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Author Topic: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011  (Read 8969 times)

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Offline Iggy

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #14 on: January 04, 2012, 11:15:26 PM »
I'm with most of you on this.
Tablets are a bit painful as a substitute for a PC.
Kind of like carrying around a giant cell phone
 
Anyone remember those giant novelty TV remotes?
 
Honestly, if I have to carry around something that big, I want a real fricking keyboard.
 
And Windows 8, why?
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Offline Arkhan

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #15 on: February 13, 2012, 02:55:06 PM »
Tablets are trash.  How are you supposed to program on that touchy-pokey doucheinterface.

My dad's tablet has been sent flying at the wall repeatedly because it's an annoying piece of crap.

Things moving tablet centric = stupid.  Windows 8 sucks so far (There's a dev-test image you can screw with)

All the pop-art inspired jive can suck it.  It's dumb.
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Offline Iggy

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #16 on: February 13, 2012, 03:00:30 PM »
I'd second the opinion that a tablet centered UI for all Windows8 computers is seriously dumb.

Microsoft's problem is that older windows variants are still perfectly usable.

Something tells me Win8 will not be that great a success and that WinXP, Vista, and Win7 will be around for quite awhile longer.
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Offline jorkany

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #17 on: February 13, 2012, 03:13:46 PM »
Windows 8 is like Windows 1 - you can either have a bunch of small panes tiled together, or a full-screen.

Remember how popular Windows 1 was?
 

Offline Iggy

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #18 on: February 13, 2012, 03:19:17 PM »
Quote from: jorkany;680380
Windows 8 is like Windows 1 - you can either have a bunch of small panes tiled together, or a full-screen.

Remember how popular Windows 1 was?

Not really. We had it on the shelf for sale.
But I don't remember actually using a version of Windows till some IBM engineers gave me a beta copy of Windows 3.0.
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Offline persia

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #19 on: February 13, 2012, 03:29:29 PM »
Frankly I enjoy Facebook far more through my iPad than I do through a desktop computer.    That aside, the market for desktops is dismal, it hasn't gone anywhere in years.  The GROWTH is in mobile devices. Yes, Microsoft's 90% of the desktop market will deliver a nice steady return year after year for at least a decade more.  But nice steady return with a fade out possible in a couple decades is what is commonly called retirement and is presumably not the way to run a computer company.

Touch interfaces are here to stay, at least until direct neural input is possible.  On the desktop we'll see traditional keyboards and trackpads/mice augmented by touch.  Nobody wants to do database entry on a touch screen, but what about occasionally touching to get a photo in the right angle?  Or on a browser?  Or in iTunes?

Nowadays, people have multiple computing devices.  Desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.  Some people can live with just one of these, but a large number have more than one.  I love my iPad, it's nice to kick back and surf the web on it.  If I have serious work to do, there's always my MacPro and of course my iPhone for simple quick things there's my iPhone.  Several times now I've found myself just sitting down to eat a restaurant and getting the call from work that one of my servers is having problems.  It's usually a two minute fix, and I can easily do it with my iPhone.  What I'm finding though is my MacBook (laptop) is starting to gather dust.  I now pretty much only need it in hotels during overnight stays.
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Offline Iggy

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #20 on: February 13, 2012, 03:57:27 PM »
Persia,
I don't doubt tablets are here to stay. I fact I was looking at a 7" one yesterday because I thought it might be convenient to carry around the house.

I just hope that Win8 features an alternate to its touch based UI as I don't feel comfortable with that or require it on a desktop.

In some ways, touch is a bigger pain then an advantage.
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Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #21 on: February 13, 2012, 04:35:47 PM »
Quote from: Arkhan;680378
Tablets are trash.  How are you supposed to program on that touchy-pokey doucheinterface.
You're not. The whole idea is to keep you from unauthorized activities like programming by giving you one controlled source for all your software. Tinkerers are dangerous!

Quote from: Iggy;680379
Microsoft's problem is that older windows variants are still perfectly usable.
 
 Something tells me Win8 will not be that great a success and that WinXP, Vista, and Win7 will be around for quite awhile longer.
This is exactly it - they've been struggling to keep people upgrading ever since XP, the only real architectural improvement 7/Vista has to offer is better integration of 64-bit mode, AFAIK. Everything else they could just as easily release as XP service packs.

Quote from: Iggy;680382
Quote from: jorkany;680380
Windows 8 is like Windows 1 - you can either have a bunch of small panes tiled together, or a full-screen.
 
