Thursday, June 16, 2011

Windows 8, is that a tablet OS??

Why Windows 8 Is Fundamentally Flawed as a Response to the iPad, Daring Fireball article.

But I think it’s a fundamentally flawed idea for Microsoft to build their next-generation OS and interface on top of the existing Windows. The idea is that you get the new stuff right alongside Windows as we know it. Microsoft is obviously trying to learn from Apple, but they clearly don’t understand why the iPad runs iOS, and not Mac OS X.
[...] Consider the differences between the iWork apps for the Mac and iPad. The iPad versions aren’t “touch friendly” versions of the Mac apps — they’re entirely new beasts designed and programmed from the ground up for the touchscreen and for the different rules and tradeoffs of the iOS interface (no explicit saving, no file system, ready to quit at a moment’s notice, no processing in the background, etc.).
The ability to run Mac OS X apps on the iPad, with full access to the file system, peripherals, etc., would make the iPad worse, not better. The iPad succeeds because it has eliminated complexity, not because it has covered up the complexity of the Mac with a touch-based “shell”.
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I think this is a good observation. Building Windows 3 and '95 originally as a shell on DOS gave Windows users a decade of constant headaches. And now Windows 8 may do the same for Win tablet users. You don't eliminate complexity by throwing a tarp over all the buttons.

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