Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011

[commodorejohn]

I didn't say it was an either/or proposition, I said that touchscreens simply have no advantage over the mouse in a desktop environment at all. They cost more and don't offer any improvement, and are therefore useless in that context, whether you use them in addition to a mouse or not.

[bloodline]

I didn't say it was an either/or proposition, I said that touchscreens simply have no advantage over the mouse in a desktop environment at all. They cost more and don't offer any improvement, and are therefore useless in that context, whether you use them in addition to a mouse or not.

Touchscreen's don't really seem to be suited to the desktop... But then I'm not sure the desktop has long left for this world... I use a laptop at work (though it is chained to the desk), and only have laptops at home now... The tablet, or rather the iPad (since no other tablet computer has really taken off yet), has encroached on much of the traditional Laptop space, while the laptop has taken most of the desktop space (though there will always been a need for more powerful machines that can't exist in laptop form).

It would be crazy to think that newer smaller forms of computing won't eventually replace the larger older units... Look at what happened to Mainframes, then Minicomputers, etc...

[commodorejohn]

Yes and no. Certainly desktops are losing some of their niche to laptops, but I don't buy this "death of the desktop" nonsense. For one thing, computer miniaturization is not an unending linear progression - there's hard physical limits to these things, and practical limits well before that. And desktops still offer some definite advantages over laptops - much greater expansion capability and ease of repair/upgrade, for example. Aside from the introduction of the "netbook" form factor, laptops haven't really made any steps to match that - you can't upgrade a laptop (aside from adding RAM,) only replace it, and replacing it hasn't gotten any cheaper. A mid-range laptop now costs about what a mid-range laptop cost in 2004, only the specs have changed.

And I'll note that while the bulky, workhorse portion of mainframes and minis was superceded (for most purposes) by desktop PCs, the fundamental user interaction (typing on a keyboard and, later, using a mouse) remained just the same...

[Iggy]

Good points John.
I like having a real keyboard.
Laptop keyboards are a poor substitute.
Phones, if they have a keyboard, offer ridiculously small keys.
And tablets don't have real keyboards.

[desiv]

I like having a real keyboard.

Yes, but frequently people like having real keyboards because the things they do have been designed with keyboards in mind....

As more and more work/time goes into the touch interface, people will find themselves wanting a real keyboard less and less.

I spend a LOT of time on real keyboards, but its either at work (business will be "desktop computer safe" for quite a while) or at home.. on my Amigas...  ;-)

I almost never use my PC anymore..

I use the laptop for watching Netflix and some Internet stuff, but if my tablet did Netflix I'd use the laptop less and less...

My wife loves taking pix of birds...  She's not a pro, but has a lot of fun..  She does all the cropping and such on her Dell Mini 9...  She loves that thing.  I can't get her to use the larger screen laptop for pix..

Comfortable Form Factor and mobility has been trumping power in our house, and I see that happening elsewhere..

PCs aren't going away, but I think the PC market isn't going to increase.....
The "mobile" market will increase..
Not sure if MS will be a player there tho.. I won't bet against them, but I can't see it with the products they've shown so far..

desiv

[commodorejohn]

Yes, but frequently people like having real keyboards because the things they do have been designed with keyboards in mind....

As more and more work/time goes into the touch interface, people will find themselves wanting a real keyboard less and less.

Yes, I suppose when literacy finally gasps its last and the alphabet is discarded as arcane devil-runes that distract us from the right and proper path of licensed media consumption, we won't need keyboards for much anymore...

[desiv]

Yes, I suppose when literacy finally gasps its last and the alphabet is discarded as arcane devil-runes that distract us from the right and proper path of licensed media consumption, we won't need keyboards for much anymore...

Yep..
:-)

Looking at twitter, texting, and the general decline of our language in society..
That will also play a significant role...

That and voice to text and gesture recognition...

desiv

[Iggy]

Yes, I suppose when literacy finally gasps its last and the alphabet is discarded as arcane devil-runes that distract us from the right and proper path of licensed media consumption, we won't need keyboards for much anymore...

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

Yes! I'm still not sure how I'm going to enter text from a touch interface (a picture of a keyboard? lame).

[commodorejohn]

Looking at twitter, texting, and the general decline of our language in society..
That will also play a significant role...

If one were feeling uncharitable, one could phrase it as "in the future, dumb people will use tablets..."

That and voice to text and gesture recognition...

Uh, yeah. Yeah, that's really been a satisfactory substitute, doesn't bottleneck your text output by limiting it to your rate of coherent speech, and doesn't at all make you look like a goon for talking to an inanimate object...

[Iggy]

...make you look like a goon for talking to an inanimate object...

The first time I saw someone with a Bluetooth phone interface, I thought they were schizophrenic. Walking along talking to someone that wasn't there...weird.

[desiv]

Uh, yeah. Yeah, that's really been a satisfactory substitute, doesn't bottleneck your text output by limiting it to your rate of coherent speech, and doesn't at all make you look like a goon for talking to an inanimate object...

You're right..
Because it hasn't been done properly so far, it never will be...
Good point..  ;-)

desiv

[commodorejohn]

You're right..
Because it hasn't been done properly so far, it never will be...
Good point..  ;-)

I'll admit that the technology will doubtless get better - but my remaining two points I stand by: it imposes a bottleneck (rate of coherent speech) that's typically much more restrictive than the keyboard bottleneck (rate of precision typing) (unless you're a professional auctioneer or the Micro Machines guy,) and it's just a damn nuisance to the people around you (I guarantee you that if offices full of people jabbering at their workstations ever become commonplace, so will workplace shootings.) It may have specific applications, but as a general replacement it ain't going anywhere.

