M$ has no shame. They'll copy anything are everyone. The reason the guy in the video said we'll be showing other *new* stuff in the coming months is because Apple hasn't revealed them yet!!
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 . . .
Oh, snap! Quite a scathing critique. But I agree with you. I guess you could say that Microsoft is employing "inside the box" thinking.
Quote:
But it misses the geographical/cultural/generational mark. "Upspeak" is bicoastal. It is infantalism, like those colors are infantile.
I think this inflection was brought to the mainstream via that crapumentary show?um, what was it called? Oh right?American Chopper. Since that show came out, every subsequent crapumentary show had that same "know what i'm sayin'?" lilt*.
* "lilt" is the wrong word?the Irish have a lilt and it's lovely. What the AC boys and all their wannabes do is not lovely. \
Microsoft schooled Apple on this one, a week before Apple. You know Steve has to be pissed. You have to admit, no one saw Microsoft doing this so soon.
Actually, I just finished reading the 1998 book "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates" last night, and it described this interface along with saying Microsoft had been working on it since 1996. The only detail not mentioned was that it would use multitouch.
One of the authors of this 1998 book worked on tablet PC's for Microsoft in the early 1990's.
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.
If you're a touch typist, then you're relying on muscle memory, as I mentioned earlier. Professional string players (violin, viola, cello, bass) also rely on muscle memory, and they do it quite well. For "ordinary" people (yes, I think string musicians are a bit super-human) muscle memory is what helps you go up and down stairs without looking at every step. It also helps your feet find the clutch, brake and accelerator pedals without looking while you drive (very important!!) Similarly, once you get used to holding your iPad (if they ever did the "thumb keyboard" thing) in the "correct" position so that your thumbs could reach all of the soft-keys, then you could do your muscle memory driven touch-typing thing.
Quote:
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.
Not to get all contrarian here, but again, once you get used to proper positioning, you'll be needing to move your eyes to the keys less and less.
Quote:
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).
Hmmm... this is an intriguing idea. In contrast to what I said earlier, a user will often find themselves in a situation where they only have one hand free, in which case your suggestion would work better. I still like the "two-thumbs" keyboard as well. There's no reason a future iOS version (or third party add-on) couldn't employ both, utilizing each as the situation requires.
Quote:
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.
Perhaps, but obviously, as you go smaller, you lose screen real estate, unless you just make everything smaller, but that just makes things harder to read then. I think Apple should continue avoid the temptation to make sizes for every whim and preference.
If you're a touch typist, then you're relying on muscle memory, as I mentioned earlier. ...] Similarly, once you get used to holding your iPad (if they ever did the "thumb keyboard" thing) in the "correct" position so that your thumbs could reach all of the soft-keys, then you could do your muscle memory driven touch-typing thing.
Not sure about your thumbs, but the only typing memory skills my thumbs possess is hitting the space bar.
Maybe yours technique is different then mine when when you type on a keyboard?
Not sure about your thumbs, but the only typing memory skills my thumbs possess is hitting the space bar.
Maybe yours technique is different then mine when when you type on a keyboard?
The point is your thumb muscles can learn thumb-typing*, as BB, iPhone and iPod Touch users?and anyone who's ever used a mobile phone?can attest; they certainly use their thumbs to do their typing, no?
* to get technically nit-picky, it's your brain that learns, not your thumb muscles.
The point is your thumb muscles can learn thumb-typing*, as BB, iPhone and iPod Touch users—and anyone who's ever used a mobile phone—can attest; they certainly use their thumbs to do their typing, no?
* to get technically nit-picky, it's your brain that learns, not your thumb muscles.
As you said above.. muscle memory means you can do things without using your eyes to coordinate (or words to that effect; I apologize in advanced if I miss-paraphrased). I am afraid that I dont have that skill when using my thumbs to type on any touch screen device that I can think of (iPhone, iPad, etc). I need to look at where I place my thumbs for each and every letter. I must admit that I have a pretty good idea where the keys are relative to each other based on my experience getting around a traditional keyboard. However, I not sure that is finger memory? Or is it? I don't know.. maybe I am alone in this. However, I suspect not.
