It’s 2am here (edit: I’m done writing, it’s 2:38am now), and I really ought to be sleeping right about now, but for some stupid arbitrary reason, the D9 conference is held at honestly irresponsible hours for us Europeans (and we rock, damnit). So, here I am, MacBook Air on my lap, camomile tea (the Empress of Teas) in my cup, because Microsoft just had to show Windows 8’s new interface for the first time at this ungodly hour. Oh, and they unveiled some more interesting stuff about Windows 8. Update: The videos from D9 are up. Mossberg talking to Steve Sinofsky, and the Windows 8 demonstration by Larson-Green.
When the first bits of information came out about Windows 8 having an additional user interface just for tablets, inspired by Windows Phone 7, I always assumed we’d be seeing a separate, tablet-oriented version of Windows NT for both ARM and x86. Today though, Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky, and the ever awesome Julie-Larson Green unveiled that there will be one version of Windows, and it’ll have both the new tablet interface, as well as the classic Windows interface just for those applications that need it. However, the tablet user interface is not a mere layer – it’s all a bit… Weird, really.
Look at this video of it, and you’ll understand. Look what happens when they show Microsoft Office. Other things to look out for: how it handles multitasking. I have to say – pretty damn awesome.
As you can see, the old Windows desktop kind of becomes part of the classic application, integrated into what I would reluctantly call its ‘window’. It’s kind of odd and jarring, but at the same time, I kind of get the idea that Microsoft is pulling a UAC on third party developers – UAC was designed to be annoying so that application developers would clean up their code. This jarring classic application handling? The exact same thing. Do you really want your application to be labelled as ‘classic’ and look like that?
Sinofsky was also asked if OEMs could forgo the classic interface altogether, and the answer was – “just don’t use any desktop applications”. My understanding is that Windows 8 is taking the first steps towards obsoleting the current Windows start menu/etc. paradigm. In these demos, it’s already something that’s relegated to classic applications alone; it doesn’t seem to be possible to ‘minimise’ the new UI and reveal the classic desktop, nor does it seem to be possible to call up the classic desktop as an application. It looks like it’s part of classic applications.
Interestingly, the new interface, and its applications, are touch-optimised (clearly), but they work equally well with a keyboard and mouse, according to Microsoft. Being a Windows Phone 7 user myself, and a devout admirer of Metro, this new interface jiggles in all the right places, but I do doubt this whole talk of ‘optimised for touch, works equally well with mouse and keyboard’. Of course, this user interface is spearheaded by Larson-Green (the driving force behind Office 2007 and Windows 7’s user interfaces, and thus, the best thing to have happened to Microsoft since, well, forever), but still.
The new interface comes with a whole boatload of new APIs, and makes heavy use of standard HTML5 and JavaScript, using Internet Explorer 10 which is built right into Windows 8. I’m curious what this is going to mean for other browsers – assuming this is indeed standard HTML5 and JavaScript, can I kick IE10 off Windows 8, and run these new applications in, say, WebKit?
As far as system requirements go, Sinofsky stated that Windows 8 will, once again, lower the system requirements compared to the previous version. Windows 7 was already lighter than Vista, and now Windows 8 will be lighter than Windows 7. I tip my hat to Microsoft for that one – but at the same time, they didn’t really have a choice here since it’ll have to run on tablets and other constrained devices.
Another question: what about a transition path from Windows x86 to Windows ARM? Well – there isn’t one. No virtualisation or other compatibility layers. You’ll just have to suck it. This gets a big thumbs up from me.
That’s about everything I could gather from the Engadget liveblog. Sinfosky did talk about Windows NT, but not being interested in the nitty gritty like we are, Engadget skipped over it (bad Engadget! Bad Engadget!). Hopefully that part will be shown in videos on the D9 website over the coming days.
Now, bed. Bye!
lol, there’s no such thing as Standard HTML5 as HTML5 isn’t a standard yet … unless that changed in the last few months?
Well… You know. They are “native HTML5”.(www.arewenativeyet.com and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=649408)
People at Microsoft sometimes blabber out such nonsense.
This is hilarious. Thanks for the link.
Looks like a tiling window manager imo.
I thought the exact same thing and that’s really interesting.
I’m usually not a big fan of Microsoft, but I really like the graphic design of this new interface (I liked the Window Phone 7 design as well). It’s just gorgeous and way better than OSX or anything I’ve seen on Linux.
I’m a bit more skeptical about the “works well with mouse” stuff. Doing drag and other touch-like gestures with a mouse is possible but painful, so I’d like to see what they’ll come up with there.
So I would say it looks like a nice tablet UI to me. Not so sure if the whole tablet-desktop-same-os is a good idea though.
I was kind of thinking that, but I believe this is a truly new twist on multiple desktops instead.
All of those “tile” applications are actually running maximized (full screen). You can see it in the video when Excel is running: You have an entire normal Windows desktop with a maximized Excel and a task bar plus a floating window. Another “desktop” is dragged in and a frame is created to contain it, the application running on that desktop resizing to fit automatically.
If such frames are dynamically creatable and can be put anywhere (top, bottom, left, right) and further subdivided and if you can put either individual windows or whole desktops in to them, then I think you’ve really got something.
I think you’d also have to add focus-follows-mouse, at least at the frame level. Once inside a frame there may or may not be floating, overlapping windows. if there are you’d want to revert to the classic windows focus model while the pointer remains in the frame.
I like that you can tile and untile windows, resize the tile area and create new layouts all without editing any config files or remembering any keybindings. This is good.
Looks more like they’ve put the final nail in windowing’s coffin and embedded two full-screen apps into a paned widget.
I know MS want to be Apple and everything but do they really have to limit your options so severely?
It looks so refined and well thought out. And so fluid for an Atom based UI. I can’t wait for the BETA.
I am truly impressed.
Now just need to see what Steve is preparing.
BTW: There’s an HTML5 video stream.
Edited 2011-06-02 01:42 UTC
So they’re just slapping Windows Phone 7 interface on top of Windows 7 without any integration, just moving win7 into a separate “window”, and also screwing their developers who invested in .net and silverlight for their previous platforms? Good move.
No not really. They would have to write a live tile portion to their program that is about it.
If Microsoft makes a .net runtime for ARM there is no reason why .NET apps won’t just work unless of course they call some native Win32 code that might not exist on the ARM version of Windows.
Same story with Silverlight. I swear people don’t know how a virtual machine or anything works anymore.
It might help if we appraised ourself of what .Net actually is. It is a wrapper around the Win32/64 API. That’s it. That’s very x86 specific, and let’s be honest, it was what kept developers on Windows on a specific platform. It is all native code underneath, although heavily wrapped.
You simply aren’t going to get a complete .Net runtime for the Arm platform because you’ll have to port the Win API. Not going to happen.
They’re not virtualising anything and this has nothing to do with virtualisation.
Edited 2011-06-02 16:54 UTC
Eh? Win32 was written for MIPS/x86/Alpha/PowerPC (in that order I think). Very little x86 specific.
It will be at least as complete as anything Mono can accomplish. Plus, it will have access to the Windows API, it’s Windows!
CLR is a Virtual Machine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Language_Runtime
It’s not machine virtualization in the sense of virtualizing hardware, but a virtual machine in the same manner as the Java virtual machine. All very detached from x86 and portable to ARM.
It’s not that it could never be done but there is a heck of a lot that is specific to the x86 architecture because it simply has to know a lot about the processor. It’s why Wine hasn’t managed it, and they’d then need an emulator to be effective. It’s been made clear there will be no emulation in the Arm version of Windows. It’s also a monumental effort to support on a different architecture for the benefit of third party programmers – compiler, tool support etc. etc.
As it was, Microsoft just simply couldn’t support a complete version of Windows on multiple architectures and it’s doubtful that the Arm version of Windows will be.
As complete as Mono isn’t anywhere near good enough, and I very much doubt developers will have access to the Windows API in whatever form it is in. Microsoft will have to re-implement the underlying framework – and make sure it works exactly in the same way as other versions of .Net on x86.
When that depends on a lot of native code implementations you’d be hard pushed to call it that.
Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself. No .NET programmability = no go for the touch platform.
Suppose you’re writing a touch application that needed to scan a bar code. For example, a sales application or a comparison-shopping application or an inventory application. Are you really going to decode that bar code in Javascript?
