Windoze 8

The news is now chock-full of CES happenings.

Two items caught my eye. One is a phone/tablet combo from Asus. It's made up of a phone plus an 8.something" touchscreen witha docking station. the idea is you dock the phone on the "big" screen and then use it as a tablet.

Not a bad notion, but it seems to me the battery will last a very short time, and the whole contraption might be too heavy to hold long or while lying down. adn what happens if you get a call while the phone is docked? I suppose the screen/dock might contian its own battery (makes sense). Anyway, I like the idea, but I would like ti better if it were wireless (I know, but maybe someday soon).

The other item is a host of Windows8.1/android dual boot PCs/laptops. Call it, with lack of all originality, Windroid (ta da!). The idea here seems to be what's driving down Windows 8(.1) is the alck of apps, ergo Android which has more and presumably better apps. A rather good, if opinionated, piece at Infoworld calls this idea the three-headed Frankenstein Monster (BTW, Frankenstein was the "scientist," not the monster, or even the Munster). I rather agre, even though i'd ahve chosen a more restrained term, such as "pointless."

Without rehashing, again, what really si wrong with Windows 8(.1), let's just say adding Android to the mix just makes the problemworse. Namely it adds yet another touch interface which can be only poorly be controlled with a mouse and keyboard, if at all, and adds another set of rules and controls to keep in mind.

That said, Lenovo debuted an Android all-in-one PC. This is not a Windroid hybrid, but pure Android rather. If it seems like a lousy idea, that's only because it is. And yet it may work because it's really cheap. Consider whatever the opposite of a power user is, and that's a rather big market. I mean people who do little with their PCs but browse the web, go on Facebook and send email, may find this ideal.

Or maybe not.

On minor news today it's been anounced MS will release Update 1 for Windows 8.1 soon. However, no one as yet quite knows what will be in it, or even whether something will be in it (it might be all under the hood). Of course lack of information never stopped anyone. So there's speculation of a "mini start menu," fixes for Sky Drive integration and some other things. I don't expect much of anything, really.

I'm much more hopeful regarding the rumors for the next version, which as yet no one knows whteher it will be 8.2 or 9. But sporadic news about it is good. for one thing there will be three versions of it: mobile, consumer and desktop (the names vary). A desktop version very likely won't be saddled with all the tablet limitations inherent in the bone-headed Windows 8(.1) design, such as flat themes, lock screens and other needless hardhisps.

I went to update my windows 8 to 8.1 and was notified that 3 of my apps arent compatible with 8.1. Guess I wont be updating.

Quote: boopsahoy

I went to update my windows 8 to 8.1 and was notified that 3 of my apps arent compatible with 8.1. Guess I wont be updating.

So much, I guess, for backwards compatibility...

Perhaps you can update the apps along with the OS? Just first check whether 1) it can be done and 2) how the updated apps will work. To this day I wish I had not upgraded to Office 2007 with the ribbon from hell.

There was some buzz yesterday concerning folders on a Nokia update to Windows Phone.

Wow, folders! What is this, the late 80s or something?

Seriously, one annoyance of Windows 8(.1) is the inability to have folders in the start screen or the all apps screen. Consider every single Windows release since there have been Windows releases (or at elast Windows 3.1) was capable of placing folders anywhere. Come on, there are start menu folders, file explorer folders, desktop folders, shortcut folders (and to folders), you could even pin a folder in the quick-launch icon area. It's beyond risible that Windows 8(.1) doens't ahbve them in the newfangled M/M/W interface at all.

It was so boneheaded a move, right there with removing the start menu, that I thought at first it was more pointless tablet emulation. imagine my surprise, then, when I found it was ridiculously easy to set up and use folders on Android.

Come one, Microsoft, WTF?

Oh, it turns out you cannot quite make or sue folders on Nokia's new Windows Phone update. Rather it's an app you get from the app store. You can't just drag and drop "tiles" into folders, either. And when you open a "folder" you get a list of what's inside.

I wonder how long it will be til it shows up in Windows 8.1. Fake folders just might compliment the fake start button.

What I want to know from Microsft is: WTF??

Rumors unanimously state Microsoft's "Threshold" project will become Windows 9 on PCs. Of course it's likely this is just one leak copied by many sources.

A more likely tidbit is that MS will announce Windows 9, if they go with that name, on its Build conference next Spring, to be released in the Fall of 2015.