Maybe I am just needlessly splitting hairs at this point. sorry if I appear to be.
As you said above.. muscle memory means you can do things without using your eyes to coordinate (or words to that effect; I apologize in advanced if I miss-paraphrased). I am afraid that I dont have that skill when using my thumbs to type on any touch screen device that I can think of (iPhone, iPad, etc). I need to look at where I place my thumbs for each and every letter. I must admit that I have a pretty good idea where the keys are relative to each other based on my experience getting around a traditional keyboard. However, I not sure that is finger memory? Or is it? I don't know.. maybe I am alone in this. However, I suspect not.
Maybe I am just needlessly splitting hairs at this point. sorry if I appear to be.
I'm not keeping this topic of "muscle memory" alive simply to be pedantic?it's more because I'm geektastically amazed at how our brains work. You may or may not have heard the following joke:
Tourist: How do I get to Carnegie Hall?
Smart-ass Local: Practice, practice, practice!!!
"Practice" is all about training your brain. We're not born knowing how to walk or drive or type or play an instrument. We all have to practice doing the same actions over and over again, so that our brain learns how to direct our muscles to do what we want to do. It's the reason I can type what I'm typing now without thinking of where I'm putting my fingers. It's the reason we have the common idiom, "It's like riding a bike!"?once you learn to ride a bike, you basically don't forget (barring a severe brain injury or disease)?that's what muscle memory is. This stuff may seem trivial, but it's vitally important to anyone who works in the realm of UI design. UI designers have to have a good understanding of how our brains learn, so that the technology helps, rather than hinders the user. By UI, I'm not just talking software interfaces, I'm talking about physical, industrial design as well (cars, keyboards, airplane cockpits, etc.).
To split hairs further, I would argue that it's not about having thumb-typing skills, it's about developing thumb-typing skills?even on a glass surface that provides basically no tactile feedback?by training your brain. You'd be pretty amazed at what your brain is capable of learning.
I'm not keeping this topic of "muscle memory" alive simply to be pedantic?it's more because I'm geektastically amazed at how our brains work. You may or may not have heard the following joke:
Tourist: How do I get to Carnegie Hall?
Smart-ass Local: Practice, practice, practice!!!
"Practice" is all about training your brain. We're not born knowing how to walk or drive or type or play an instrument. We all have to practice doing the same actions over and over again, so that our brain learns how to direct our muscles to do what we want to do. It's the reason I can type what I'm typing now without thinking of where I'm putting my fingers. It's the reason we have the common idiom, "It's like riding a bike!"?once you learn to ride a bike, you basically don't forget (barring a severe brain injury or disease)?that's what muscle memory is. This stuff may seem trivial, but it's vitally important to anyone who works in the realm of UI design. UI designers have to have a good understanding of how our brains learn, so that the technology helps, rather than hinders the user. By UI, I'm not just talking software interfaces, I'm talking about physical, industrial design as well (cars, keyboards, airplane cockpits, etc.).
To split hairs further, I would argue that it's not about having thumb-typing skills, it's about developing thumb-typing skills?even on a glass surface that provides basically no tactile feedback?by training your brain. You'd be pretty amazed at what your brain is capable of learning.
The problem with muscle memory on on-screen keyboards is that, with the varying display sizes of phones and tablets, almost every keyboard is going to different key sizes and spacing. So while if you practice enough at it, you can get used to say the iPhone4 keyboard, but that muscle memory won't translate too well over to the iPad.
The problem with muscle memory on on-screen keyboards is that, with the varying display sizes of phones and tablets, almost every keyboard is going to different key sizes and spacing. So while if you practice enough at it, you can get used to say the iPhone4 keyboard, but that muscle memory won't translate too well over to the iPad.
Eh. Our brains our pretty resilient?practice enough on each of your devices, and your brain will be able to figure out which one you're using and adjust accordingly.
Say you have an iPad and an iPhone?you will need to get used to both interfaces, which wouldn't be too hard. But, learning the interfaces of your own devices won't serve you so well if you need to borrow your friend's Android phone. You'll have to resort to the ol' "hunt & peck" method.
