It's so bad for the name "Windows 8" that no matter what Microsoft does it would still be vilified. They could have Jesus Christ himself come down and give Windows 8.1 Update 2 his personal blessings and it would still be vilified.
Disagree. It all depends on what would be in that hypothetical Update 2. Windows 8 and 8.1 were vilified for good reasons, but that doesn't necessarily mean MS couldn't release something that would address the UI issue still in 8.x. For one, that would provide an earlier and more thorough feedback than the forthcoming Win 9 betas.
LMAO, agreed so tacky. I thought windows 8 was bad, but now they are combining bright colors. I think my eyes are bleeding from looking at that screenshot.
....Windows 8 and 8.1 were vilified for good reasons, but that doesn't necessarily mean MS couldn't release something that would address the UI issue still in 8.x.
For one, that would provide an earlier and more thorough feedback than the forthcoming Win 9 betas.
Yes, plus an update to Win 8.x could be issued SOONER than an allegedly whole new OS.
And it is surprising just how forgiving that people can sometimes be.
For example, look at how often governments get elected, RE-elected, and/or changed back to a party which was previously tossed out !
Android is up to almost 16% and iOS is 11% ( »gs.statcounter.com/#desk ··· 6-201406 ) which backs up what I said about touch screen devices (you might say your clinging to your old hardware but your lying as you likely have a touch device too). So yes Microsoft has to deal with touch devices and Windows 8 on my surface and phone are great, but the challenge is how to get it on the desktop where you have to deal with older systems and software, so Windows 8 has been a rather good bridge IMHO. Clearly Linux on the desktop isn't a player and really has the same problem as Microsoft going forward in dealing with touch devices (unless you go Android, but issues around that are for the Linux forum).
The desktop has a few issues slowing it down and first of all is the fact that apps seem to be going thin (browser based), so your desktop performance has pretty much no effect on app performance as its pretty much dependent on network and server performance so folks aren't really motivated to update hardware like they were in the past when the app actually ran on your desktop (gamers of course still live in this world and hence have some cool performance hardware). Funny that on touch devices folks like using apps more then the browser, which should be a hint to developers as to what is important to users. So the need to replace desktop hardware has stalled desktop sales and progress in terms of touch on the desktop, its not an OS issue its simply a need issue and I don't need the latest and fastest desktop hardware to run thin apps. Come out with a killer desktop app and you will sell hardware with it, until then folks will continue blowing their hardware budget on mobile touch devices and phones.
Blake NOTE I think that thin apps suck and are a travesty against their user community as the GUI sucks huge bullets and cripple functionality and usefulness.
I didn't check before what else that site had available, but I DID just now extend the timeline back as far as I could, to closer match the other graph which you linked upthread, and the evolutionary evidence of the overall trend is even better revealed.
Also, in this last graph, there is no specific line for desktop Linux, which would mean that for this one, Linux is part of 'Other' ? (and 'Other' is on the upswing since Win 8 hit us - not surprising at all to ME)
So yes Microsoft has to deal with touch devices and Windows 8 on my surface and phone are great, but the challenge is how to get it on the desktop where you have to deal with older systems and software, so Windows 8 has been a rather good bridge IMHO.
Who says that a phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, and game console/STB all need or even benefit from the same UI? I'm no Apple fanboy, but they at least seem to understand that people interact with these devices differently and so the best UI isn't the same on all.
Here's where the mistake was made:
"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if everything that runs a version of Windows had the same UI?"
What makes you think you wont be able to add it in Windows 9 when it arrives? The Start Menu shown is in the EARLY stages of development, and will likely have a few makeovers before they pick a final design.
While the origins of metro were from the windows phone, it was resigned for tablets, and then only after they thought the tablet gui was near completion they began the port for the desktop. We even saw major changes to metro during the preview release which shouldn't happen so close to the rtm release, and at the same time they killed registry tweaks to boot straight to the desktop. In early stages they were still able to restore the old start menu, but they finally pulled it near the end. They actively prevented people from trying to use the old start menu.
I've even seen the smartscreen filter block classic shell installs....
They should just re-name it to Windows 7 Second Edition and make it like an expansion pack. Charge 40-50 buck bucks for it. All these huge corporations just recently upgraded to 7, so they're not going to 9 any time soon. Microsoft has a stupid strategy. They have a huge Windows 7 following that's not going anywhere unless forced to by lack of updates. So instead of improving an OS that everyone loves, they make an entirely new one to compete against the slightly older one that has no practical benefit?
First, the window on Win 7 has already been partly closed, but even if that wasn't the case, it should have a look and feel of 7, and nothing I've seen lately is even remotely close.