I wouldn't call it Windows 9. See, version names were once very straightforward. This changed when MS released Windows 95 (not to mention it generated expectations of yearly versions), and again when they released Windows XP. And yet again with Windows 7. So either they keep the current trend, or they revert to a name rather than a number, or come up with something else entirely.

Considering XP retires this year and that it is probably the best liked Windows release ever (seriously, many people who use Win7 tell me they miss it), I'd go with a tribute and call it Windows Experience. But probably changing tracks again is a bad idea, and thus Windows 9 would be best. In the ned what matters is the OS itself and not its name. Yet marketing does play a role. Windows 8(.1) has gotten a very bad reputation. As bad as Vista's if not worse. If the new release is called Windows 8.2, or Windows 8 New Edition, or NEW AND IMPROVED WINDOWS 8!! it will bomb.

Perhaps, then Windows 9 will erase the stigma of Win8(.1)

I think I said this before, but it's worth repeating. Every OS has two parts: the code and the interface. The code is how it works, the interface is how it's used. of course they're related, but what really matters here is how people sue their PCs, not how they are made.

So, in this case the code refers to how fast/slow an OS is, how it slows down over time (they all do), how reliable and stable it is (does it lose files, crash often, gets stuck, takes too long to boot, etc). The interface refers to the controls available to the user (how programs are run and shut down, how one can move files or information between programs and/or utilities, how one searches, how files/programs are organized, etc).

Windows 8 is the best code, in this sense, that MS has ever released. But Windows 8 is also the worst interface MS has ever released. And unfortunately these two parts do not average out into "mediocre," but rahter the interface drags the whole thing down into "bad."

See, while many, if not all, OSes become irritants over time because they slow down to much, ro crash more often, or freeze more often, and so on, that was always a problem with the code. An OS that is an irritant at the outset because fo the interface has no chance at all.

Perhaps Win8 can replace New Coke as the standard by which all major industry disasters are measured. But that will be its sole claim to fame, or rather to infamy.

Now the talk has shifted to whether Windows 9 (let's call it that for now) will "save" Windows, or Microsoft.

That's a tall order, not to mention that "save" is a very vague term. MS is making lots of money still, even if one of its core businesses is declining. Also other core businesses, such as Office, get ambiguous reports. You're as likely to read Office 365 is as smash as that it is a dud; all without much data or evidence to back up such claims.

But we can do some thinking.

The market in "personal computing devices" is tending towards tablets and smart phones. Or rather people are buying more tablets and phones, and less PCs and laptops. This makes a great deal of sense in the "consumer" market. In business it's likely people have been buying tablets and putting off upgrading their PCs. Curiously this year I did both. oh, well.

The idea behind Windows 8 was to integrate the new interface paradigm designed or optimized for the tablet/phone form facor (there, aren't I trendy?) to the old desktop interface, perhaps (I say certainly) with a view to eliminate the desktop altogether later.

This seems to amke sense. after all, don't people prefer tablets and phones to PCs?

Well, not necessarily. Even though sales were down 10% last year, this still means over 300 million (repeat three hundred million) PCs, including desktops and laptops, were sold in 2013. Hardlya dead market.

Products do die. But the death process takes time and can be very long and drawn out. You don't see people buying whale oil for lamps, but their immediate successor, kerosene lamps, are still alive. Surprised? You won't find kerosene lamps in homes or offices, but they are a staple for campers still, though there are other alternatives now. THat's cutting-edge XIX Century technology still in use today (wuth many improvements).

If you look around your work palce, you'll see lots of people using tablets for some work. But I'm willing to bet most of these people still also use a PC, and perhaps mostly use a PC with the tablet a useful adjunct.

At home things are different. I myself use my tablet a thome mostly for games (Candy Crush), reading ebooks and for streaming Netflix. Sometimes I browse Pinterest on it. once or twice, when I get home too late, I sue it instead of the PC to browse Facebook and the web. Then it makes for a poor substitute. I might do well enough with a 10" tablet, though. so I can see it repalcing the PC in that sense. But then I also write, sometimes do work-related stuff, and then I need a full PC. And there are PC games still not replicated in tablet form.

More to come

Rather than rehash the differences between tablets and PCs and why the tablet interface is no good on the desktop, let's instead dissect Microsoft's most important misstep with Windows 8: crippling the desktop.

To begin with it's not just a matter of the missing start menu, though that is central. Take the alternatives, which are largely, as far as running programs goes, pinning icons to the taskbar and using the start screen.