Exactly. That "launcher" will be great on all the upcoming Windows tablets... until you open a legacy Windows application.
Then it's the same ol' Windows.
I'm not ditching the mouse and keyboard for a long time...
Well, legacy apps demand legacy control scheme... can't help much there. But I would expect MS Office 2013 (or whatever) will work in new environment, ideally giving an option to choose/switch between legacy and touch environment.
But still... I don't think that even legacy part is same old Windows 7. It has to be much more flexible in order to scale down to tablet hardware.
Off the topic... I was mildly amused to read in this article that Windows 7 is conservative compared to Windows Vista. Really?
Prediction 1: Windows 8 will be the best selling version of Windows EVER.
Prediciton 2: Apple will continue to outpace the PC market furthering it's revenue, profit and valuation lead from MS.
Well, this will be first Windows for tablets, so that part will be the most interesting - how well will it work, and how well will it sell? Additionally, what approach will MS take - sell to anyone interested (likely), or sell exclusively to one brand (Nokia?)... or differentiate somehow premium brand (again, Nokia?) from all the other me-toos.
Regarding profit, revenue... I'm not that sure. So far we basically had traditional PC market on MS side versus traditional PC market on Apple side significantly helped by iOS growth. With Windows 8, MS will finally do significant push into tablets, and by that time WP7 will be more mature and, hopefully, well supported by Nokia. Of course there are so many unknowns there, but considering number of Nokia-faithful I know, I wouldn't be surprised to see WP7 getting respectful market share once Nokia starts selling.
All in all, MS has more new markets to "conquer" than Apple at this stage, and should they be successful, more profit and revenue to gain. But all this is purely academic - of all knowns and unknowns, one thing is very certain - both companies will do more than well for years to come.
ANy hope of that difference is going away Monday when Apple releases iCloud. What will it do? Simple... NO SYNC. That means all your content will be available on any Apple laptop/phone/tablet. You buy it and use it anywhere and with no storage concerns. That's my input.
When this happens, these devices are no longer companions, but standalone and stand together as a tighter ecosystem Microsoft won't be able to match because of their fragmented OSes
I can't see a reason why MS could not update their SkyDrive to match whatever iCloud will be doing. It already offers 25GB of free storage for anyone with MS Live account (which is also free to get).
Don't forget, this is mostly software-defined technology, and MS is mostly software company with biggest potential in software development. I don't think Apple can easily beat them there.
Why is it good for MS to have shown this so soon? This is just another MS concept video tossed out before another real Apple product. Remember the Courier? Everyone always trots out a bunch of half-baked crap before a big Apple announcement. That is part of the reason why this stuff pales in comparison to the Apple experience. Look at Amazon and Google. They both just announce music storage services. So desperate were they that they didn't even bother to secure proper licenses. They just vomited something up to get something out there before Apple announced their cloud service. Notice how Apple didn't announce anything before it was ready. This move by MS just shows how desperate and behind they are, and are about to be.
Except that Courier was only a fancy prototype/research/smoke&mirrors for MS, and mainstream desktop OS is big part of their current bread & butter core business. I don't expect MS would play with one of their major products. It will be out in 2012, 3 years after Windows 7.
Completely agree! I'm not saying the this is CGI, or that W8 will not come out in some form. But this is very early interface concepts stuff. They are nowhere near ready to be talking about what the actual shipping product will look like or how it will perform. The are not shipping betas to devs. There is no reason to even show this stuff except to try and stay relevant in the onslaught of what they know is about to happen at WWDC.
The only real difference between this and the Courier is that they actually intend to develop and ship this at some point.
I don't think it is that early. At worst, they are working on Windows 8 since Windows 7 was released (which puts it at 2/3 of its development cycle). At best, Windows 8 development started before Windows 7 was released, which makes its current iteration even more mature (relative to expected release time-frame).