If MS wants to appeal to the Win 7 users, they could easily do it with a simple "UI - Basic Settings" menu where the user could choose different "look and feel" settings with Win 7 being one of the selectable entries.
....If MS wants [do something to Win 8] to appeal to the Win 7 users, they could easily do it with a simple "UI - Basic Settings" menu where the user could choose different "look and feel" settings with Win 7 being one of the selectable entries.
The first graph I posted »gs.statcounter.com/#desk ··· 7-201407 is world wide desktop OS and Linux tips in at 1.33% for July so a non player still on the desktop (6 years ago Linux on the desktop was at 0.85% so hey they have gone up half a percent since then).
Now people might say why have a mobile OS on a desktop, but the reality is you will have touch (and some other goodies such as a voice and Kinect for example) on your desktop so your desktop OS and how you interact with it will change so having a similar OS would be good (you going to have the same interactions with your mobile devices). Traditional Windows had touch versions long before iPad and Android, but given touch windows didn't dominate one can only assume something else was needed, enter Windows 8. Now is Windows 8 the end of the evolution, nope so I can hardly wait for Windows 9 and beyond.
Microsoft wasn't making cheap arm lablets, they used laptop hardware with a touchscreen, and their target was businesses. They were not cheap. The flood of cheap arm tablets, and smartphones is what changed. Win 8 should have stayed tablet only until they actually refined the interface as it was never designed for a desktop.
Now people might say why have a mobile OS on a desktop, but the reality is you will have touch (and some other goodies such as a voice and Kinect for example) on your desktop so your desktop OS and how you interact with it will change so having a similar OS would be good (you going to have the same interactions with your mobile devices).
Huh? Why is the "reality you will have touch...on your desktop" and something that has "voice" and "Kinect"? I'm having trouble understanding you. What is something that has voice on the desktop and what does that have to with the imperative that everyone must have touch on a desktop? And what's "Kinect"?
There is no way in hell that I would EVER NEED OR WANT touch on my desktop monitors. Speaking of "voice", I don''t understand why Microsoft abandoned speech for the PC....THAT, if it worked really well, would be great! But touch so I can develop shoulder pain and back pain from constantly trying to touch my screen? I guess you have never heard of ergonomics for the desktop or care....just like an entire generation that is going to have crippling in their hands from large amounts of texting on cell phones (physicians are already seeing teenagers with crippled hands). Touch for desktops is simply a bad idea health wise as well as just stupid. Touch for tablets makes sense and that is where it should stay. I also think the all in one PC is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard of for home use...although in a small retail store it might be fine. Touch would also be good if my refrigerator was connected to the internet and it kept track of the amount of milk, eggs, etc that I currently had and alerted me when low and I could enter an egg icon on the touch screen on the front of the fridg and then later print out a list or send to a cell phone, etc. I can see ways where touch is useful but NOT ON A DESKTOP COMPUTER MONITOR.
Plus, it is extremely shortsighted and stupid to try and make all internet devices mirrors of each other. Of course, if Microsoft has already conceded that people are too stupid to learn how to use different devices because they are not exactly alike...well....and that is basically what Microsoft thinks and you think...everyone is extremely stupid.
Microsoft didn't abandon speech and its in Windows 8 and I'm using it right now. Speech on the Xbox one is frighteningly good and with the recent developments in speech from Microsoft with Skype it's only going to get better. Given you can talk faster than you can type, voice interface will render the keyboard obsolete for anything other than focused app usage. For example on the Xbox one I rarely use a controller for anything other than games as I use voice for almost everything.
We're on the cusp of a new age of intelligent sensors and these sensors will enrich your interaction with your desktop. The Kinect is truly amazing and allows the computer to see and understand the world around it and interpret change in its environment. When humans communicate gestures, body language and tonal inflections conveyed more information then do our words, and these sensors allow the computer to understand and respond to these important forms of human communication.
You won't need touch for your refrigerator as sensors will tracked what you put in your fridge, how much is in your fridge, what you take out of your fridge and perhaps more importantly what the status is of what is in your fridge, for example your milk has expired so it is time to get more.
I am quite familiar with ergonomics and fine and gross motor movements, but with voice interfaces the need for gross motor movements will be greatly decreased and remove the peril of injury from repetitive fine motor movement on mobile devices. Why type a message when I can dictate it? Now of course legacy apps won't have voice interfaces so the keyboard and the mouse aren't going to vanish anytime soon, but you will see these other forms of interface being used more and more and it is the power of the desktop which will enable it lead the way with these new interfaces.
Blake Not bad for no training for the voice interface.
People over in europe don't think the voice recognition is so great, they were saying the Arron Paul commercial would turn on their xbox, but it wouldn't turn on for them....
So the immediate future isn't voice recognition, or tracking your body movements. There's a reason people didn't want the damn kinect bundled with the xbox.
