Loving it on my laptop, it's actually very easy to use. I'm lucky enough to be old enough to have gone through the Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 change which also had the same comments flying around.
"Oh the start menu will never work, it will be a flop" etc ;-)
The Start menu stuck around because
it was a big improvement on Windows 3.1's Program Manager - saved space, improved organization, and allowed quick navigation while preserving all the important functionality. "Metro" is exactly the opposite - it wastes a crapload of space, impedes navigation, adds whiz-bang layout gimmickry at the expense of organization, and does absolutely nothing at all to improve on the old Start menu.
The start menu is still there, it's the metro UI (or whatever they want to call it now), click on the desktop app, hover the mouse where the start menu usually is, up pops the metro menu.
Yes, and now it uses all your screen space to display less information than it did in less than half of it before.
And you can't turn it off. WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT.
Run the mouse pointer down the left hand side of the screen and up pops the new task bar with large icon previews of each app, which is far more informative than the old.
If you need cramped little thumbnails of windows to tell you what you have open, you're either illiterate or have too many similarly-titled windows open.
Run the mouse pointer down the right hand side brings up settings for apps and the computer depending on what app you're currently in. PC settings down the bottom brings up the control panel.
And I'm sure the integration of mouse gestures into the OS by a company that famously sucks at UI innovation won't get annoying at
all. Especially not with their new "oh, we just don't
allow you to turn off the glitzy new crap anymore" attitude.
Pin anything you like to the metro menu, expand out and see all apps. I've created groups and added the games and apps I need.
Gee, that's kind of like
exactly how the Start menu has always worked, only now it's a giant, disorganized waste of space! Huzzah!
Anyway, doesn't matter what I say there will be some replies complaining and as per history the same old arguments will come up.
The fact that there have always been codgers and there will always be codgers has
absolutely no bearing on whether or not the codgers are right. In this case, the codgers are absolutely dead on.
All this will calm down and people will adapt just like they did when the start menu appeared.
That remains to be seen. Vista has already shown that Microsoft isn't as all-powerful as they like to think.
I've seen 5 year old's adapt to windows 8 like fish to water. Some have never used a computer before but they seemed to find it more natural.
Yes, I suppose if you've never been exposed to a good GUI, it probably
is easier to get used to a bad one.
Anyway things are changing and we will move further and further away from what we see a computer as being today.
"Things are changing" - the perpetual fallback argument of the futurist. Yes, things
are changing, they're
always changing - but the mere fact that something is
happening does not make it
good.
