The two faces of Windows 8
by Volker Weber
Comments
Modern and ugly, old and ugly ;-)
I like your avatar on the top image better :-)
Wow, Metro is really ugly on a big screen. I'm still trying to figure out what's wrong with Windows 7. As far as I can tell, it's the best OS Microsoft has ever delivered. I need Windows 8 w/ Metro like that fish needs a bicycle...
The problem that Microsoft is trying to solve is called iPad.
i aggree also its ugly and its not going anywhere. Remember every other MS windows is crap.
Come on. I think that Metro style is the right approach to get into the tablet market. And don't forget the convergence of Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Lot's of potential.
Robert, some people in the Lotus community are obsessed with Microsoft. It's a bit like Apple and the Symbian community which you know all too well. ;-)
I consider Windows 8 Microsoft's Sojus 1.
But Volker is absolutely correct. So Microsoft will (have to) find a solution.
And its place in a world they didn't see coming in time.
having a large touchscreen monitor on my desk at home, I find the Metro interface is working very well. It wont replace a K+M configuration for me, but for simple navigation and stuff, it works well. I agree if you don't have a touchscreen it might not be the best solution. But before you judge it, try it with a touchscreen. It's very fluid.
I rather like Metro. It’s certainly more appealing than Android on mobile devices, and could do MS some favours. Now, if they can just see sense and get rid of that god-awful bloody browser…
I like Microsoft's current products, as a rule. We use most of them at work (and as most people know by now, increasingly less of IBM's). As a user, I love Windows 7, I like Outlook 2010, love Lync, am quite happy with SharePoint, and love Office 2010. Metro's just ugly as sin. It may be very usable - I can't comment on that because I don't have a Windows phone or a Windows tablet. It's certainly not going to make me look into getting one of those, either. Based on looks alone, Metro is the exception to my rule about MS products, that's all. And as we all know (where's Chris Blatnick?), (user) interface matters!
PS @Ben, I refuse to discuss TheBrowserWhichMustNotBeNamed...
Has anybody actually _tried_ IE10 on the Metro side of things? Or Win8 in general for that matter? What's the obsession with looks these days, or do you buy hammers based on looks? I would have thought a computer is still a tool while their activities still fully depend on what we do with it.
The screenshot doesn't do justice to the UI in so far as no accounts are set up, so there isn't any live tile action going on in e.g. Calendar, People, Weather. But then screenshots always have trouble showing interaction.
Well, I have been using the Developer preview up from day1 and now have installed the beta too. On my machine it works fast. The rest has already been said by Rob McDonagh although It might work better on touchscreen devices.
My 10 year old daughter likes the Metro UI (and be it for all the game icons that were in the Developer preview), me not so much.
Frank, yes, a computer is (to a certain extent) still a tool (definitely the one at work). But it's a more complex tool than a hammer so the user interface actually is an important factor in the buying decision. You wouldn't by hammer with nails sticking out of the handle, right? That would make using the hammer quite painful. Same with the computer, you want a computer the user interface of which makes your usage of the computer as smooth as possible. It's not about the looks of the user interface, it's about the usability of the user interface.
With Windows 8 the usability doesn't only depend on the interface. The user experience is more then ever driven by the connected services. And while hotmail, xbox, zune,... are all services from Microsoft, they weren't initially designed to work as one integrated service, in fact they are from different divisions inside Microsoft - and guess what: the integration sucks.
When you sign on for the first time you have to register multiple times. The location setting of your PC must match the region of the service/store you want to access, or the login will fail with some cryptic error. You better get the region right during sign on, because you can't change it later. So when you move in an other country you might want to keep a credit card from your old location to pay the bills. The use of Microsoft Points and real currency is inconsistent across the services and stores. etc.
There are rumors that Microsoft wants to iron out the edges, and they better do till the official launch.