Ars Technica reports: “I’m told by insiders that HTML5 and JavaScript won’t be the only option, and that existing applications (native, Silverlight, and WPF) will be migratable in some way, but specifics are still lacking at this time.” http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/06/microsoft-gives-the-f…
Microsoft had better get a .NET story out, and *quickly*. Because developers are already hopping mad:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/A-quick-look-at-Windows-8
http://forums.silverlight.net/forums/p/230502/562083.aspx
Edited 2011-06-02 06:20 UTC
The basic design is quite interesting. They’ve basically taken the tile idea and metro UI design from WP7, have added tiling, and have put some gestures for multitasking and other stuff.
Now, there are some issues.
First problem is that even if they call it Windows 8, this thing is compatible with nothing. Usual Windows software looks out of place. Windows Phone 7 software would look out of place too. It’s as if Microsoft created a third OS from a developer’s point of view, even though from a technical point of view it obviously shares a lot of stuff with the two others.
Second problem is the gestures. They are not very discoverable (e.g. How is an user supposed to figure out about the tiling functionality ? How to quickly get out of an app ?). They don’t work well with a mouse and a keyboard. They imply lots of dragging, which is far slower than pointing and clicking.
I like the split keyboard idea a lot, also, but I don’t think these small keys are going to work well on a touchscreen.
Also, something that is not mentioned at all in the video is the question of how well tiles scales when lots of software is installed. Tiles are large, and take up a lot of room. On Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s answer is to only put preferred user software in tiles and put the rest in a large list. No hierarchy, so that list is going to become crowded fairly quickly, but still slower than with a pure tile-based system. Now, it looks like this time around, they want tiles to be the sole launcher mechanism. My question is : how many installed software does it take before the home screen becomes so crowded that it’s impossible to find something on it ?
Edited 2011-06-02 06:51 UTC
“Second problem is the gestures. They are not very discoverable”
That is exactly my problem with most of these touch interfaces.
They make all the icons and so on really big, easy to touch and so on.
But when you want to get some work done, you have no idea how to switch between them or how to kill an application or whatever.
If you as a developer are making an evaluation based on a few demos at a consumer orientated technology show then quite frankly you should close up your company and find employment else where – it is people like that who make the IT industry as crappy as it is with the half baked software and hardware that is released on a near constant basis.
When the developer orientated conference starts in the next few months with the beta released – and all the details are disclosed, then you’re more than welcome to rip Microsoft a new one but until then, sit back, take a deep breath, put on a Cat Stevens cd, enjoy a cup of tea and chill out.
The point is that it won’t be inconsistent next to every other technology preview they’ve done. Microsoft are saying they’re using standard or ‘native’ HTML5 and that’s what they’re going to be using. It was the same with .Net ten years ago and it’s the same now.
I don’t get this usual whine of waiting for more details when they very, very clearly stated in the video ‘standard HTML5’. It’s very specific.
Well, it will support .NET because it’s windows, and windows runs .NET. Run your app full screen, make sure the UI is touch friendly, and there you go.
There might be some small integration required to make the app aware of the new shell, but I am sure that would be relatively trivial. They aren’t going to force everything that’s not HTML5/JS to run in a Win 7 like desktop box.
Yep. I love how that guy on the forum naively calls Silverlight ‘cross-platform’, as if that will save him from the inevitable developer nightmare that is coming.
The reason why they’ve gone all HTML5 and JavaScript of course is because they are nowhere in the mobile developer space. They simply can’t persuade people to use Silverlight, .Net and to jump on the developer upgrade treadmill that is Visual Studio and they also need to persuade developers to port existing code and applications from iOS or the iPhone to Windows.
They did it ten years ago with that whole VB/VB.Net debacle, they did it with Winforms and WPF, they did it with WPF and Silverlight and they have no qualms about doing it again. One can only hope that people buying completely into what Microsoft produces will learn one of these days. Anyone who invested heavily in Vista and 7 only applications with the platform they chose are going to be screwed, but, they deserve it.
Edited 2011-06-02 16:56 UTC
I remember a time when things were clearly labeled. When you knew what was clickable an what was aesthetics.
These constant switches in application interaction – from the ribbon bar to tiled touch interfaces – are just confusing for users.
I’m all for testing and moving towards new paradigms of graphical user interfaces, but at some point someone needs to tell Redmond that a little consistency is long over due.
Also, has anyone else noticed how Windows is becoming more like LCARS (Star Trek’s ship computers)? hehe
That’s the most insightful thing written here. Most people never get this stuff though.
This has got to be the UI they are going to use for the tablets….and/or the Screen saver for the desktop/laptop version… I don’t see how that design can be close to productive for standard computing.
Exactly…
It reminds me of HP’s iMac wannabe touch screen computers, that had this rather nice looking, touch enabled UI – right until the point when you had to get any ‘real’ work done, and you were back to good old Windows …
So touch based or not; I don’t buy this duality as being a viable and efficient interface concept … -Sorry, Redmond!
I’m still taking the wait and see approach before giving them accolades for reimagining their key product. But it sound pretty neat. I’m sure there may be some nasty legacy surprises when it actually launches though.
I’m don’t like the Win7 compatibility mode. I already know it won’t work on ARM and will feel out of place on “touch devices”. Really it’s just Windows Phone 7 with Windows Home Edition compatibility re-branded as Windows 8.
Note that I’m still feeling bitter from my WinXP purchase.
Is Microsoft smoking crack? Someone there is if they think this UI is going to fly on a desktop or laptop that is used for anything more than checking email, reading news and looking at pictures. At first I thought I was misunderstanding that this new tile based UI is to be the primary windows 8 interface but then I read it again on ars. I can’t speak for anyone but myself but this is seriously disappointing as I have no plans to replace my “real computers” with a toy like a tablet. Don’t get me wrong, I think tablets are neat but that’s as far as it goes and this notion that the interface shown in that video is going to be my primary interface on my workstations and laptops is absurd.
— edit —
Ars stated it well: Windows 8 with a Windows 7 ghetto.
Edited 2011-06-02 02:15 UTC
I don’t agree with that last bit. Windows 8 is Windows 7 with another window manager running on top. It is probably an executable that people will hack out of it and run on Windows 7 for fun. It will be listed here with all the other optional, homeless creatures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_shell_replacement
Well, as long as they have the classic interface and I can turn off the bullshit, I’m not going to bitch too much. Some folks would accuse us of not adapting to change… well, I’m all for change as long as it’s a change for the better. What I am NOT for are these OS vendors’ constant attempts to stupify their products so Joe Sixpack doesn’t feel lost, while power users get left out in the cold, time after time.
Same thoughts here. 99% of my computer time is spent doing algorithm development, most of it (~90%) for win, (c++ and some java, no .net thankyouverymuch), small portion (~10%) for linux (c++). If win will turn into crackpot ui and push towards web-only-apps, and the 90%/10% above will swap overnight without looking back. Just a note, I notice more and more people going “back” to [or picking] linux for algo. dev. recently (I mean more than before), and I like it. Important thing is, that we still have OSes that can be used for decent dev.
Yes, of course, if your app runs in command line/terminal and you like to write code in text editors and you like to compile from command line.
Ye Gods! Writing code in a text editor? Lets get the bastard before he does unpleasant things with our children!
So their new strategy is what? To lock everyone into IE only Web apps and Silverlight? After all, if Microsoft itself is trying to phase out traditional desktop application, that kind of leaves it open for people to easily switch to another platform.
I view this as a more modest conservative approach: They aren’t removing the standard windows UI and if you just use it and apps written for it you won’t even notice most of the new stuff. However, if you choose to use apps written for the new system you get the demoed UI and it will work better for tables and phones.
I’m not sure it will work as a strategy but I don’t think MS is seriously considering deprecating traditional apps or the traditional UI.
Yeah, just imagine when you watch pr0n on your 22″ touch screen monitor and you use your fingers to pause/play, go forward and backward. It’s going to be a dream.
Too bad there aren’t too many 22″ touch screen monitors out there and people still keyboard and mouse.
I can just imagine how nice will be to run Visual Studio on this new UI or using touch screen for typing a 20+ pages word document.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting to use the touchscreen for typing a 20+ page document.
this is a ditsy user interface. but with all the GUI upheaval (everything everywhere is changing) we can’t say with confidence if it’ll work or not, or even if they’re on the right track or not.
to me it feels like an improvement on the iphone ios. I see the roots and inspiration of this GUI in Apple products, not Microsoft ones.
are you kidding me? The Metro UI is no where close to what apple has. Microsoft has combined the usefulness of widgets and the functionality of launchers into a single UI and you think it looks like the iOS UI?