[desiv]

.. it imposes a bottleneck (rate of coherent speech) that's typically much more restrictive than the keyboard bottleneck (rate of precision typing) (unless you're a professional auctioneer or the Micro Machines guy,) and it's just a damn nuisance to the people around you

True, but I said initially that PCs will still have a place in business..
I'm talking non-business devices in general...
And for that audience, "text as quickly as they speak" would probably be more than fast enough...

Actually, that assumes someone doesn't come up with some type of verbal language shorthand, so to speak...
So people say partial phrases and the computers fill in the rest...

I'd laugh, but I can actually see that happening..

People walking around talking to their bluetooth headsets speaking truncated English stubs..

The whole text nightmare brought to speech...  



desiv

[Duce]

MS are not forcing the Metro UI on anything but tablets with Win8.  All signs indicate the traditional desktop is going absolutely nowhere and will be available on Win8 on the x86, it's just the ARM (WoA) Win8 that will be touch/Metro only.  There was an 8,000 word blog post from MS just a week or two ago stating this.  This has been stated over and over, but people keep ringing the doomsday bell for the desktop OS, and are blatantly wrong.  Unless MS change something last minute, you will have the option to use Win8 in the similar and familiar way you've used every Win release in the past, in a mouse and keyboard, point and click, icons and desktop format.  The RTM/consumer preview release comes out at the end of the month, so we'll see then, and I'm confident the Metro UI will be entirely optional on the x86 desktop.  Your Start Menu is being tweaked, but other than that I don't see much difference than W7 than W8 for desktop users, at least until ReFS hits the consumer level MS os's, if it does.

Anything else would be financial suicide for a company with such high profits in enterprise.  Enterprise sales is what made MS rich - consumer OS sales are nickel and dime compared to enterprise for them.  Even the nicest to use (iOS, IMHO) touch/tablet interfaces simply are not an effective substitute for the desktop for productivity, and that doesn't even factor in dinky screen sizes, lack of processing grunt, and lack of storage and traditional connectivity found in a desktop.

I'm no apologist for Apple or any other tablet maker, but they are quite usable appliances, stuff like the iPad.  Note the "appliance" denotation - you are not going to replace a traditional computer with a tablet anytime soon, which they can both do a lot of shared tasks, there's some things that tablets simply are not productive with, like heavy data entry, content creation, etc.  A tablet is a computer, but in a lot of ways it simply isn't - it's a consumption device first and foremost.

Many people slamming tablets and touch devices are viewing said machines as desktop competitors, and in my books they simply can't be compared.  Most guys derping and whining about touch keyboards and tablets in general being entirely unusable in any capacity have never even tried them, and are likely still the types to own 7 year old feature phones  They aren't for everyone, but even the naysayers would find them quite usable even after using them for an hour or two or they simply wouldn't have taken off like they have.  For emails, quick docs and such, tablets and their onscreen keyboards are more than usable, and I dare say pleasant to use if you understand what they can and cannot do.

[commodorejohn]

True, but I said initially that PCs will still have a place in business..
I'm talking non-business devices in general...

I don't see those issues as any less problematic in a home environment. A bottleneck is a bottleneck, whether or not you have a financial incentive to minimize it; if someone gets a taste of decent keyboard usage (i.e. if they ever work a desk job) I just don't see them ever needing text-to-speech again. And the noise factor may be reduced in terms of absolute decibels in a home with 4-6 residents, but how would you like to have the entire composition/revision process of your daughter's email to her school friends drifting down the hall while you're trying to do something else? Would it be that much less annoying for being less loud?

Actually, that assumes someone doesn't come up with some type of verbal language shorthand, so to speak...
So people say partial phrases and the computers fill in the rest...

I'd laugh, but I can actually see that happening..

People walking around talking to their bluetooth headsets speaking truncated English stubs..

The whole text nightmare brought to speech...

Annoying jabber is annoying jabber, whether it's in full spoken English or truncated syllable combinations. I'm sure someone will try something like this eventually, but I doubt it will make any more of a lasting impact than text-to-speech in general. Both may save on manual labor, but both are frankly just too obnoxious to survive in society at large. It's like farting Morse code; sure, you can do it, but sooner or later it's going to wind up in mob violence.

[commodorejohn]

Many people slamming tablets and touch devices are viewing said machines as desktop competitors, and in my books they simply can't be compared.

Agreed; I see them more as laptop competitors - and they don't stack up there, either. Of course you've got your "well, it's for passive, bovine consumption of industrially-processed content!" proponents, but I've yet to have any trouble watching movies or reading books on my laptop, and I can do a damn sight more with it much more easily than any tablet.

and are likely still the types to own 7 year old feature phones

Proudly so. It places and receives phone calls, holds my small personal directory, and takes messages, and that's all I damn well need!

They aren't for everyone, but even the naysayers would find them quite usable even after using them for an hour or two or they simply wouldn't have taken off like they have.  For emails, quick docs and such, tablets and their onscreen keyboards are more than usable, and I dare say pleasant to use if you understand what they can and cannot do.

I never said they're unusable; as far as text-entry methods for cell phones, they're probably the best solution (certainly more pleasant than the button keyboards I've used.) What they aren't is as good as a real keyboard.