If You Already Hate Windows 8 Then You Hate Technology

[Ironman273]

If You Already Hate Windows 8 Then You Hate Technology

I hate the term fanboy. It's a pejorative meant to denigrate someone's opinion. A conversation-ender. After applying it to someone, really there's nothing left to say. But seeing the reaction to Windows 8, I get why people use it.

Very many people who have never used the new early prototype Windows tablet have been sh**ting all over it like a public toilet, largely sight unseen. Much of that has centered around the fan.

Yeah, the fan blows. It's annoying. We get it! I'm with you.

But the Metro interface in Windows 8 is amazing. It's certainly advanced the field of gesture-based computing. The pen-based handwriting recognition just plain works. The ability to run two apps at once in snap state is spectacular. (I can't wait to use MLB At Bat while web-browsing, for example.) Metro apps are also ridiculously easy to develop and, thanks to the built-in Windows Store, easy to sell. There's a very low bar to entry to make and distribute great-looking gesture-based apps that accomplish all kinds of tasks. They're are going to be loads of them, doing very interesting things, produced by people who have never before made an app. It's profound.

If you're not intrigued by Windows 8 and Metro, if you can't recognize that it's a big leap forward, if you're not excited about what it means for you, personally then you don't really care about technology; you care about brands. You care about platforms. You care about politics. You're a fanboy.

Look, we all lean certain ways. I have my own set of preferences. I tend to vote for Democrats and buy Apple products. But that's because they tend to support my priorities, not vice-versa. If the Democrats suddenly turned their backs on science, or Apple began pushing out products with buggy cluttered interfaces, I'd look elsewhere. I don't really get those who treat brands like sports teams, offering blind allegiance over self-interest. That's just zealotry. God bless that file system; my platform, right or wrong.

The older I get the less I trust anyone who puts party or platform over the advancement of society.

This Apple Taliban's focus on the fan misses a huge point about Windows 8: It will trickle-down everywhere, and in little ways and large ones, it will make your Apple products better. Ultimately, Windows 8 will improve the Mac OS, and iOS, and hell yes, even the iPad.

Right now the iPad is the only game in town. Want a tablet? You should buy an iPad. No kidding. No exaggeration. Other tablet computers would be great if the iPad didn't exist. But it does. And as a result I would never in good faith tell anyone making a purchasing decision that they should buy anything else.

And before you berate me, know that I own an Android tablet and have used others. But I also own three iPads. They're better. They have more apps, a more responsive interface; they just plain work. We use them constantly. I'm not even sure where the Android tablet is. I think it might be in a drawer somewhere. I used to keep it in the sh**ter to read books on its Kindle app, not wanting to sully my iPad. But then the battery died and quite frankly it wasn't worth my time to find the charger and now I've lost the tablet too. I don't miss it.

I make this point not to attack Android, but to point out that the iPad doesn't really have any competition. Competition is good. It makes everyone work harder and do better. Windows 8 is going to be competitive. And if you care enough about technology to be platform agnostic, you know that's a good thing.

Improvements on one platform drive improvements on others. Typically (yes this is true, Windows zealots) Apple is leading the charge when it comes to interface technology. But not always. And as much as the Apple Taliban loves to point out every Mac OS feature and icon that eventually shows up in Windows (and in fairness many do) Apple is more than willing to borrow features from other platforms. The mouse and the graphical user interface were ripped off from Xerox, for example. More recently, the way notifications work in iOS 5 are very liberally borrowed from Android. I'm going to be amazed if, down the line, iOS doesn't borrow some features from Metro.

Look, the fan is noisy and it runs nearly constantly. But as Microsoft relentlessly explained, this is a developer preview running on sub-optimal hardware. The Samsung tablet that previewed at BUILD will never hit the market with Windows 8. Yet people keep bringing it up, again and again, as reason enough to dismiss the whole show. Apple would never show something like that, they argue.

And they're right. Kind of. Apple would never trust you enough to let you hold something unreleased like that in your hands for evaluative purposes. But it shows off early previews of things all the time. And quite often it trots something out onstage that just doesn't work. If you've never seen Jobs have a minor fit onstage when something doesn't work, you've missed some of his most entertaining moments.

Forget the fan. Focus on the interface. Metro is a fantastic way to get things done. Microsoft has fundamentally started over. It's built something ridiculously great. Now, whether or not it will get its act (and technology) together enough to ship Windows 8 and Metro on an ARM-based tablet that won't need a fan before Apple leapfrogs it is another question.

But for now, based purely on what it's shown, Windows 8?and especially Metro?is fantastic. It feels like the future. And you can bet those Windows 8 developer builds are being installed and evaluated on machines all over Infinite Loop. Because while those outside of Apple may be blind to how great Metro is, those inside are not. Apple gets that it can learn from Microsoft (yes, Microsoft!) even if the Apple Taliban does not.

Look, I'm with you. I love Apple products. They're great! But Windows 8? I'm a fan, baby. I'm a really big fan. And I'm noisy.

Source: Gizmodo

[ahhell]

Holy crap!!! A positive article on a Microsoft product written by Gizmodo?!!??!!?!?

Is the end nigh????

[@Leo]

There you go, another reason to see Windows 8 is failing - already there are HurrDurrs that like it more than they like their Macs. :laugh:

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

correct me if im wrong, but w/ the Metro UI, there's no multitasking, right? the 'app' takes up the whole screen so i cant put multiple apps side-by-side.

i guess i'm still in the desktop market. i want to have a big, high res monitor to put multiple windows all over the desktop. where is that in Metro?