- "Thumbs" keyboard. I hope Apple does something like this for the iPad. Its unpleasant to use the existing soft keyboard on the iPad. I prefer the iPhone keyboard over the iPad due to the ergonomic issue.
- New touch oriented apps sound cool.
- Nice vivid demo
Unsure:
-. Live tiles seems useful. However, I'm concerned about battery life of having too much "live" updates. Is this really practical and a worthwhile battery life trade off?
- Is there a style guide for the new touch oriented app SDK? Or will it just be the wild wild west free for all?
- Multitasking. Not sure how average consumers will actually want more then one apps on the screen at the same time. I only really do this for cut-n-paste operations personally. As long as the task switching is efficient and cut and paste work well, I dot really need to have more then one app visible at the same time. Battery life concerns of turning multiple apps at the same time.
Dislike:
- I don't think running legacy Windows apps designed for use with a high resolution pointer such as a mouse via touch interface is appropriate. I guess this would be similar to having the desire to run my Mac OS X apps on my iPad via an agent like Ignition. I don't really have any desire as this would be exhausting, IMHO. The app has to be DESIGNED for touch from the very beginning.
As a result, would a buy a tablet form factor to run my legacy desktop apps? probably not. Same reason all Windows tablet have failed thus far.
Recommendation to MS. Stop trying to make Windows Legacy Apps run on Tablets. You are better off just extending Windows Phone 7 to the tablet with its own set of touch oriented apps.
Agree with you on most parts... except for legacy support. MS simply has to cater for their business users who, I believe, make majority to their home users.
Now... we have companies still running Office 2003 on their new Win 7 machines. And we have users using downgrade rights to revert from purchased Office 2010 to Office 2007 and 2003. Additionally - bigger companies are much more inert than small businesses.
MS simply must give legacy support if they want Windows 8 to be accepted among corporate users, and hell yeah they want it. Even if they release new Office and other tools together with Windows 8, you can bet biggest Windows users will require older versions to run.
Comments
LOL It did look the MS versioning of Ive.
M$ has no shame. They'll copy anything are everyone. The reason the guy in the video said we'll be showing other *new* stuff in the coming months is because Apple hasn't revealed them yet!!
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 . . .
Oh, snap! Quite a scathing critique. But I agree with you. I guess you could say that Microsoft is employing "inside the box" thinking.
But it misses the geographical/cultural/generational mark. "Upspeak" is bicoastal. It is infantalism, like those colors are infantile.
I think this inflection was brought to the mainstream via that crapumentary show?um, what was it called? Oh right?American Chopper. Since that show came out, every subsequent crapumentary show had that same "know what i'm sayin'?" lilt*.
* "lilt" is the wrong word?the Irish have a lilt and it's lovely. What the AC boys and all their wannabes do is not lovely.
Microsoft schooled Apple on this one, a week before Apple. You know Steve has to be pissed. You have to admit, no one saw Microsoft doing this so soon.
Actually, I just finished reading the 1998 book "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates" last night, and it described this interface along with saying Microsoft had been working on it since 1996. The only detail not mentioned was that it would use multitouch.
One of the authors of this 1998 book worked on tablet PC's for Microsoft in the early 1990's.
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.
If you're a touch typist, then you're relying on muscle memory, as I mentioned earlier. Professional string players (violin, viola, cello, bass) also rely on muscle memory, and they do it quite well. For "ordinary" people (yes, I think string musicians are a bit super-human) muscle memory is what helps you go up and down stairs without looking at every step. It also helps your feet find the clutch, brake and accelerator pedals without looking while you drive (very important!!) Similarly, once you get used to holding your iPad (if they ever did the "thumb keyboard" thing) in the "correct" position so that your thumbs could reach all of the soft-keys, then you could do your muscle memory driven touch-typing thing.
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.
Not to get all contrarian here, but again, once you get used to proper positioning, you'll be needing to move your eyes to the keys less and less.
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).
Hmmm... this is an intriguing idea. In contrast to what I said earlier, a user will often find themselves in a situation where they only have one hand free, in which case your suggestion would work better. I still like the "two-thumbs" keyboard as well. There's no reason a future iOS version (or third party add-on) couldn't employ both, utilizing each as the situation requires.