Widgets combined with launchers is exactly what you have in iOS, which inherits the concept from the OS X Dock, which again is a slightly more modern version of the NeXTstep Dock from 1988.
But the Apple version has not evolved from its origin of being sized like an icon. So the usefulness of the widget is very limited, and most apps don’t make use of it at all.
Sizing the launchers up to more widget-like sizes gives a much better result. Apps are more likely to actually make them more than a mere icon, and it also means that web bookmarks can be presented as thumbnails and fit into the same mosaic. I like.
looks at iOS on iPhone… hmm… not a single widgit.
You have never used an iOS device… have you.
I think what he says is that the iOS API allows software to alter its icon, in a widget-ish way, even though in practice the icon is so small that it is nearly useless, save for the little colored numbers of push notifications.
Yes, exactly. And the point was that the combination widget/launcher is not new, but Microsoft greatly improved on it by making the tiles bigger.
There is one app on iOS that makes real use of this btw – the calendar shows the current date in the icon.
The WindowMaker community has managed to come up with hundreds of ways to fit actual functionality into the tiny dock tiles [1]. Similar ones existed for NeXTstep way before that, but not in such great numbers.
[1] http://www.dockapps.org
Too much swiping over too great distances, whether with mouse or finger. It’s different, though, I’ll give them that. And I too applaud them for making it lighter weight; there was really no excuse for Vista’s (or 7’s, for that matter) bloat.
As for the x86 vs. ARM thing: I’m most certainly _not_ going to “suck it” if I have to purchase a new license for an app (or Windows 8 itself) because I decide to move it from an ARM-powered PC to an x86 one, or vice versa.
7 has bloat?
where?
This is bloat in my opinion:
Illogical menus and crappy GUI
The need for running antivirus
The need for running antispywere
The need for running ccleaner or related progams
Windows run a lot of bloat processes
Endless reboots and windows upate
Design flaw having every program running its updaters
Aero is bloat
Registry is bloat
and much more.. and much more bloat to come im sure :p
No way Im changing bash terminal and awesomewm with this crap.
Awesome = real tiling window manager
Bash terminal = best file manager out there by far.
Only geeks know this though..
Casual users will sure take the bait and buy this shining new status symbol..
Yeah brother! I have to agree on that. Who needs proprietary crap when one can have a free GNU/Lunix stack?
Who needs Photoshop and MS Office when we can run the completely free Gimp and Emacs? And Gimp and Emacs are much better and faster than ugly Photoshop and Office.
Running programs from terminal is pure awesomeness. Just think of lynx (powerful web browser), Mutt (powerful email client) and Vim (powerful text editor).
And writing powerful BASH scripts is insane, it’s like an orgasm!
I’m glad that you are here and using Gnu/Lunix, bro, that means there are still some true FOSS believers, that means not all people sold their souls to proprietary pigs.
Actually, on any of my Linux systems, if I wish to do editing/enhancement/management of digital photos, I run digikam.
http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/reviews/digikam-2-0-beta-review/
http://www.digikam.org/drupal/about/features9x
If I wish to do raster graphics composition (painting) I run Krita
http://www.calligra-suite.org/krita/
The web browsers I typically use are Firefox 4 and Google Chrome.
If I want to use an Office suite, I run LibreOffice
http://www.libreoffice.org/features/
If I want to do plain text editing, I run Kate
http://www.kde.org/applications/utilities/kate/
For file management, I use Dolphin:
http://www.kde.org/applications/system/dolphin/
This set of free (both as in liberty and as in zero cost) GUI desktop application is paradoxically far better than what is available to me on any Windows desktop I am obliged to use from time to time. In addition, on a Linux system, I also enjoy a far better CLI environment if I wish to use that. Best of both worlds, for free.
Edited 2011-06-02 13:00 UTC
He was taking the piss.
Anyway, this …
is a matter of opinion … one I and I sure other will disagree on. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
Again a matter of opinion … Powershell has the ability to deal with objects and leverage the power of the .NET platform.
If you are talking about cmd.exe … well you are quite out of date … since Powershell is included with Vista and 7 in the default install.
Edited 2011-06-02 14:18 UTC
Minor correction: Powershell is included in Vista SP1 or above.
I was stupefied that they didn’t include it and .net framework in Vista RTM.
It was those two things that really caused me to separate myself from the whole windows development environment. .Net framework should have been included in Windows XP.
Powershell is great, but its about the whole of the cli environment not just the shell itself. Unix has a more mature set of tools, and many popular applications for the platform are written with a cli interface as well.
Fair point (just checked Wikipedia you are right), I started using Vista after the first service pack, so I just assumed it came with it .. since I saw it on first boot when looking through what was included with my Business Edition I got through MSDNAA.
Again Fair point … The only thing is that they might as seen powershell as a developer/admin/power user thing and left it out of the default install and assumed that users that really wanted it would download anyway. But I do agree it certainly wouldn’t have hurt to have put it in, even as a optional OS component.
A lot of it is personal preference … I do like some of the unix tools don’t get me wrong. I have a Sun Blade 100 sitting next to my feet running OpenBSD …
But I really don’t like mucking about with piping text all over the place … I prefer working with Objects, whether that is JSON, POCOs or XML … it just easier IMO (if done right as with many things) to work with.
Also Powershell’s syntax is not dissimilar to C# so the learning curve for me is gentler.
I am fairly familiar with unix like CLIs since I been working with various Unix like systems since IRIX at University, I just prefer Microsoft tools … I use them quite a lot at work … so it maybe just familiarity.
As many things with using a computer … you need to use the right tech for the job and there is no one-size fits all solution.
Edited 2011-06-02 17:50 UTC
The problem with not including Powershell by default is that every (non vista SP1 or previous) computer I came to do any kind of work is not guaranteed to have it. Which means that I would have to spend time downloading and installing it just to do basic cli tasks on a friends computer. If the problem itself is related to network access, than I was SOL for a cli that wasn’t dos.
So basically I stuck to cygwin. I just carry around an install on a usb keychain that’s easily copied or even ran just from the keychain. Much easier.
… and sometimes one gets an expensive bare-bones OS that is plagued with malware written to compromise it, saddled with ancient legacy encumberances, illogical, inconsistent eclectic GUI, un-auditable, having next-to-usless lack-of-management of application installations (actively increasing the effectiveness of attack vectors such as trojans and phising), includes anti-features, has generally very expensive applications, and perhaps worst of all, one which carries a legal risk of attracting a lawsuit through one’s mere use of it.
Yes, that horrible, horrible OS sucks big time. Everybody should see the light and switch to GNU/Lunix and enjoy the power and freedom of CLI, BASH and Emacs. Until is too late.
Most people aren’t confident enough to install Linux for themselves. In order to enjoy Linux, they would need to be able to buy a Linux machine, with a recent full-desktop distribution pre-installed, in brick-and-mortar stores. They would probably need to see Linux running on a machine in the store, side-by-side with the exact same machine running Windows, both as installed by and guaranteed by the the OEM, in order to be able to compare apples-with-apples what they would get in each deal.
Perhaps ordinary people might be given that very opportunity one day soon:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2075819/asus-preload-ubunt…
“When asked why Asus chose Ubuntu over other Linux distributions, Kenyon said there are many reasons contributing to the marketability of Ubuntu. “There are a number of factors that make Ubuntu an attractive proposition for ASUS and its customers. Ubuntu continues to set the standard for slick design, ease of use and security, it is the world’s third most popular operating system, and [it] has the most number of users in Linux. We [Canonical] were looking at publicly available data on the operating systems accessing Wikipedia last week and found the web site serves more pages to Ubuntu PCs than to the Ipads – there are a lot of users out there.”
Edited 2011-06-03 03:46 UTC
And when the update Ubuntu, try to connect their iPod, or Web cam or anything that isn’t generic hardware … Somethign won’t work and they won’t know why and then the user is stuck with a computer that doesn’t do what they want it to do.
