[Softpedia] More Than Half of Computer Users Haven’t Even Heard About Windows 8 – Study - Page 2

Hey, look, Yahoo! News Uk and Ireland (the real source of the news, linked to in the Softpedia article)!


It's not surprising, people have other priorities, so their attention is directed at other, more important things. The economy (not only in the US, but in many european countries, not to mention Africa) is not great, and now with Hurricane Sandy, things are not likely to get better.

In my opinion Microsoft did three things wrong with Windows Phone 8. Windows RT and Windows 8:

1. Windows Phone 8's tiles are a good idea, but they look horrible. Honestly, why the basic colors that look like the interface was taken from AOL's 1996 kids interface ?



I know, because Windows Phone 8 is based on the NT kernel and the reason why the specs on both Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT devices have to be so high (at least dual core CPUs, more RAM than their counterparts, more storage for the OS, bigger battery), but a little change could do wonders.

Suggestion: give the tiles the option for a brushed aluminium look in various colors. Makes a world of difference and won't overburden on the resource requirements.


2. Windows RT. They want to give people the advantages of a desktop on a tablet, but the experience ends up being less than satisfactory because of the system requirements. Reviews have already talked about applications taking too long to load, and some lag and the whole extra system requirements because Windows 8 is based on the NT kernel make its bill of materials skyrocket. If you want to take advantage of Office 2013 Home and Student, you have to buy at least the Touch Cover too, making it cost $599, for a tablet that can't run x86 applications, doesn't let you install software other than the one bought from Microsoft's store, and sends you back into the desktop for certain configurations.

Suggestion: design an OS from the ground up to be touch friendly (except for Office applications that would always need a keyboard to be 100% effective, but still even there they could have invested in a better touch interface to allow some interaction without the Touch Cover or the keyboard). As it is, Windows RT looks like Windows Mobile 6.5 all over again: new touch interface on the surface (pun intended), but throws you back into stylus land (or keyboard land in the Surface RT case) for more configurations.

3. Windows 8. All very nice under the hood improvements, almost nobody is going to complain about that, but the interface changes are a big compromise that doesn't give anybody any tangible advantage. People are already used to smartphones, they don't need exactly the same type of interface on the desktop OS, people in general understand the basic differences in physical interface and the need to have a more suited UI.

Suggestions:

- Bring back the Start menu, improve it, for example by incorporating the "expert menu" (or whatever you want to call it - it's the menu that appears when you right click on where the Start menu button used to be) in a sub-menu in the Start menu, for example by replacing the "Control Panel" button with a "System Tools" menu that would have Control Panel and all other options the expert menu has.

- Make the modern (once called Metro) UI a desktop application. Making the desktop behave like an app, launched from the modern UI is a complete reversal of what a desktop operating system should be. The focus is on the wrong thing in Windows 8. Allow for the modern UI to run either in fullscreen or in a maximized window, with the taskbar always visible. This ensures all your applications can interact with you to let you know when they need your attention (notifications, blinking icons). Allow modern apps to run on the desktop, to be minimized to the taskbar, just like any other program instead of having a second taskbar for that, which only adds uneccessary complication, and allow them to be resized and have a "Close" button. They are fully vectorized already, so there is no technical reason they can't be resized. Microsoft will probably have to vectorize the desktop first, which is something they should have done a long time ago.

- Privacy suggestions: separate the Microsoft Store from the rest of the system. I want to be able to log into the store just like I log into Steam. I want a local account and a login to the Microsoft Store as separate as an option. Also, make the Smart Screen filter download signature files to check if your downloads are safe, just like Anti-virus / Internet security packages do, instead of sending a request with some file information and your IP address to Microsoft's servers each time you download something.

For those who say people who don't like Windows 8 are afraid of change, how about this ? I have suggestions to improve the Windows ecosystem. I'm not afraid of change. I can tell good change from bad change and make suggestions to improve the product where I feel it is badly or poorly developed / implemented.