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.
Perhaps, but obviously, as you go smaller, you lose screen real estate, unless you just make everything smaller, but that just makes things harder to read then. I think Apple should continue avoid the temptation to make sizes for every whim and preference.
How else would you do it? Telekinesis?
I believe the technical term is "hunt and peck".
If you're a touch typist, then you're relying on muscle memory, as I mentioned earlier. ...] Similarly, once you get used to holding your iPad (if they ever did the "thumb keyboard" thing) in the "correct" position so that your thumbs could reach all of the soft-keys, then you could do your muscle memory driven touch-typing thing.
Not sure about your thumbs, but the only typing memory skills my thumbs possess is hitting the space bar.
Maybe yours technique is different then mine when when you type on a keyboard?
Not sure about your thumbs, but the only typing memory skills my thumbs possess is hitting the space bar.
Maybe yours technique is different then mine when when you type on a keyboard?
The point is your thumb muscles can learn thumb-typing*, as BB, iPhone and iPod Touch users?and anyone who's ever used a mobile phone?can attest; they certainly use their thumbs to do their typing, no?
* to get technically nit-picky, it's your brain that learns, not your thumb muscles.
This is a particularly sad post. Calling out people because they have a different opinion than yours? We don't need biased group think.
If you want to know Microsoft's design principles, just go to the source: Bill Buxton and Albert Shum http://bit.ly/jkxZjv
Fascism? Really?
The point is your thumb muscles can learn thumb-typing*, as BB, iPhone and iPod Touch users—and anyone who's ever used a mobile phone—can attest; they certainly use their thumbs to do their typing, no?
* to get technically nit-picky, it's your brain that learns, not your thumb muscles.
As you said above.. muscle memory means you can do things without using your eyes to coordinate (or words to that effect; I apologize in advanced if I miss-paraphrased). I am afraid that I dont have that skill when using my thumbs to type on any touch screen device that I can think of (iPhone, iPad, etc). I need to look at where I place my thumbs for each and every letter. I must admit that I have a pretty good idea where the keys are relative to each other based on my experience getting around a traditional keyboard. However, I not sure that is finger memory? Or is it? I don't know.. maybe I am alone in this. However, I suspect not.
Maybe I am just needlessly splitting hairs at this point. sorry if I appear to be.
As you said above.. muscle memory means you can do things without using your eyes to coordinate (or words to that effect; I apologize in advanced if I miss-paraphrased). I am afraid that I dont have that skill when using my thumbs to type on any touch screen device that I can think of (iPhone, iPad, etc). I need to look at where I place my thumbs for each and every letter. I must admit that I have a pretty good idea where the keys are relative to each other based on my experience getting around a traditional keyboard. However, I not sure that is finger memory? Or is it? I don't know.. maybe I am alone in this. However, I suspect not.
Maybe I am just needlessly splitting hairs at this point. sorry if I appear to be.
I'm not keeping this topic of "muscle memory" alive simply to be pedantic?it's more because I'm geektastically amazed at how our brains work. You may or may not have heard the following joke:
Tourist: How do I get to Carnegie Hall?
Smart-ass Local: Practice, practice, practice!!!
"Practice" is all about training your brain. We're not born knowing how to walk or drive or type or play an instrument. We all have to practice doing the same actions over and over again, so that our brain learns how to direct our muscles to do what we want to do. It's the reason I can type what I'm typing now without thinking of where I'm putting my fingers. It's the reason we have the common idiom, "It's like riding a bike!"?once you learn to ride a bike, you basically don't forget (barring a severe brain injury or disease)?that's what muscle memory is. This stuff may seem trivial, but it's vitally important to anyone who works in the realm of UI design. UI designers have to have a good understanding of how our brains learn, so that the technology helps, rather than hinders the user. By UI, I'm not just talking software interfaces, I'm talking about physical, industrial design as well (cars, keyboards, airplane cockpits, etc.).
