Windows worldwide market share is stuck at 15% and falling

[persia]

It'll all quiet down, MS Windows 8.1 is usable, the annoying two head desktop is less annoying, people will accept it in time like they accepted the start/windows button in the past.  Everyone thought that was a bad idea when it first came out and it was, but people came to use it anyway.

[persia]

Ever hear of Keynote?

How about something simple like making a PowerPoint presentation or for that matter using any msoffice software? As a student i can confidently say it is impossible to use an ipad or Android device for uni.

In fact typing out this post using my phone is 10 times harder and annoying than it needs to be.

Also usb sticks is a must in daily uni life for all sorts of things.

I need a laptop. Tablets and phones are useless for anything but checking emails and using blackboard.

[persia]

11 Hard Drives?

Here is my Windows 8 machine as close as possible to classic windows themes, not accurate enough, no icon change etc just colors and classic shell installed, but as close as it gets without skinning with windows blinds etc, the start menu is from "classic shell" with my own start button.
All Metro UI stuff is turned off and won't pop up whatever yuo do, you have to manually edit the configs to turn it on again.

image shrinked to 70% from 1920x1080.

[persia]

A far large percentage of MS Windows users than OS X users are still using mice.  The Windows tile interface works best on a track pad.  

Since 8.1 it is a lot harder to get lost, the only thing that isn't obvious is the charms bar.  It looks as though they really tried to make the start screen act more like OS X launchpad.

[persia]

Do partitions make sense in a modern OS?

[persia]

Launchpad isn't a separate world in OS X, it's just a way to see all your applications, it doesn't have active tiles that feed you information.  It feels a part of the OS.  Microsoft has tried to integrate the Start screen back into Windows 8.1, so it's less jarring, unfortunately Windows 8 apps still run in there own desktop full screen by default rather than allowing you to make them full screen like OS X.  I think Microsoft tried too hard, instead of just copying OS X they tried to one better OS X and they aren't really good at that.

What needs to happen is that Windows 7 apps need to run in the Windows 8 desktop so that they can just do away with the Windows 7 desktop entirely.  The tiles need to be rethought.  Is it really necessary to display information in a program launch window?  And while better they really need to think about how to switch between full screen and not full screen.  They need to pull touch and non-touch apart and optimise for both.

[persia]

Apple really got the trackpad.  Windows 8.1 works with a trackpad far better than a mouse, but they aren't really using it right.  It needs to basically duplicate what a touch interface does and no more.  Somebody should lock the Microsoft designers in a room full of MacBook Airs and not let them out until they understand the Trackpad.

[persia]

Sort of like what Dell does...  Being a Mac user my Windows environments are all virtual, if the Windows VM become diseased I blow it away and use a backed up VM.

Windows has 90% of the desktop market, a company that can't leverage that into the tablet market deserves to fail.  

I leave some space on drives or have an empty OS partition. If the OS get virus damaged I can reinstall and have all my software ready, without plugging in extra hard drives.

I think MS will fail some day in the future. Their software is silly and uninspired.

[persia]

You qualified your own statistic. Apple, Google and Microsoft each have their own market in which they dominate.  Given the headstart Microsoft had this is shocking no matter how you quote the statistics.  How can you take a 90%+ lead in all computer devices in 2006 to a 30% share in 2013?

The only reason Microsoft is still in the game is that Apple has apparently lost it's vision.  The latest iPhones and iPads are such a small advance on the previous models that it's almost laughable.  This is unwise given the history that Microsoft eventually gets things right...

On a touch screen device mimicking gesture on the touchpad is not intuitive. IMO. Better to get the pointer movements and dynamic acceleration down pat. I turn touchpad gestures off in those situations.
As to Market between your quote and CJs is the reason you can't quote market numbers without qualification.
Windows 8 holds over 12 times the market share of OS X on new PCs and Laptops.
Stats....hmmm.

[persia]

In the PC market yearly upgrades were smaller than this for 20 years and no one ever complained.

That's true, and iOS has such a huge inventory of software that doing something to make it incompatible would be silly.

[persia]

And don't forget punched cards and paper tapes!

T
The difference is that microcomputers used the exact same physical UI for the end user as mainframes/minicomputers - first a keyboard and text display, and then a graphical display and mouse as well. Microcomputer manufacturers didn't invent some gimmicky new interface when the one that was already the standard was entirely adequate, so once the hardware caught up, there was basically no reason not to just use micros. If microcomputer manufacturers had gotten it into their head that they should fundamentally alter the way the user interacted with the computer, it would've been a different story.

[persia]

iOS is basically a single user version of OS X, if you look under the bonnet.  Android is a Linux kernel with a Java front end.  Blackberry is based on QNX, which Amiga OS should have been had they not botched it.

[persia]

Linux folks are awaiting Ubuntu tablet version, but I doubt it can knock Android and iOS off the top.  Firefox OS seems as moribund as their browser.  Blackberry OS doesn't seem to be very popular any more.