Did we all just witness Windows start to die?

[psxphill]

Some statistics firms, for instance - will list a Windows RT or Pro tablet as a PC in the numbers, but an iPad or Android tablet is classed as a tablet. A Windows RT tablet is in no way a "computer", lol. It's barely a tablet. Traditional PC sales *are* declining, but I am more inclined to think that people simply aren't buying/replacing machines as often as they used to.

Yeah the take up rate of Tablets and the slow down in growth of PC's are mostly independent. It's like trying to draw conclusions from the difference in sales of washing powder and potato chips.
 
Windows 8 & especially 8.1 is actually really good if you try it. I wouldn't go back to Windows 7 now. I remember going from Windows 3.1 to OS/2 Warp and it was good, but then Windows 95 was much better. Some people still love OS/2 Warp, but I prefer better functionality & better performance (even if that means learning something new).
 
It is annoying that Windows RT is locked down, because it is basically a full operating system. There is a jailbreak for it, but it's not permanent (it's not a major problem to redo it after each reboot but it is an annoyance).

[psxphill]

@psxphill, tablets and desktops are both computers, one is declining in sales numbers, one is increasing in sales numbers. Yeah, it could be coincidence, and the nay sayers could be right the two aren't related. But more often than not if you have two similar things and one is going up and the other down there is a link...

This isn't like CRT vs LCD/LED where people stopped buying one and then started the other.
 
You're the nay sayer (One who frequently engages in excessive complaining, negative banter and/or a genuinely poor and downbeat attitude).
 
I'm just saying that I don't think Window is starting to die (at least no more than every living thing starts to die as soon as it's born).
 
Sales figures are irrelevant. How many people are using computers is more important than how many people are buying them. That figure is harder to get though.
 

Even Dave Haynie is commenting on this thread.

The thread is TL;DR. I might be marginally interested in what he has to say if you copy and pasted it. However just because he has a history with commodore, doesn't mean that I would take on his opinion of the market now. I rather make up my own mind, which is why I didn't drink the Linux kool aid.

[psxphill]

All Android phones are a pain in the ass if they come with manufacturer skins/bloatware. Buy a Nexus or HTC One/S4 Google model, or just roll vanilla android onto whatever you have. It's well worth it. I found my last S3 damned near unusable with TouchWiz, but loved it with vanilla JB. Cyanogen is a Godsend.
 
Vanilla Android I find just great. I'll likely never go back to an iPhone.

It is annoying though. It'd be like ford selling a car that only had 1 forward gear and you had to take it to some back street garage to have a new gearbox fitted. Sure some people will do it, but most will just not buy the car in the first place.
 
The stupid thing is that they add all the stuff on it to differentiate. I would like one of them to differentiate by shipping AOSP (I always pick a phone on hardware and not software anyway, I look for the smallest phone with the best camera). Android development needs to mature though, there are too many kernel ports. There should be one source tree that can be built for all phones and you shouldn't have to choose what features you want to work and what bugs you are willing to live with.
 
I don't recommend hacking anything to anyone, I'll only help them if they come to me & they know the risks. With Android I wouldn't even recommend updating to the latest manufacturer supplied firmware, most people are happiest with the software that was on the phone when they bought it. Every manufacturer update is worse in terms of speed & stability.

[psxphill]

Just buy a Nexus device.

No sdcard slot and if you bought a nexus 2 years ago then it's stuck on 4.1.2
 
I'd rather buy the phone I like the look of and run any version of android I want on it.
 
Apple are the best at software support, but I don't like the hardware on those either.
 
I've been looking for something similar to my current phone, which is an xperia ray, but there really isn't anything I like.

[psxphill]

What's underneath that makes it better?
 
I still haven't activated my copy, so maybe I'm missing something but the default desktop them looks like pants, and they've removed stuff (like they did when going from Vista to Win 7).

The code was optimised for speed and memory usage for running on tablets, but as it uses the same code then you get the same benefit.
 
The desktop looks the same to me, background picture + icons + task bar at the bottom. The start menu & Aero has gone, but I don't miss either of them. The only thing I'm a little disappointed about is they stopped supporting Virtual PC/XP Mode, but there are other free emulators. Windows 8.1 preview is nicer, but on the whole Windows 8 is perfectly usable.
 
I can't understand why anybody would downgrade to Windows 7. It would be like returning a Ferrari because you preferred the feel of the gear stick in your Ford.

[psxphill]

Are there any real world tests on equally loaded set ups?

Yes. Most benchmarks favour windows 8.
 

They never bandied about beta names like "Chicago" and "Vienna" the way they ballyhooed "Metro." (The closest they got before that was "Longhorn," which only people who cared about Vista pre-release bothered with.) The reason they dropped "Metro" was because a minor lawsuit gave them a good excuse for escaping the fantastically terrible word-of-mouth it'd gotten - only it didn't work, and "Metro" stuck. Just a shame Metro the thing stuck with it... :/

dwup.inf from windows 8
 
[version]
signature="$CHICAGO$"
 
.....later on.....
 
;Profile for LocalService and NetworkService, moved from Users in Longhorn, creator specifies security
 
.....later on.....
 
;Profile for system account - moved from Docs and Settings in Whistler. Creator specifies security.
 
 
They are internal names & the only time they really used any of them publicly was in the beta test before the product name was decided.
 
 
I don't care about metro as I just don't use it. Which is good because I can't remember what I'm supposed to call it now.