Edited 2011-06-03 10:30 UTC
Where did you get this notion from?
http://www.libimobiledevice.org/
“Tested with iPod Touch 1G/2G/3G/4G, iPhone 1G/2G/3G/3GS/4, iPad 1/2 and Apple TV running up to firmware 4.3.1 on Linux (and Mac OS X and Windows)”
http://www.clementine-player.org/
“Copy music to your iPod, iPhone, MTP or mass-storage USB player.”
http://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/178621-do-the-bansh…
http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/
http://www.quickcamteam.net/devices
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UVC
Most webcams these days are found in the lid (above the LCD screen) of netbooks, laptops, tablets or mobile phones. Any machine with a webcam and with Linux pre-installed will absolutely work with the webcam.
If an OEM makes a webcam that doesn’t support Linux, that OEM is not going to be able to sell that webcam to up to half of the machines in the market for including a webcam!
Get with the program!
Edited 2011-06-03 11:12 UTC
And when they release the next iDevice it will break again, same thing will happen if you are using any 3rd party program to sync with your iDevice.
[q] Most webcams these days are found in the lid (above the LCD screen) of netbooks, laptops, tablets or mobile phones. Any machine with a webcam and with Linux pre-installed will absolutely work with the webcam.
If an OEM makes a webcam that doesn’t support Linux, that OEM is not going to be able to sell that webcam to up to half of the machines in the market for including a webcam!/q]
Fair point … but I suspect when the kernel gets updated again all the drivers will break unless they
are in the mainline kernel and we don’t know that.
Linux has more drivers, and works with more hardware, than any other OS. By a very, very long way.
Furthermore, Linux itself is in control of the source code for its drivers. This means that hardware OEMs no longer have the ability to say “our stuff only works with such and such” … or to say “that model is no longer supported” … to try to force people into buying certain hardware or software.
Linux can be, and has been, easily ported to new platforms and architectures. This prevents the existing cartel of companies from being able to exclude new platforms and architectures.
Furthermore, OEMs who are making new platforms and architectures are fully aware of how important Linux is:
http://linux-foundation.org/weblogs/press/2009/09/14/arm-joins-the-…
Ten billion ARM processors is not to be sneezed at. Deal with it.
Edited 2011-06-03 12:19 UTC
That is true, but most easy Linux distros don’t work on “lower end systems” very well … so people’s hardware may continue to work … but the rest of the system will have significant performance problems.
All the modern popular DEs have quite steep hardware requirements to run well.
Not all those ten billion arm processors are running Linux … they can … but I suspect a large amount of them are running other operating systems such as iOS, Symbian, Blackberry OS etc.
I don’t doubt that Linux is very successful on embedded systems and servers, However it is not successful on notebooks and desktops which was the original point of the conversation and what I originally commented on.
So when you argument fails, change the original subject to something that fits with your argument …
You are pathetic.
Edited 2011-06-03 12:39 UTC
Sigh! The point is simple … Linux works absolutely fine on anything that is designed to work with Linux (hence the reference to embedded and supercomputers), and it also works very well indeed on proprietary hardware that is designed to try to keep it out (i.e. some parts of the Wintel desktop hegemony)!
As I said, and as you keep ignoring:
(1) Linux has no trouble at all where the machine is designed to run it … any machine that comes with Linux pre-installed will have zero trouble. You would get more trouble with Windows on machines that are deigned to run Windows.
(2) Even where there have been deliberate attempts to try to keep Linux from running well (e.g. graphics cards for Windows machines, ACPI for Windows machines, iDevices, some wireless manufacturers until recently) it still runs well.
(3) Any Windows hardware that is older than the release date of the last version of Windows will run Linux better than the current version of Windows.
In fact, when you boil it right down, Linux runs better on the vast majority of hardware (even most Windows desktop hardware). The point remains … the vast majority of people would be better off running Linux.
I am fully aware that you do not want me to tell people these facts. Too bad.
So true! I heard Intel designed x86 around the Lunix kernel. Arm and MIPS did the same.
Lunix is trouble free. Even if some haters claim they have seen lots of freezes, crashes, systems broken after update, and a lot of other niceties, those are ALL lies and I believe they have been paid by Microsoft to make such monstrous claims.
True again my brother. Big corporations like Microsoft try to sabotage Lunix by forcing hardware vendors to either provide broken drivers for Lunix, either not provide them at all. They also force hardware vendors not to provide full source code to drivers under GPL v3, thus negating them their absolute rights.
Luckily, Lunix hackers are able to reverse engineer hardware and make much better drivers than the proprietary ones. Like they did with Nvidia and ATI drivers.
That’s not entirely true. Lunix doesn’t need older hardware to run better than Windows. Lunix runs better than Windows on any hardware.
People don’t want to see the truth because they are enslaved by proprietary software providers. Is our duty to free them from the chains and enlighten them.
Thus, we should promote and advocate Lunix and FOSS on any discussion forum on teh Internets and generally in any place that lets us post comments, no matter if computer related or not.
We also should troll any enemy, that is any guy that talks favorable about Windows, Os X and even the BSDs.
We must follow in the footsteps of our great precursors RMS and ESR and honor their legacy!
They are not facts, it is your opinion and time and time again I have shown that they are false.
Embedded devices and super computers are very specialised devices. Linux does not run well when the number of different hardware configuration becomes to numerous … unless you specifically pick your hardware … this is a problem that will plague it until there is a Stable Driver ABI …
Companies put their effort into supporting the Operating system that most users are going to use … It is called having limited resources.
Haven’t ignored you, you have ignored any critique of your position … when you don’t have an arguement you go “PFFFTTT”.
There is no such thing as a “machine designed to run Windows” … It is just hardware … there is nothing intrinsic about the hardware that means it can’t run on Linux … it is simply that companies don’t want to put the effort into supporting a Operating system with such a small market share.
Stop Lying.
OMG this is ridiculous … there isn’t any
That is false. Windows 7 actually runs faster than Windows Vista on the same hardware and is more responsive than XP on the same hardware (I dual boot XP (for legacy .NET 1.1 dev) and 7).
Anyway modern PC hardware now is soo powerful any modern OS cannot max it out. Even bloody netbooks are more than good enough to run Windows 7.
Also lets forget the article you posted in another which I replied to actually supports that fact that performs better than Ubuntu on the same hardware … I noticed you haven’t replied to that.
No it doesn’t, Windows works better on most PC configurations, funnily enough you don’t get many threads on Windows Forums asking if Hardware X is supported, it is taken as given. This is due to a stable driver ABI, companies might actually bother supporting Linux if the driver ABI wasn’t a moving target.
Edited 2011-06-03 14:48 UTC
Some people have switched to GNU/Linux and somehow utterly failed to appreciate the simplicity, power and freedom of CLI, BASH and Emacs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwbMnKpB3Tc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzGXIgs9nMs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvfRpmqKRbs&feature=related
Whatever floats your boat, I suppose, the choice is yours.
Edited 2011-06-03 06:51 UTC
Lunix. Serious business. I mean what can Windows do that Lunix can’t? Can you tell me? Can you?
We should do moar of that cool Lunix videos and also emphasize Lunix’s strengths even moar.
There are still many people enslaved by proprietary operating systems and we shall do our best to liberate them and to convert them to the wonderful world of Free and Libre Open Source Software and GNU/Lunix. Think moar of our brothers and sisters still living in slavery.
We should highlight that free countries like China, North Coreea and Cuba put a big emphasis un GNU/Lunix.
We should tell folks that Lunix is:
1. powerful – that’s nothing in the world you can’t accomplish by writing a quick BASH script
2. rock solid – has anyone evar seen a Lunix program crashing? well anyway, even if a Lunix program crashes, it doesn’t crash moar often than a few times a day; in fact Lunix has a powerful mechanism to protect users: if a program crashes a few times, you aren’t able to start that bad program again even if you reboot often
3. high uptime – Lunix users never have to reboot. ACPI problems prevent that…use the power-strip after a crash or shutdown.
4. simple to use – even grandma’s grandma could have been using Lunix if Lunix was available during her lifetime
5. doesn’t have viruses – Lunix doesn’t get viruses because they are pre-installed and dynamically create themselves.
