the processing power of SoCs supporting the ported legacy code. That, to me, is a very ambitious goal. MS is going to have to come up with the compiler optimizations, and also provide a viable developers platform.
I am saying that Apple is less ambitious because iOS is a severely stripped down Mac OS as I understand it. Even though Lion will make a surface convergence from a users viewpoint, I do not see iOS and Mac OS merging in the near future. Maybe Mac OS will fade out over time.
According to MS, "we have much more to reveal at our developer event, BUILD (Sept. 13 - 16 in Anaheim, Calif.)" At that point, how MS intends to accomplish its goal should be clarified. Later will come the nitty-gritty product reviews.
Microsoft's radical experimentation with Windows Vista in 2007 caused a negative backlash from Windows PC users, which has only settled down with the more conservative release of Windows 7.
what was the experimentation? to make it slow and buggy? I'm pretty sure that was what the backlash was all about
Moreover this smacks of developers being locked in a room together too long and developing something they think is cool and intuitive, but which for the ordinary user (read: pear-shaped people in Ohio) is going to be confusing and cumbersome. How do I know what apps I'm pulling from the mystery space on the side? How much time will I waste trying to organize my tiles?
What in goddess's name is wrong with icons on a desktop?
OK, say something positive... I do like the thumb keyboard idea (two halves of keyboard on each side of the tablet).
I'm totally happy with Win7 for my windows partition. It's working great and I couldn't be happier. Don't fix what isn't broken.
Seriously you think 9 screens is nice! That's 8 swipes and a press just to get an app. 4 would be my absolute limit.
I imagine they will have a scrolling list with the jump list functionality to skip down to a letter, like WP7. A lot of people don't like this but to me it seems the best way to fill your device up with apps you hardly ever use without them getting in the way.
A friendly suggestion here. Use iOS4 folders on the iPad. Instead of one dedicated screen per category. This allows you to get to any "category screen" in a random access fashion instead of requiring linear progression.
Not to pick on anyone because there are a lot of comments here about how "nice" the thing looks, but I have to disagree.
The first thing I noticed was that the "Metro" UI is actually broken on this new effort.
On the Windows Phone, the tiles are all the same colour and you can pick your colour. This is because the incredible busy-ness of the tiles with all the updates, animations and blinking colours needs to be toned down by the bland-ness and clarity of single colour tiles on a deep black background. Makes sense.
This UI on the other hand, seems to allow the user to give each tile any colour the user wants on an individual basis. It also seems like they are thinking there might even be wallpaper behind this mess. Yikes!
How is a giant screen with even *bigger* tiles, with even *more* junk on them, all *different* colours and all arrangeable by the user anyway they want, going to end up as anything but an annoying, confusing swirl of crap? Sure it looks good on the demo, but how is the average users desktop going to look?
The first clue that these innovative designers don't really know what they are doing, is that dog's breakfast "inspiration wall" which is full of the most irrelevant, uninspiring junk I've seen in a long time. It's just a bunch of unrelated images grouped on the wall by colour. It's too stupid for words. It's most likely carefully staged screencraft for the video.
I'm one of those that thinks the UI is FUG but I like the idea and thumb typing.
Great. The last thing windows needs is another layer that will require legacy support for the next 30 years...
I'm totally happy with Win7 for my windows partition. It's working great and I couldn't be happier. Don't fix what isn't broken.
Ummm this is why Windows has to keep supporting legacy software for 10 years after it's been released.
It does look nice.
It looks good. .
I have to admit that I thought it looked pretty good. I actually like the tiles metaphor.
on the first look, seems like a nice interface. Remains to be seen is how well it is actually implemented in real life use.
I have to agree, it does look good.
The UI looks nice.
It does look nice
I must say it actually looked good
That said, sure, it looks cool. But coolness doesn't really do much for me.
I agree. Still, those 2 things look cool and useful.
This is all "damning with faint praise."
Sorry to quote you guys in this context-- some of you are my favorite critics -- but why do so many feel compelled to say it looks "nice" and "cool"?
I'll tell you why: BECAUSE THE TILES ARE RECTILINEAR, BLAND AND INSTITUTIONAL!! And in the worst possible "safe" school/kitchen/Seattle-office-cubicle colors! They are worse than tasteless, they are in bad taste! And they are getting past your filters only by being left-brained-rectangular and animated.
"Beige fascism" has devolved into pastel fascism. If Microsoft can put this over on the world, we are further doomed. Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft -- you have to get rid of that baby blue! Combined with the horrible, lifeless green, orange and chalky eggplant . . .
The Professor has made one of his best posts ever:
Not to pick on anyone because there are a lot of comments here about how "nice" the thing looks, but I have to disagree.
The first thing I noticed was that the "Metro" UI is actually broken on this new effort.
On the Windows Phone, the tiles are all the same colour and you can pick your colour. This is because the incredible busy-ness of the tiles with all the updates, animations and blinking colours needs to be toned down by the bland-ness and clarity of single colour tiles on a deep black background. Makes sense.
This UI on the other hand, seems to allow the user to give each tile any colour the user wants on an individual basis. It also seems like they are thinking there might even be wallpaper behind this mess. Yikes!
How is a giant screen with even *bigger* tiles, with even *more* junk on them, all *different* colours and all arrangeable by the user anyway they want, going to end up as anything but an annoying, confusing swirl of crap? Sure it looks good on the demo, but how is the average users desktop going to look?
The first clue that these innovative designers don't really know what they are doing, is that dog's breakfast "inspiration wall" which is full of the most irrelevant, uninspiring junk I've seen in a long time. It's just a bunch of unrelated images grouped on the wall by colour. It's too stupid for words. It's most likely carefully staged screencraft for the video.
Then there is this good catch:
That guy is like "so west coast?" sentences end going up and as in with a question and not a statement.
But it misses the geographical/cultural/generational mark. "Upspeak" is bicoastal. It is infantalism, like those colors are infantile.
I tend to disagree with this.
The separated thumb keyboard they show is hardly new. It's been done on Android and I remember seeing it on tablet PC's of one type or another over the years. A bigger problem for me is that Microsoft has a long history of pushing "ergonomic" (split, humped, sideways) keyboards and they never catch on with anything but a tiny minority of users. For a touch typist, to separate the keyboard into two pieces means you have to look at your hands when you type and your speed is instantly reduced to a snail's pace.
Im a touch typist, yet even when the iPad is in landscape mode I have to look at the screen. The glass all feels the same to me and I simply don't trust the outcome of my efforts without looking.
Now that you mention the problems with split keyboards, causes me to pause. I haven't considered the additional effort required to continually refocus one's eyes from each side of the tablet as you type. Good point. This could very well be an issue. Don't know till I try it.
Giving this some more thought, I think I would be just as happy with an iphone sized portrait keyboard along either the right or left side of the ipad in any orientation. Either at a user pre-defined location or using some kind of proximity sensor to determine where you are holding the ipad with your hand(s).
Im sure there are plenty of designers at Apple thinking about this issue on the iPad already.
I also agree with you about smaller sized iPads. I think the ergonomics of the smaller unit that you can easily hold with one hand without getting tired would feel nice to me.