Before Windows 8, about as many people used WinXP as Win7. In the former icons are not pinned ot the taskbar. And judging from about 70 PCs with Win7 I've seen here and there at the office and elsewhere int he company, most people pin absolutely nothing to the taskbar at all. Mind, they don't unpin the four icons that come pinned out fo the box either. It's as though they either don't know about it, or don't care. Either way, it points to the taskbar as program launcher being a rarely-used feature.

The start screen has its points, and perhaps if you have lots of programs installed and run them often it's a better deal than the start menu, but it lacks options. For one thing there are no folders in the start screen. For another, as seen with the taskbar example, few people bother to customize it (note how many people, too, keep the My PC, Trash and My Documents icons on the desktop even if they never use them). So pretty much the start screen ends up displaying 1) whatever was on it when the PC was made and 2) whatever programs get installed following in a linear progression. The end result si that programs become hard to find, are not organized and follo no particular order.

So you switch the all-apps view, right? Well, you can try. but then programs are ordered only in specific preset ways and cannot be moved around at all. So Excel and a game starting with E, for example, might be placed alongside each other, but Word will be elsewhere. If you go by last used, then perhaps similar apps will be together, but perhaps not. This would vary by user.

What's left is search. Unfortunately without a start menu search box, most people won't even know search exists. They'd have to bring up the hidden charms bar, if they remember it exists, and then the thing will search everywhere (literally). So if you type, say, "Word" it will surely bring up your Word program, but also anythign in the web related to Word. Or they can use the keybaors shortcut (on a graphical interface) with the same results.

This without even a mention of the incongrous desktop styling, the mandatory log-in, the lock screen and other irritants.

But you can see how some users may feel pushed away from the desktop and into the Metro/Modern/Whatever interface. And how do you suppose that makes them feel?

Oh, one more thing about the start screen. In Windows 8 you couldn't ahve the same background in the M/M/W interface adn the desktop. So trying to run a program felt like having to step out of the room and into another just to run something. Win8.1 corrected this, but rather than voerlay the start screen or all-apps tiles over the desktop, it repalces the desktop with the tiles. This also feels like you're stepping out elsewhere. And this is also disconcerting.

More to come.

Being thrown out of a familiar environment and into an unfamiliar one is frustrating. More so when the new one works in an entirely different way and, crucially, there are no instructions, no tutorial, no help of any kind at all. This changed for Win8.1, but again not enough (though the final release promised a tutorial).

The end result is that one feels ill-disposed towards the new environment. Some people have the tolerance and patience to explore it and to look for help online. Others don't. I dare say most poeple don't. After all, whether for leisure or work, one wants one computer to work, not to go on a lengthy process of learning how to make it work. Therefore people using laptop and dekstop PCs wind up very much not liking the M/M/W.

Some no doubt upgraded then to Win7. Some installed third-party start menu replacements. And many, many people simply refused to get a PC running Windows 8 at all.

All this, I say again, because of the changes to the desktop.

Now imagine if the desktop had been left alone, with the full Aero Glass theme options (including full control of transparency in the taskbar and windows), and the start menu as well. And then MS had placed a prominent desktop icon, or notification, or something else, perhaps a self-running tutorial, carefully epxlainign the M/M/W side and telling you all you need to know about it.

At the very least people would have been curious about the new interface. They may not use it, but they wouldn't hate it. And having a full-featured desktop there would have been no objections to obtaining Windows 8 at all. Had then MS followed up by pointing out the M/M/W "apps" could also be run on Windows 8 tablets, well, that might have spurred sales of the Surface line. it certainly couldn't have made things worse.

Some may object about all this being hindsight. I'll admit to some of it. But I should point out antoher thing: New Coke. That was the object lesson on what happens when one changes completely a popular brand. Also on the fact that people appreciate having choices, not having choices taken away from them.

So, now we can begin to answer the question: will Windows 9 save Microsoft?

Maybe. A restored desktop, including a start menu, will help a lot. PC sales may not jump or even recover, but lots of people would upgrade to the new OS if it offers any improvement over Win7 and has a better or as good desktop user experience.

But the M/M/W side of Windows may just be dead beyond hope.

This is too good:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/20/5326844/hp-brings-back-windows-7-by-popular-demand

Not that I need it, but it's nice to feel the validation. That is, I'm not the only person in the universe who would rather forego all the under-the-hood improvements of Win8 in favor of an operating system that actually lets me operate the PC.