6. secure by default – don’t believe those haters who affirm they pwned lots of Lunix boxes, those pictures are photoshoped
7. hacker friendly – being a hacker means you write powerful scripts using BASH and python, just think of ESR and all the mighty Lunix hackers out there
8. Lunix can save your virginity – think of RMS and if you don’t believe me, head here: http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/bos/533096562.html
9. Lunix is sexy, cool, has cool graphics – just looking at a kernel panic can give you an erection
10. backward compatible – you can flawless run software 7-8 years old on the latest Lunix distributions
11. freedom of choice – you can choose amongst the finest 5000 distributions, 1000 gui toolkits, 2000 window managers, 50 desktop environments and so on
12. has easy to install software – just install 100 libraries, hit autoscan, automake, aclocal, autoconf, configure, make and fix the compile errors
13. has a friendly community – Lunix hackers help Lunix newbies on forums by replying: “RTFM”, “it works for me”, “works as intended”, “it’s feature not a bug”, “you should try to fix it and contribute to the community”, “google is your friend”, “already asked”
14. has best software in the world – Open Office is far better than Office, Gimp is better easier to use and moar powerful than Photoshop, mpg123 is better than Winamp, Anjuta is way better than Visual Studio, Gnash is better than flash, mone is better than .Net, Audacity is better than Audition, Avidemux is better than Final Cut. And even if you don’t find FOSS alternatives to Windows software, chances are that you don’t even need that kind of software
16. free as in free speech – no comment on this, everybody should know that, if not, pot them to Richard Stallman‘s video in which he explains “freedom” to some mexican immigrants: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sJUDx7iEJw
17. free as in free beer – even that some can consider that Lunix is not cheap they lose a lot of money by spending hours and days researching Lunix fixes on the Internets instead of working, the truth is that surfing Lunix mailing lists and forums is a pleasant activity. Also, one should note that only slaves work for corporations while Lunix people are free people, nobody can enslave them. Just follow in RMS’s and ESR’s steps and you should be fine.
18. has tons of quality games – Windows users barely can play Crysis or World of Worcraft while Lunix people can play exciting games like gTetris or gMines. How cool is that?
19. helps you maintain a healthy way of life – by making you eat natural food like Stallman did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ
Moar things not to do:
Don’t make videos like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkgahANeq14 that is helping the enemy.
Ignore haters, they are just jelous on your cool GNU/Lunix software stack : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gvw73U_VpU
Don’t look at proprietary operating systems videos, it’s well known that proprietary operating systems are carrying viruses and you might be infected just by looking at them. Be warned! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqDQ0wUcSPQ
Edited 2011-06-03 11:52 UTC
Well, over 90% of these people with their worlds-most-powerful-and-expensive machines apparently think so:
http://www.top500.org/stats/list/36/osfam
These people in charge of some of the most advanced and expensive equipment in the world certainly seem to think so too:
http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2008/09/large-hadron-collider-…
http://www.novell.com/promo/suse/ibm-watson.html
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081021/…
http://www.linuxhpc.org/pages.php?page=Hardware_Vendors
As I said … the choice is yours. It is up to you what you do, and what you CAN do, what you are allowed to do, what you are fully licensed to do, with your GNU/Linux machine.
Edited 2011-06-03 12:04 UTC
It seems the truth annoys you?
There is so much misinformation there it is difficult to know where to begin.
For my requirements the Open Source alternatives are insufficient in features that I require and I am quite happy paying for software that does meet my requirements.
However this seems to upset you so greatly?
What makes you think I’m upset in any way?
I merely point out that for the vast majority of people and their use of a desktop computer, an open source solution (if it were offered to people in mass-market computer stores, pre-installed by the OEM so that it worked on the machine with which it was sold), would actually far better suit their needs, and in addition be a great benefit to their budget.
For example, these upcoming machines:
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/259433,asus-to-ship-ubuntu-netbo…
http://techie-buzz.com/foss/asus-to-sell-ee-pc-netbooks-with-ubuntu…
… are very likely to be far better, as netbooks, than any current netbooks for the vast majority of people, for the way netbooks are typically used.
They will be faster, they will be less flaky, they will need less disk space for the OS and applications, the applications will be free, they will be very, very unlikely ever to be troubled by malware, and the applications installed by default will be far more extensive and capable. Furthermore, the many thousands of additional applications available from the “App Store” will all be free, and they will all be independently pre-verified to contain no malware.
http://techie-buzz.com/foss/ubuntu-official-app-store.html
There will be no crapware on the machines, and they will not need to run performance-sapping antivirus or antimalware software. All of the applications will be kept up to date by the one updater program, and that program may be set to get its downloads from any of many hundreds of alternative, vetted sources (so in many people’s circumstance, they may be able to get un-metered Internet bandwidth for updates).
Finally, there is no chance that people will get their doors busted in by the BSA seeking to fine them for running the OS. No-one can “rat on them” for using this software, and there is no need to keep receipts for everything installed on their machine.
It is a no-contest, really, from the point of view of the vast majority of people who use something like a netbook.
This is my point. Why should I not tell people about it?
Edited 2011-06-03 10:43 UTC
Because you went on a little rant and lost your rag …
No you lost your temper … because I made another off the cuff reply. I know how to push your buttons.
Yes sometimes it is better if you only require to do simple things. However the underlying OS isn’t stable enough over time, with regards to updates … hardware and software breaks, I have seen it myself and I know how to admin Linux systems … there is too much house keeping for an average user.
I actually usually recommend people use Windows, Open Source programs wherever they make sense and a good AntiVirus.
Ubuntu is the flakiest linux distros that has got progressively worse with each release … and is actually slower than Windows on the same hardware since it runs about 100 services as default.
Windows 7 is an extremely stable OS that works well on modern hardware including netbooks.
Oh not this crap again. However many of the programs are buggy or just plain don’t work. How can you in all good honesty recommend a system that lets you install stuff that doesn’t work.
My antivirus software does not slow my computer down in the slightest.
Windows Update also does this for the vast majority of my programs. Other programs usually either keep themself up2date (like Firefox) or have an updater
What stalinistic country do you live in? This never happens. Stop making shit up.
Except when canonical breaks ubuntu with the next upgrade many people will have netbooks they can use … with software that doesn’t work with their MP3 players, phones and other peripherals.
Because fundamentally GNU/Linux and GPL software doesn’t work well enough.
Windows has it problems I concede that … but it works a hell of a lot more reliably that Linux software for the vast majority of people.
Edited 2011-06-03 11:02 UTC
Bulldust. Utter rubbish.
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/benchmarked-ubuntu-vs-vista-vs-wind…
Please try to refrain from “lying for Microsoft”. It makes you look cheap.
HAHAHAHA …
OMG shoot yourself in the foot … Firstly it is a really old version of Ubuntu and the article even concedes that Windows 7 is pretty good in the conclusion when it was beta … do you actually read anything you link?
And if you actually read the article they are pretty positive Windows 7 performance?
(I left the whole quote in there, because copying lots of small files does take ages in Windows and that does suck).
Overall … Linux was better at some stuff and Windows was better at other stuff … It is swings and roundabouts.
Stop “Lying for Linux” it makes you look like an idiot.
PowerShell is incredibly bloated too.
No Windows 2000 through 7 have been pretty good tbh, Most changes other that purely aethestic have been introduced in a evolutionary fashion.
MSE has pretty much buggar all overhead.
Don’t need to run it since I don’t download any spyware … research for the win.
They are only run on occasion rather infrequently … so what is the problem exactly?
Not really a problem when most don’t use any CPU or memory overhead unless actually doing something … apparently someone doesn’t understand how an OS schedules tasks.
Haven’t rebooted for a least a week.
Only if you let them.
No it isn’t, My GPU does the “Graphics Bit” while my CPU does the “processing bit” … my system is more responsive as a result. I find Windows 7 to feel faster than XP running on the same hardware.
Heard of GConf?
Yawn … what you call bloat I call features … depends whether it is of any use to you.
Nobody is forcing you.
These are only any good if you actually organise your Windows … I don’t, many users don’t.
Yeah because only geeks should be able to use computers … elitism much?
Looks pretty good for casual users .. but apparenty guys like you scorn people for not being able to use a Unix Terminal like second nature … you can live in your Ivory CLI tower pretending to be l33t whilst the rest of the world uses something that they can use easily.
What you would consider “Normal users” are probably in the minority. I know quite a few users that use the file open/save dialog from microsoft office to do their file management. My Documents/ Desktop are the only two folders they are aware of.
I’m sorry but I just can’t let that go by
Vista is by far the worst OS ever the GUI is vile almost everything about it is vile – the search is OK and don’t mention ME Vista is worse.
