APCMag sums up the information we already have on Windows 7. "We're still in the long dark before 7's dawn, but the earliest signs are encouraging: a new streamlined kernel, an inbuilt VM for running old software, a revised and simplified UI... There's every chance that Microsoft intends Windows 7 to rise from the ashes of Vista and be what Mac OS X was for Apple."
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Member since:2006-04-22
While WinFS was removed from the OS, development has not stopped. The idea of integrating the filesystem aspect after it has been fully developed and incubated is a much better approach than simply building it into an OS and then seeing how it will mature.
Some are close to being on base in that the development for Windows 7 is still so far off that nobody knows where it will end up. But a lot of OS's and applications promise things in development that do not appear in the final release, and this is not necessarily always a bad thing.
As for backward compatibility, while some may find this detestable in Windows, please do understand that for the most part you are in the minority. Just because Apple can do this does not mean that every OS can do this. Apple has a tiny market share in the consumer space. Windows's market bridges enterprise-SMB-consumer. There absolutely has to be a clean, efficient, slower stepping of this OS. I can not begin to describe how horrible it would be for them to ditch the backwards compatibility in favor of pleasing a small minority of tech geeks who just want the latest greatest only. We have numerous clients who operate applications (most custom built at a huge $) that have moved from Win2k-XP-and are now still operational if moved to Vista.
And as for Thom's statement. Maybe he is as tired as many of us that the minute any article on MS appears there are numerous trolls that pop out of the woodwork to do only one thing, and that is disruptive. Look at the last MS post regarding the SP1 for Vista. Sure enough OSNews's favorite Ubuntu troll comes in and the entire thread becomes all about the FUD of DRM, to which the SP1 article had nothing to do.
As I ask repeatedly time and time again, seemingly ignored each time, is why do these trolls even care about an OS they do not even use? The comment section can be at times a very useful and insightful source of information. I would like to see in the future some moderation of the comment section to at least keep these comments on track. Fact of the matter is the minute anything Microsoft is posted, it will certainly be trolled and flamed.
Member since:2005-07-02
Trolls pop up on every threads, be they Windows or Linux. I do think, however, that it is very unprofessional for Thom to call someone a troll just because that person feels Vista didn't deliver on its promises, feature-wise (to me, the biggest problems are rather with performance, but that's a different story).
The problem is that, as an editor of the site, Thom should not get involved in arguments with readers. That's what blogs are for, for goodness' sake! Thom's remark was uncalled for, and childish, and looking at the comments and their scores, it seems that most of OSNews' readership agrees.
Who said they don't use Windows? That's an assumption on your part, and nothing more. In fact, I'll bet that most people who are critical of Windows actually use it (though it may not be their main OS). My own disenchantment with Vista on a 512MB PC came from first-hand experience.
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently."In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies."The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
Member since:
2005-11-11
You could also look at it from another perspective.
The people who waited excitedly for Vista, did they really wait for what was delivered?
Were they really that enthusiastic about what Vista turned out to be?
There was talk about revolutionizing the way we used computers. Did scrapping WinFS also mean that Vista went from the touted revolution to mere evolution?
Of course we didn't see anything official from Microsoft saying "Removing WinFS also mean Vista is no longer the cool new OS we wanted you to wait for", but is that what removing WinFS meant?
Perhaps no formal promises were broken, but I've seen a lot of disappointed comments from people who expected more. Maybe that's where it comes from, the idea that promises were broken. And if people are disappointed, it really doesn't matter much if promises were broken or not.
Somewhere, the expectations became too high and of course Microsoft neither could nor wanted to bring people back to reality. That would mean Linux or Mac OS X would be given a chance.
Many companies do this to some degree. Get people to wait for the fantastic new product instead of buying from the competition.
I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do it if it didn't mean bigger profits for them, but in this case it seems to have backfired a little.
The sad thing is that realistic information about next windows version would make everyone think it is going to be really dull and the marketers will be forced to try to make us think it's the best thing since sliced bread.
Or at least that's what I think.