  Remember how popular Windows 1 was?
 Not really. We had it on the shelf for sale.
Psst, the answer is "was laughed out of the market." The difference, of course, is that the Microsoft of 1985 knew it was stupid, and only disabled free placement of windows because Apple was going around suing everybody, whereas whatever idiot design students they've got on the Metro team probably think they're being "elegant."

Quote from: persia;680384
That aside, the market for desktops is dismal, it hasn't gone anywhere in years.  The GROWTH is in mobile devices.
HP doesn't seem to think so, they decided to keep manufacturing PCs after toying with the idea of quitting, but they didn't feel the need to keep their tablet business alive...

Quote
Touch interfaces are here to stay, at least until direct neural input is possible.  On the desktop we'll see traditional keyboards and trackpads/mice augmented by touch.  Nobody wants to do database entry on a touch screen, but what about occasionally touching to get a photo in the right angle?  Or on a browser?  Or in iTunes?
Why would I want an interface that requires me to lift my hand up to the screen when I can just as easily (if not more easily) point and click by moving my hand over six inches to the mouse (if it isn't there already?) Touchscreens at least make some kind of sense on smartphones, where the screen is small enough to be easily covered by finger and wrist motion - on desktop screen sizes (and desktop screen positions) they just make no damn sense.
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Offline persia

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #22 on: February 13, 2012, 05:40:29 PM »
@commodorejohn

When mice first came out I heard a lot of people complaining "why would I take my hands off my keyboard to go way over to use the mouse?"  Times change.  Personally I got rid of my mouse in favour of a trackpad  some time ago, and much of the touchscreen gestures are are already present in a trackpad.  I can see times where you'll want to touch a monitor.  Touch takes away the abstractness.
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Offline persia

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #23 on: February 13, 2012, 05:44:23 PM »
@Iggy

I think that Microsoft will probably leave some kind of Windows ball for the old folks to play with, but the younger generation will likely never even see a Windows ball or know that it once held a clunky way to access your programs...
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Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #24 on: February 13, 2012, 05:56:05 PM »
Quote from: persia;680394
When mice first came out I heard a lot of people complaining "why would I take my hands off my keyboard to go way over to use the mouse?"
Yes, but the mouse offers the concrete advantage of being faster and more intuitive in some situations. Touchscreens aren't faster than a mouse at desktop screen sizes, and they aren't so much more intuitive that they'll make up for the annoyance of using them in a desktop situation. Try holding your arm aloft for long stretches of time, and see whether that's more comfortable than resting your mousing arm on the desk (with an armrest) for long stretches of time.
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Offline TheBilgeRat

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #25 on: February 13, 2012, 06:23:33 PM »
Quote from: runequester;674386
It's not dying. It's just that sales are tapering off, because there's more competition in the market, and people are less inclined, I think, to do the habitual 2 or 3 year upgrades that was so common in the 90s and 2000s


This.  I upgraded to an I7 from my pentium 4 not because I could do more work on it, but just because of a desire to get back into time-wasting PC games.  I didn't really NEED to upgrade.  I still have that p4 - it was my main computer for 7 years.  the rollover is certainly slowing down.
 

Offline TheBilgeRat

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #26 on: February 13, 2012, 06:27:19 PM »
Quote from: persia;680384
...What I'm finding though is my MacBook (laptop) is starting to gather dust.  I now pretty much only need it in hotels during overnight stays.


Also this!  I am finding the same thing, although I don't have an iPad.  Big I7 for games and programming, iPhone for most else, and my macbook is kind of a glorified notebook and the apple platform to test my java programs on or how webpages render in Safari.  My feeling is the laptops are the doomed form factors.
 

Offline runequester

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #27 on: February 13, 2012, 06:46:54 PM »
Quote from: TheBilgeRat;680406
Also this! I am finding the same thing, although I don't have an iPad. Big I7 for games and programming, iPhone for most else, and my macbook is kind of a glorified notebook and the apple platform to test my java programs on or how webpages render in Safari. My feeling is the laptops are the doomed form factors.

It doesn't help that a lot of laptops are so heavy, hot and awkward that they really aren't very convenient. Throw in that they are a pain to repair, often hard to expand and yeah, sucks.
 

Offline persia

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #28 on: February 13, 2012, 07:54:13 PM »
@commodorejohn

Did I say you had only one choice?  Pad/Mouse AND Touch Screen.  They are not mutually exclusive, regardless of what Steve Jobs (PBUH) seems to have said.  The main problem is money.  With an iPad you have one 10 inch screen to have touch sensitive, with a desktop you have 2 or 3 screens, one or more of which may be 27 inches....
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Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Microsoft's Dumbest And Smartest Moves Of 2011
« Reply #29 from previous page: February 13, 2012, 07:56:41 PM »
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.
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