Edited 2011-06-02 17:08 UTC
Bugger all overhead is not the only test of an AV – only time will tell if MSE is a good AV. I personally would not uncritically trust MS with making an AV.
Edited 2011-06-02 17:11 UTC
Lucas, its a matter of taste it seems. What I loathe, you seem to enjoy…
While you are happy with hardware acceleration on aero, I think needing HW acceleration for a UI shouldn’t be necessary at all. I see it as a major design flaw and bloat.
While you update your programs (ninite can be your friend here btw), MSE, defragging, scanning, indexing.., I can do things that are actually useful, instead of “useful” things that are artificially constructed by MS, what you seem to think of as features..
An example:
I don not see automated defragging when idle as a feature.. I see it as a design flaw that MS tries to hide adding bloat and complexity the OS.., not a feature.
I install, fix and maintain windows computers for a living, so I know my way around windows systems too.. Although I could never depend on a windows computer for own use.. For my needs, Windows is simply not complying.
I’m not defending gnome by the way.. Gconf can be a handful, no doubt about that. Gnome is bloat too imho.
I dont use gnome myself, but I use it for setting up computers for noobs and for those who like overlapping windows. It works until HW failure, unlike most windows systems.
If I did understand you correctly: You have clearly no idea how tiling works. With tiling you don’t have to organize your windows.. that’s the whole point with tiling.
No need to “mousing” around.
Need for running MSE is still bloat … The whole anti-virus business is alive, just because of all the weaknesses is windows… debate lol
Good for you that you don’t install spyware.
Everyone is not as smart as you
I was listing bloat, not problems. Its still bloat and ideally it would not be unnecessary.
Still bloat.
Ninite is here to help. Ninite makes windows suck less :p
Casual users would normally be better off with a well set up linux system. hardcore gamers should still stick with windows for directX (or/and buy a console?).
Advanced users should check out other alternatives instead of blindly swallow everything that comes from MS, usually there is alternatives that would suite ones needs much much better than Windows, one just have to go discovering it.. nothing to do with pretending to be l33t.
When you discover it, you will probably wonder how you could put up with all that crap for so long.
How dare we use our Hardware to make out computer faster by using the really fast 3d accelerator card.
I write code for a living, I rarely have to do much in “housekeeping” with Windows. I just use it.
I don’t care whether it is a design flaw or not … I don’t notice it happening, and I can carrying on working.
Good for you. I find Windows is perfect for my needs. I spend less time housekeeping and more time working and using my computer.
Elitism again … Also Windows doesn’t just randomly break. The only time I have had Windows break … is ironically when I installed Linux and it killed my bootloader or HW failure.
I know how tiling works, I just don’t care.
Unfortunately the same features that make Windows great for running hundreds of programs is the exact same features that make it great for malware … as I keep on saying user education is the key to security.
I have always said that user education is the key to security.
Enough with this bloat rubbish … Nobody cares anymore, even the cheapest Laptops and desktops come with multi-core-multi-GHZ processors and thousands of megabytes of ram … it is a non-issue these days.
If you are complaining about “bloat” then apparently it is a problem to you and I was outlining why it really isn’t.
No they wouldn’t when they update the system and something breaks (which is does frequently), they will have a computer they can’t use. If they want to install some software for a third party device they have bought it won’t work because most software is written for Windows or Mac … People will just get frustrated and ask for Windows.
I have checked out the alternatives, I have used Redhat, Suse, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, IRIX etc … and I chose Windows … and I am pretty good on a Unix command prompt.
Elistism again. I used to admin Linux … and I hate them.
I have used pretty much everything. I just can’t be arsed messing about configuring crap anymore with text files (I do enough of that for a living) or messing about with software repos to install 3d drivers or any of the other crap that I had to do over the years to have a working Linux system.
I used to spend more time housekeeping than actually working when I used to muck about with Linux and you know …. I am just too lazy and fed up of it.
Edited 2011-06-03 10:34 UTC
Nice long post some interesting points – but if you think Vista is a good OS how can we take anything you say seriously.
“Nice long post some interesting points – but if you think Vista is a good OS how can we take anything you say seriously.”
I installed Vista after a year it was released… You know what… I thought it was a huge improvement from Vista. I had zero problems running it on my laptop.
It is hard to believe, but people did like Vista.
“Aero is bloat”
Memory wise it isn’t a very lightweight window manager like the original.
Also, I’m sure they will provide the original shell for awhile. Hell, they still provide “Windows classic”, which is based off the Windows 95 look and feel. Even in Windows 7. And Windows 95, and I believe 98 as well, still included the Windows 3.1 program manager for those that wanted to use the old Windows 3.1 look and feel.
I dunno. Interface is optimized for tablets, looks strange on a desktop. Windows was good for running classic apps. It looks cool on demo, but I can’t imagine how it will work in corps with their old inhouse software. Looks like the end of old Windows era, but the new Windows is a new unknown thing. Risky movement.
Err, might work on a tablet but it’d be the first thing I’d rid myself of once installed on a desktop. If that’s it for 8 they can shove it.
On a serious desktop, the tile UI will be useless. Think of the programs you use to get work done every day. Serious applications, not browsers, weather apps, and facebook. None of those apps will fit into the tile UI, so at work you will spend 99% of your time in the “classic” window and the rest will just be an annoyance. Instead of checking the weather unobtrusively, you get to pull up a giant full-screen window with a picture of the sun that’s the size of your head (what? I have a big monitor).
Then when you have a tablet, the old windows apps will still be hopeless to use with a touch screen, so the “classic” windows part will be pointless.
I don’t get why they don’t just scale up windows phone to a tablet. And HTML5 instead of Silverlight? I’m all for HTML5, but hell, pick a strategy and stick with it!
As for the multitasking? How exactly is it awesome that you have to flip through each app linearly? And splitting the screen but only horizontally is pointlessly limiting as well. By the way, anyone that is in the business of explaining computers to other people is going to have a fun time with these two side by side wildly different window management paradigms.
Edited 2011-06-02 04:36 UTC
I think the tiles thing will work well.
However all that finger swiping business is going to suck hard –it’s too “analog”.
If I tried to explain this to my grandmother (the one true benchmark for any UI) she is going to look at me like I lost my mind.
that is a great and obvious solution. Take note, Cupertino.
I like it for tablets and maybe to put somewhere as an information display. But of course for any productive work the classic interface will have to be used.
It is like on my Vaio laptop, there is a nice media interface program, but if you want to get some real work done it will be the first thing to remove to save some disk space…
As far as desktop computers go, I think it’s fairly obvious that Microsoft aren’t primarily focusing on the usability of the graphical shell here. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like they do it for shits and giggles. There’s a very good reason for it: Perceived Obsolescence.
What’s going through their minds is: “how are we going to sell people a product that on the surface looks just like it did 15 years ago?”. What they want, is for people to to stand in the computer store and go: “Ooh, shiny! This looks so much more modern than my old PC!”. After all, that’s the effect that a Mac has. Somehow, software has become like the fashion industry.
…of course – making a new shiny GUI makes it necessary to throw out “old and boring” designs. It is deemed irrelevant that the old designs actually worked in day-to-day use.
I’m not sure if it’s worth getting upset over in the end though. The Windows Server product line will retain the “Windows Classic” way of doing things. After all, the “Windows Classic” way is the only way that Microsoft has figured out that allows users to get some actual work done…
I know that lots of people are going to hate this new UI. People are very resistant to change.
Back in the mists of time, nearly 20 years ago now, I was an early adopter of the Apple Newton, and developer for that platform. That experience taught me that eventually the immediacy of touch-based interfaces would win out (for most applications) over keyboard/mouse. I’d frequently find myself attempting to tap on things on my Mac’s screen with my Newton’s pen only to be frustrated that it didn’t work. Touching things is very natural.
This new UI looks like it will work perfectly acceptably using a keyboard and mouse or using touch. In contrast the old Windows UI was a non-starter with finger-based touch, and awkward at best with pen-based touch.
Most people do not have desktop/laptop computers that have touch-screens. They’ll see this more touch-oriented UI and dismiss it. That’s short-term thinking, looking backwards to the equipment they currently have in front of them and what they are used to using.