To split hairs further, I would argue that it's not about having thumb-typing skills, it's about developing thumb-typing skills?even on a glass surface that provides basically no tactile feedback?by training your brain. You'd be pretty amazed at what your brain is capable of learning.
I'm not keeping this topic of "muscle memory" alive simply to be pedantic?it's more because I'm geektastically amazed at how our brains work. You may or may not have heard the following joke:
Tourist: How do I get to Carnegie Hall?
Smart-ass Local: Practice, practice, practice!!!
"Practice" is all about training your brain. We're not born knowing how to walk or drive or type or play an instrument. We all have to practice doing the same actions over and over again, so that our brain learns how to direct our muscles to do what we want to do. It's the reason I can type what I'm typing now without thinking of where I'm putting my fingers. It's the reason we have the common idiom, "It's like riding a bike!"?once you learn to ride a bike, you basically don't forget (barring a severe brain injury or disease)?that's what muscle memory is. This stuff may seem trivial, but it's vitally important to anyone who works in the realm of UI design. UI designers have to have a good understanding of how our brains learn, so that the technology helps, rather than hinders the user. By UI, I'm not just talking software interfaces, I'm talking about physical, industrial design as well (cars, keyboards, airplane cockpits, etc.).
To split hairs further, I would argue that it's not about having thumb-typing skills, it's about developing thumb-typing skills?even on a glass surface that provides basically no tactile feedback?by training your brain. You'd be pretty amazed at what your brain is capable of learning.
The problem with muscle memory on on-screen keyboards is that, with the varying display sizes of phones and tablets, almost every keyboard is going to different key sizes and spacing. So while if you practice enough at it, you can get used to say the iPhone4 keyboard, but that muscle memory won't translate too well over to the iPad.
The problem with muscle memory on on-screen keyboards is that, with the varying display sizes of phones and tablets, almost every keyboard is going to different key sizes and spacing. So while if you practice enough at it, you can get used to say the iPhone4 keyboard, but that muscle memory won't translate too well over to the iPad.
Eh. Our brains our pretty resilient?practice enough on each of your devices, and your brain will be able to figure out which one you're using and adjust accordingly.
Say you have an iPad and an iPhone?you will need to get used to both interfaces, which wouldn't be too hard. But, learning the interfaces of your own devices won't serve you so well if you need to borrow your friend's Android phone. You'll have to resort to the ol' "hunt & peck" method.
Exactly. That "launcher" will be great on all the upcoming Windows tablets... until you open a legacy Windows application.
Then it's the same ol' Windows.
I'm not ditching the mouse and keyboard for a long time...
Well, legacy apps demand legacy control scheme... can't help much there. But I would expect MS Office 2013 (or whatever) will work in new environment, ideally giving an option to choose/switch between legacy and touch environment.
But still... I don't think that even legacy part is same old Windows 7. It has to be much more flexible in order to scale down to tablet hardware.
Off the topic... I was mildly amused to read in this article that Windows 7 is conservative compared to Windows Vista. Really?
Prediction 1: Windows 8 will be the best selling version of Windows EVER.
Prediciton 2: Apple will continue to outpace the PC market furthering it's revenue, profit and valuation lead from MS.
Well, this will be first Windows for tablets, so that part will be the most interesting - how well will it work, and how well will it sell? Additionally, what approach will MS take - sell to anyone interested (likely), or sell exclusively to one brand (Nokia?)... or differentiate somehow premium brand (again, Nokia?) from all the other me-toos.
Regarding profit, revenue... I'm not that sure. So far we basically had traditional PC market on MS side versus traditional PC market on Apple side significantly helped by iOS growth. With Windows 8, MS will finally do significant push into tablets, and by that time WP7 will be more mature and, hopefully, well supported by Nokia. Of course there are so many unknowns there, but considering number of Nokia-faithful I know, I wouldn't be surprised to see WP7 getting respectful market share once Nokia starts selling.
All in all, MS has more new markets to "conquer" than Apple at this stage, and should they be successful, more profit and revenue to gain. But all this is purely academic - of all knowns and unknowns, one thing is very certain - both companies will do more than well for years to come.