Buggy as hell. No better than Speech Recognition in XP or Vista. I couldn't find it via Search Programs and Files until AFTER I used the Control Panel to access it. Then the Tutorial crashed and crashed repeatedly and Microsoft is so supportive of Windows 8 that when I sent the info to them there was no response as to what might be the cause of the crash.
So, I skipped the tutorial and tried to train it. I went through FOUR training sessions. It appeared to understand better than in earlier versions of Windows as I did not have to repeat what was on the screen except about 3 times in 4 training sessions. But it scolded me when I set up the mike. I can't use headphones. So, I set up the standing mike I had used with earlier versions of Windows. It is not an expensive mike and I realize an expensive one supposedly would work better. I had to hold the mike at the same distance from my lips as with earlier versions of Windows so that has not improved. Even with a $100 mike I bet I still would have to be very close to it...THAT SUCKS and no improvement from earlier.
Anyhow, I finished 4 training sessions and then the dang control module wouldn't appear! This is so damn buggy that I had to go to Start and now, after I did it all through the control panel, I can type in speech recognition in that extremely tiny, very hard to read search bar and it came up where it didn't earlier. Unfortunately, the program is so buggy that it did not know that I had ALREADY DONE ALL SETUP AND TRAINING through the Control Panel access. IT MADE ME DO IT AGAIN. The kicker here is that Microsoft asked if I would send the training sounds and stuff, after I finished the 4 training sessions, to them and I sent it after looking to see what would be sent. But the damn Speech Recognition program that is accessed via Start menu apparently doesn't communicate with the same program in the Control Panel as it made me do everything all over again including the training and got mad when I declined the additional training sessions (since I did four already through the Control Panel access).
This is CRAP. Plus, I tried to get it to dictate in this window. It wouldn't. Just like it would not in earlier versions of Windows because I use Pale Moon, FX 24 ESR, Opera 12.17, SeaMonkey 2.26 but RARELY use IE. I guess Mozilla has never done anything other than talk about making Speech Recognition work in their browsers. So, what the hell good is this? I seldom use email and when I do it is Thunderbird, Opera or SeaMonkey mail clients. I use Open Office. This isn't going to work for any programs I use just as it never did in the past.
Speech Recognition is still junk. The other stuff you wax poetic about is NOT here NOW. I am talking about Windows 8 and NOW and this is all esoteric junk for now. Geez.
The first graph I posted »gs.statcounter.com/#desk ··· 7-201407 is world wide desktop OS and Linux tips in at 1.33% for July so a non player still on the desktop (6 years ago Linux on the desktop was at 0.85% so hey they have gone up half a percent since then)....
So if Linux really HAS only risen as little as suggested by the 1st graph, then what is the name of the OS on the 2nd graph, which has contributed to an obvious rise of the dashed line called 'Other' ?
I have extended the reporting period to the max for this :
So if Linux really HAS only risen as little as suggested by the 1st graph, then what is the name of the OS on the 2nd graph, which has contributed to an obvious rise of the dashed line called 'Other' ?
See Web apps suck as you can download the data in an excel spreadsheet which gives a more complete breakdown. This is for July 2014 and is a full breakdown of Desktop, Mobile, Tablet and console OS's.
Date Jul-14 Win7 36.46 Android 15.94 iOS 11.59 WinXP 10.34 MacOSX 5.66 Win8 5.01 Win8.1 4.81 WinVista 2.34 Series 40 2.02 Unknown 1.34 Linux 1.18 SymbianOS 0.69 Samsung 0.68 Windows Phone 0.64 BlackBerry OS 0.5 Nokia Unknown 0.15 Other 0.14 Chrome OS 0.12 Win2003 0.09 Playstation 0.08 Sony Ericsson 0.06 LG 0.05 bada 0.04 Win2000 0.02 Nintendo 0.02 Win98 0.01 WinME 0
'Other' rose from about 3% to around 12% during the period which I have chosen, a significant trend, I would say.
What OS drove that trend ?
It could be ANY OS that wasn't added to the database. Accessing the web using a "Smart TV" such as those from Samsung is becoming more popular. Also game consoles are getting better web access, such as XBOX One, PS4, etc, etc.
'Other' rose from about 3% to around 12% during the period which I have chosen, a significant trend, I would say.
What OS drove that trend ?
It could be ANY OS that wasn't added to the database. Accessing the web using a "Smart TV" such as those from Samsung is becoming more popular. Also game consoles are getting better web access, such as XBOX One, PS4, etc, etc.
So you can't say it is Linux.
And I didn't.
Note the question mark at the end of your quote of me.
But if the more detailed data can be accessed in a spreadsheet, as the poster above you said, then I will learn the answer.