Give it 5-10 years and it will be difficult to find desktop/laptop computers that don’t have touch-screen support. With a decent desktop touch interface available we’ll start to see computers in real desktop (i.e. horizontal) and drawing-board orientations, solving the “arm-ache” issue of using touch on a desk-bound vertical screen.
This UI is being built for that future, and not for the past. I’m far from being an MS fan-boy, but I’d like to say thank you to Microsoft for taking the bold steps that will enable this future to happen.
Address your thank you notes to:
Mark Shuttleworth and the Unity Team
Canonical Group Limited
27th Floor, Millbank Tower
21-24 Millbank
London SW1P 4QP
United Kingdom
Yes very nice. You still haven’t explained how serious work will be done using a touch interface. Don’t get me wrong, I think tablets are awesome and for casual data interaction and light data creation tasks they work great, but think about what you work on all day. How much of that could feasibly work on a touch screen? 10%? 20%?, Maybe even 50%? I don’t think we will ever get to 100%, because touch interaction is not suitable for a “sit down at your desk and work” use-case. It just isn’t, no matter how clever the interface is.
How much of the work that I do all day could feasibly be done on a touch screen? I’d say 100%.
I’m a programmer, web developer, user interface designer, and mobile app developer. There is nothing that I do that could not be done on a touch-screen based computer as efficiently as I do today using a keyboard and mouse.
I’m not saying that it would be feasible for me to swap to a touch-based computer today – I’m talking about what will be possible in a few years. I’d like a large screen, as big as my plasma telly but with at least twice the resolution, that’s either horizontal covering a desk top or angled up a little like a drafting table. Given that I don’t think I’d want a physical keyboard getting between me and the screen, or a mouse and pointer getting in the way of me more directly interacting with the UI.
Fingers will obviously be the main interaction method for touch UIs, but for fine details you’ll grab a pen. I rarely need to do such fine work myself though.
What will make this practical is redesigned user interfaces that bear touch interaction in mind. UI controls that are small and fiddly don’t work – things need to be bigger and more tolerant of fat fingers. Using apps made for today’s desktop UIs with fingers isn’t going to fly – it didn’t work too well for pen-based tablets either.
To restate, I firmly believe that 100% of my work could be done using a touch-based computing environment. Were I a graphic artist, a movie editor, or a musician I’d say the same. Pessimistically I’d say that in 10 years time this will be norm for all of these use-cases. Optimistically I expect that within 5 years touch will be dominant for all new machines and software.
The more pertinent question is what work do you think cannot be done feasibly on a touch screen, given a suitably designed UI?
Basically, all work which implies having lots of features at once or working on a detailed object. Flat finger-based touchscreens will never be good at this, due to their terrible input resolution. Haptic feedback or pen input would be required before they become suitable for it.
As an example, drawing and handwriting with fingers is needlessly tedious and complicated, because either you use a finger-sized brush and have terrible precision, or you use a pixel-sized brush that writes at a random place on your finger’s surface and must be ready to endure terrible headaches.
Coding is another example : the coding workflow (at least mine) implies seeing lots of code at once and being able to select/copy/paste code snippets quickly and easily. These goals are contradictory on a finger-based touchscreen : to allow for fast finger-based freeform selection, text must be really big, and even if you have a gigantic-sized screen it will still feel uncomfortable to visually parse lots of big text at once.
On the feature side… I can’t imagine using something like a word processor on a finger-based touchscreen beyond a wordpad-like workflow where formatting is only a matter of changing font size and using underline/bold/italic functions. Packing that much features in an UI that can be used with big fingers while still being able to see what you’re writing would mean that the interface would offer only little immediate access to the software’s functionality. Tables, styles, pdf export, subscript/superscript, and other “minor” functionality would require switching interface tabs or going through kilometric menus.
Again, all these problems can be solved through use of a pen-based interface, even though in that case text input becomes an issue (as good as pen is for pointing, selecting, and drawing, it’s horrible for inputting text, so you need to put down the pen each time you write). A pen + haptic feedback to make text input on a touchscreen comparable to a keyboard experience could do the trick and make touchscreens an acceptable universal interface for tomorrow. But touchscreens as they stand today ? No. Not good for my work.
Edited 2011-06-02 17:59 UTC
All things productive. From programming to writing 20+ pages in Word. All things that take many hours of work and requires to write a lot and use many buttons. Even gaming will be a nightmare with touch screen only.
What I hate about most of these interfaces is discoverability. They should add arrows to the interface so you can see where there is something you can try.
And if you do that, I think it would help with making a touch interface work with keyboard/mouse as well.
After watching this video, and rolling my eyes a lot, I have decided that if Microsoft does make this monstrosity the default interface/desktop for Windows 8, I will buy major bunches of stock in Windex glass cleaner, because sales are going to go through the ROOF! This interface might work on a small tablet or phone screen, but to suggest it will work on a 21″ monitor is ludicrous. I realize that it will somehow work with a keyboard/mouse, but that was not demonstrated at all on the video. Chalk me up as a giant NO on this one.
I think Microsoft guys might be on crack or Met.
I really hope that they ship with different interfaces for tablets and PCs. The new UI will suck big time on a Desktop/Laptop and the classic UI & classic apps will suck big time on a tablet.
I also really hope they won’t promote HTML5 and js as the main programming paradigm for Windows 8 GUI. .NET, WPF and Silverlight are 1 million times better from any poin of view. What’s next, they will promote Logo for Windows 9?
Although they will trim the fat from Windows, it’s still a full featured OS, not just a kernel with a UI like Android. That means hardware requirements are going to be BIG for tablets. I don’t know if any of the actual Arm CPUs will be capable of running WIndows 8. Sure, it will run fine on an Atom platform but that’s going to cost battery life and what’s the point in using a tablet if your battery lasts just 2 hours?
Hmmm… Please state your definition of a full featured OS.
For me, an OS is an interface between hardware, users, and developers.
Android runs on a wide range of phones, so it abstracts hardware away. Users interact directly with it. It provides developers with an API that allow them to interact with the abstracted hardware and the user without reinventing the wheel. So in my opinion, it’s a full-blown OS.
Edited 2011-06-02 11:09 UTC
I have reservations if this very flashy and nice UI will run on our current machines. I hope there is a button to turn off the flashy interface.
Furthermore, Microsoft must absolutely not forget developers and developer tools.
An aunt of mine once asked me to train her on using Windows XP. She could not make heads or tails of the XP UI. She never learned when to click or double click, to turn off the computer from the button ‘start’ and many other things.
I think this UI is very nice for computer novices. It will enable many people, including older ones, to use computers.
While enabling experienced users to be much less productive.
When you are at work using the computer ,
you will most likely be blocked (by policy or implementation) from facebook , checking the temperature , watching you tube videos and looking at your pictures, general browsing on the internet.
So most of this is irrelavant crap during the working day (most of our lives)
If you are the end user at work , its in-house applications,
word,excel , emails and a bunch of ‘classical applications’
If you are business applications developer (as most developers are) then most of this is irrelevant.
Even if you wanted to use a touch display, after 8 hours your arms will fall off , after one week you will be in hospital with neck/shoulder RSI
With my three 32″ monitors it would not take more than 30 minutes of work before my arms grew too tired to work anymore.
Its designed primarily for fat lazy people sitting back in the arm chairs with their tablet eating pizza whilst looking at porn videos and swilling beer.
Its blingy/shiny enough for those that feel they are ‘techno savvy’ to go ‘cool i want one’
Techno Fashion for the Techno peasant zombie.
Crap wrapped in shiny gold paper is still Crap , just a lot more expensive , but equally useless..
Disagree. As twitterfire mentioned, porn + touchscreen = ew !
More generally, touchscreens are probably the dirtiest general-purpose computer interface ever invented. People were not satisfied enough with what hides under their keyboard keys, so we have created an interface where the finger must be consciously dragged on a surface in order to enforce better unhygienic coating, and which is left exposed to exterior dirt when not in use.
Edited 2011-06-02 12:10 UTC
You are aware that the human body has an immune system?
Many people touch my desk during the day, however I am not constantly wiping it. Many people are touching door handles but they are not constantly cleaned and nobody really worries about it.
Who really cares if there are other peoples germs on a surface? It not like there is killer plague on every screen … it really doesn’t matter.
Edited 2011-06-02 14:23 UTC
I know that, but you must admit that touchscreens easily end up looking quite ugly after a few months of use.