ANy hope of that difference is going away Monday when Apple releases iCloud. What will it do? Simple... NO SYNC. That means all your content will be available on any Apple laptop/phone/tablet. You buy it and use it anywhere and with no storage concerns. That's my input.
When this happens, these devices are no longer companions, but standalone and stand together as a tighter ecosystem Microsoft won't be able to match because of their fragmented OSes
I can't see a reason why MS could not update their SkyDrive to match whatever iCloud will be doing. It already offers 25GB of free storage for anyone with MS Live account (which is also free to get).
Don't forget, this is mostly software-defined technology, and MS is mostly software company with biggest potential in software development. I don't think Apple can easily beat them there.
Why is it good for MS to have shown this so soon? This is just another MS concept video tossed out before another real Apple product. Remember the Courier? Everyone always trots out a bunch of half-baked crap before a big Apple announcement. That is part of the reason why this stuff pales in comparison to the Apple experience. Look at Amazon and Google. They both just announce music storage services. So desperate were they that they didn't even bother to secure proper licenses. They just vomited something up to get something out there before Apple announced their cloud service. Notice how Apple didn't announce anything before it was ready. This move by MS just shows how desperate and behind they are, and are about to be.
Except that Courier was only a fancy prototype/research/smoke&mirrors for MS, and mainstream desktop OS is big part of their current bread & butter core business. I don't expect MS would play with one of their major products. It will be out in 2012, 3 years after Windows 7.
Completely agree! I'm not saying the this is CGI, or that W8 will not come out in some form. But this is very early interface concepts stuff. They are nowhere near ready to be talking about what the actual shipping product will look like or how it will perform. The are not shipping betas to devs. There is no reason to even show this stuff except to try and stay relevant in the onslaught of what they know is about to happen at WWDC.
The only real difference between this and the Courier is that they actually intend to develop and ship this at some point.
I don't think it is that early. At worst, they are working on Windows 8 since Windows 7 was released (which puts it at 2/3 of its development cycle). At best, Windows 8 development started before Windows 7 was released, which makes its current iteration even more mature (relative to expected release time-frame).
Likes:
- "Thumbs" keyboard. I hope Apple does something like this for the iPad. Its unpleasant to use the existing soft keyboard on the iPad. I prefer the iPhone keyboard over the iPad due to the ergonomic issue.
- New touch oriented apps sound cool.
- Nice vivid demo
Unsure:
-. Live tiles seems useful. However, I'm concerned about battery life of having too much "live" updates. Is this really practical and a worthwhile battery life trade off?
- Is there a style guide for the new touch oriented app SDK? Or will it just be the wild wild west free for all?
- Multitasking. Not sure how average consumers will actually want more then one apps on the screen at the same time. I only really do this for cut-n-paste operations personally. As long as the task switching is efficient and cut and paste work well, I dot really need to have more then one app visible at the same time. Battery life concerns of turning multiple apps at the same time.
Dislike:
- I don't think running legacy Windows apps designed for use with a high resolution pointer such as a mouse via touch interface is appropriate. I guess this would be similar to having the desire to run my Mac OS X apps on my iPad via an agent like Ignition. I don't really have any desire as this would be exhausting, IMHO. The app has to be DESIGNED for touch from the very beginning.
As a result, would a buy a tablet form factor to run my legacy desktop apps? probably not. Same reason all Windows tablet have failed thus far.
Recommendation to MS. Stop trying to make Windows Legacy Apps run on Tablets. You are better off just extending Windows Phone 7 to the tablet with its own set of touch oriented apps.
Agree with you on most parts... except for legacy support. MS simply has to cater for their business users who, I believe, make majority to their home users.
Now... we have companies still running Office 2003 on their new Win 7 machines. And we have users using downgrade rights to revert from purchased Office 2010 to Office 2007 and 2003. Additionally - bigger companies are much more inert than small businesses.
MS simply must give legacy support if they want Windows 8 to be accepted among corporate users, and hell yeah they want it. Even if they release new Office and other tools together with Windows 8, you can bet biggest Windows users will require older versions to run.