And since there’s electronics underneath, you can’t use anything but a dry piece of tissue to wipe that, which in turn is not fantastically effective.
There’s a reason why some people are maniac about people who touch their computer screen : newer screens attract stain and make it stick.
Edited 2011-06-02 14:40 UTC
I must be a lot different than most computer users … I see my kit strictly as a tool … so most of my stuff is pretty beat up and dirty … with various hacks and bodges to keep them going.
Edited 2011-06-02 15:39 UTC
There are various products available for cleaning LCD and or touch screens. They work really well.
Although, I’m still a maniac who doesn’t let other people touch my ( non touch) screens.
That the difference … I still have all sorts of finger prints, dust etc all over my kit … then again most of kit seems to work forever (still apparently have an Athlon XP 1400+ that I sold to some guy still working absolutely fine.
Really you missed it. A keyboard and mouse is harder to proper clean than a touch screen. Good grade touch screen devices have very few groves and other locations for infections to hide. Also good grade stand isopropyl alcohol. Generally a highly effective kill anything solution in high enough concentrations. Packages up into nice sealed throw away wipes.
Basically touchscreen beats keyboard and mouse. Of course no touch is better again. But using no touch interfaces has really not be sorted out.
Exterior dirt coats keyboards and mice just as badly in some cases worse. Hand does not drag across mouse so areas of mouse just builds more and more build up.
So the wiping actions of users on a touch screen is part self cleaning. Ok not ideal that the cleaning material is another human. It reduces what the infections have to grow on.
Yes door handles have the same self cleaning system. Yes ugly. Touch screen is not much worse than door handles. Of course in case of major surface spread infection out brakes I don’t recommend touching either directly.
Also depending what the final coat of the touchscreen is and the backing light. Yes its possible even if slightly unhealthy to intentionally fit a back light that gives of bacteria and virus distributive light.
Now that is the thing touchscreens don’t have a rating on how anti bacteria and viruses they are to the general public. Their are medical grade ones surface and back-lighting makes them a lot safer than a keyboard and mouse.
Now there is a new tile-based GUI requiring new applications, Microsoft should ensure that the tile system can only be run by standard user accounts and not as administrator. No user interface features should be running in an admin context (obviously you will be prompted for the admin password to install apps, or to make certain system changes, but the escalation of privilege can happen in the background).
As of Windows 7, the setup procedure asks the user for a name, and then gives them full admin rights, which is appalling. Admin mode should be used in exceptional circumstances only. (Yes, I know technically it’s not an administrator account due to UAC, but UAC is so easy to circumvent!).
Ideally everything would be sandboxed so that no more of these stupid Java / Adobe / Javascript malware can break out into the system. Perhaps the “Windows 7 Classic” mode could have 2 versions – a standard user mode for applications like MS Office which require no admin rights, and a ‘virtual admin mode’ which would be used by old apps which require admin rights for whatever reason.
This is the biggest change in UI since Windows 2.0, and will require 3rd parties to rewrite all software to support the new platform (including malware writers!!). Let’s hope Microsoft don’t squander this opportunity to finally get security ‘right’.
Name your first user account root. Give it a password. On your first login as root, create a standard user account, and log out. From now on, you run as a standard user, and when you actually need escalation of privileges a UAC password dialog pops up. This setup is exactly what UNIX does. The only difference is that the Windows installer is borked and doesn’t force the user to set this up automatically.
Not quite, there is a difference. When my Linux system requires escalation of privileges a password dialog does indeed pop up (one way or another), and I must supply a passwrod. I must type it in, and in order to do that, I must know the password. Presumably, I must be me.
On Windows as you described, the UAC prompt is merely a dialog box on which anyone at all may click the “Allow” button. It doesn’t ask for a password to be entered.
Well Lunix does stupid things. When someone has physical access to a box, he owns that box, no matter if password is asked or not. What UAC does is let the user know that some program wants to access some resource.
Oh, and Lunix is secure by design. Someone Who Is Not Me, when was bored owned a lot of Lunix boxes by remote exploiting them. Is funny how Someone Who Is Not Me exploited those boxes, even if they had Selinux/Apparmor and another “advanced” security features enabled in the kernel, in a hastily manner.
I guess there aren’t too many viruses on Lunix because of its inherent security and its huge success.
Wrong. If the account does not have admin privileges, UAC asks for a password.
Believe me, there’s such a setup on my PC.
No, right. If the account of person who logged on initially does have admin privileges (e.g. it was the first account created on that machine), then if that machine is left logged on by that person then anyone else can install anything, without knowing any password, merely by clicking the UAC “Allow” button at the appropriate moment.
Oh, I see what you’re talking about now, but that’s not what the OP was talking about. The OP’s idea was to use the initial admin account to create a limited user account and then bury the admin account forever and never use it again.
Kind of like on Unices, where logging on as root is never, ever, recommended.
Thanks, Yes, this was my point – Windows setup is borked (sorry not to be clearer, I should have just said that!). For a power user, who doesn’t mind occasional prompts to enter the admin password, Windows 7 security model is OK (except for a few apps which require a full admin desktop session to update!). However, the vast majority of average computer users simply do what Windows setup tells them. Therefore malware writers can generally just assume the user is running as an admin UAC account, and so can use one of the techniques to bypass the UAC prompt and own the user’s machine. Of course, if Microsoft enforced complex passwords, and refused to allow the desktop to run in admin mode, they would get loads of tech calls from users unable to remember their passwords – and this is probably why they don’t have the guts to do this. However, I find it annoying that this basically makes malware so easy and profitable. I want Microsoft to destroy their business model dammit!
Of course, even restricting users to standard user accounts and requiring complex passwords will be inadequate – it would certainly help against the recent surge of Java and Adobe-based attacks. But malware writers would just get clever at cajoling users into entering their admin passwords. That’s why I recommend more use of sandboxing as well.
I just realized… As of Windows 8, Microsoft Windows won’t use windows anymore. :-O Ten years from now, children will be asking, “Why is it called Windows?”.
It’s still going to have Windows… You can use the Win7 UI still.
KDE4 is so configurable, I wonder how long it will be before there is setup that imitates windows 8.
At about 00:39 into the video, you can see, on the extreme right side of the screen, two rows of illustrations posted on the wall. Notice though that they have been blurred during the video’s post processing.
Odd, that they would have shot the video with the illustrations in “plain view” but then later decided that they should not be released.
Wow! From what Microsoft is showing us so far, Windows 8 sucks. It seems like they are encouraging everyone to move to other OS platforms. I just can’t make any sense of it.
Am I the only one that absolutely hates this?
Why is everyone so hell bent on turning every computer into an over glorified web browser? I dont know if anyone has realized that computers can do things other than browse the web and look at photos.
Edited 2011-06-02 22:26 UTC
Because it’s easier for the casual user..
A casual user can do all their stuff in a web browser(Using MS Office Web App, Facebook, GMail, and their companies in house web apps).
Plus you can set it to be just like Win7, it’s not going to be like ChromeOS.
Based on the demos, I’m not entirely convinced Microsoft has thought this through, although it’s still early blah blah blah. The interface doesn’t look bad for a tablet. The “ghetto” on the other hand is kind of bizarre. Why not have something more along the lines of what Apple did with its Classic environment? The integration there was pretty slick. The Classic apps were obviously not the new OS X apps, but they were reasonably full-class citizens that didn’t require a ghetto or fully separate visual environment. You were able to manage Classic apps just like OS X apps. This suggests to me that MS’s new interface isn’t really suited to that type of usage (managing lots of windows with lots of information and widgets crammed into them), or at least will require substantial work by developers to re-invent the way a lot of work is done. If that’s what they want to do and are successful, it could be very interesting, but right now, I have no idea how they envision dealing with these issues.
How does Microsoft envision productivity apps such as, oh I don’t know, Microsoft Office, working with the new interface? What they’ve presented for desktop use is a toy and not serious; maybe they don’t yet have sufficient polish to demo that. Right now, this is nothing more than an add-on, not a brave new redesign of Windows. And if it is supposed to be a brave new redesign, they’re going to have to come up with something better than the ghetto to provide the bridge to the new world. The more I think about it, the stupider and lazier it sounds.
Thom, I think you’re getting ahead of yourself with your excitement, unless you’re just excited about Windows on a tablet, in which case, yeah, it’s a serious step in the right direction.