[+Heartripper Subscriber¹]

correct me if im wrong, but w/ the Metro UI, there's no multitasking, right? the 'app' takes up the whole screen so i cant put multiple apps side-by-side.

i guess i'm still in the desktop market. i want to have a big, high res monitor to put multiple windows all over the desktop. where is that in Metro?

that's why metro should stay on tablets :alien:

[Ironman273]

correct me if im wrong, but w/ the Metro UI, there's no multitasking, right? the 'app' takes up the whole screen so i cant put multiple apps side-by-side.

i guess i'm still in the desktop market. i want to have a big, high res monitor to put multiple windows all over the desktop. where is that in Metro?

In the Metro UI you can have 2 apps side by side. If you want to put multiple windows that's easy too. You go to Desktop and open all the windows you want.

[Southern Patriot]

correct me if im wrong, but w/ the Metro UI, there's no multitasking, right? the 'app' takes up the whole screen so i cant put multiple apps side-by-side.

i guess i'm still in the desktop market. i want to have a big, high res monitor to put multiple windows all over the desktop. where is that in Metro?

I tend to agree. That is one reason that I love Aero Snap (and wish they would expand on that concept some to allow you to snap 4 apps to the 4 corners of the screen). I often have a couple of apps open side by side. With Metro apps, I'd have to have multiple monitors to do this. But, oh wait, can't do that either because it seems that you can't run two Metro apps side by side on different screens (at least from the reports I've seen, that might change).

[~Johnny]

correct me if im wrong, but w/ the Metro UI, there's no multitasking, right? the 'app' takes up the whole screen so i cant put multiple apps side-by-side.

i guess i'm still in the desktop market. i want to have a big, high res monitor to put multiple windows all over the desktop. where is that in Metro?

You can put two apps side by side. ANd if you want to open your old programs all side by side you can.

Immersive Metro apps aren't going to take over the entire computing world - productivity apps will all still be written in the stand WIndows Environment running on the desktop. Using Photoshop, browsing, using Office, AutoCAD, etc, you'll all be fine. You continue life as normal. People are still going to make desktop apps, and they're encouraged to do so!

More personal, consumption apps will be written in the Metro style. They're not things you'll spend MASSIVE amounts of time in, like you would with your works apps. Full screen gets rid of the distractions, lets you enjoy what's there and then bugger off back to work or something :p

[McKay]

I tend to agree. That is one reason that I love Aero Snap (and wish they would expand on that concept some to allow you to snap 4 apps to the 4 corners of the screen). I often have a couple of apps open side by side. With Metro apps, I'd have to have multiple monitors to do this. But, oh wait, can't do that either because it seems that you can't run two Metro apps side by side on different screens (at least from the reports I've seen, that might change).

If you're trying to multi-task with Metro Apps, you can have 2 on the screen at the same time, any others will freeze in the background like iOS multi-tasks, OR you can go to the old desktop and multi-task the old fashioned way, thats the beauty and possibilities of a Windows 8 Tablet.

[Southern Patriot]

If you're trying to multi-task with Metro Apps, you can have 2 on the screen at the same time, any others will freeze in the background like iOS multi-tasks, OR you can go to the old desktop and multi-task the old fashioned way, thats the beauty and possibilities of a Windows 8 Tablet.

Except that I was clearly talking about a desktop with multiple displays.

[~Johnny]

I tend to agree. That is one reason that I love Aero Snap (and wish they would expand on that concept some to allow you to snap 4 apps to the 4 corners of the screen). I often have a couple of apps open side by side. With Metro apps, I'd have to have multiple monitors to do this. But, oh wait, can't do that either because it seems that you can't run two Metro apps side by side on different screens (at least from the reports I've seen, that might change).

... then just continue using your desktop apps? :p It's not meant to be something that competes with the usefulness of the desktop. It's meant to be a different approach. You can continuing mostly using the old approach if you wish.

[Vice]

I stopped reading at "I hate the term fanboy." when right above is a picture of Apple staff / Customers touching a giant Windows obelisk.

Gizmodo picks whatever is against popular opinion to get page impressions. Don't fall for their tricks.

[Southern Patriot]

... then just continue using your desktop apps? :p It's not meant to be something that competes with the usefulness of the desktop. It's meant to be a different approach. You can continuing mostly using the old approach if you wish.

That's debatable. Considering that the Start screen comes up as soon as you log in (instead of going to the desktop), I'd say that the intent is for people to spend more of their time there than at the classic desktop.

[Xilo]

This one of the most stupid threads that I've ever read.

[FMH]

Why didn't they do a Live Coverage of the BUILD event? It was a pretty major event in any respect.

And I'm happy to see someone feeling towards Windows 8 like me! :p

It's built something ridiculously great.

[Quillz]

I think anyone who "hates" Windows 8 at this point needs to wait until the RTM. There likely won't be major changes, but there are certainly going to be changes, however minor, between now and then. I wouldn't be surprised if the public beta ends up functioning quite a bit differently.

[remixedcat]

so if you hate creed you hate all music ever made?

[Shadrack]

Hmm I can't figure out what I hate more. But by sure golly I think I do hate something. Do I hate the folks hating an operating system that hasn't even reached beta status yet? Or do I hate people who hate on folks who have an opinion? If it is the later, does that mean I hate myself? I know one thing, I'm certainty full of hate right now.

[astroXP]

This one of the most stupid threads that I've ever read.

I honestly didn't see anything stupid about it, in fact, it was, hmmm, unbias, sort of. :o

[majortom1981]

Windows 8 does multitask. Apps not written for metro ui when the tile is clicked will bring you to the desktop and open up.

You can alt tab through metro ui apps .

[JonathanVP]

Own an Android tablet and 3 iPads?? It must be nice!!

[Southern Patriot]

Windows 8 does multitask. Apps not written for metro ui when the tile is clicked will bring you to the desktop and open up.

You can alt tab through metro ui apps .

There seems to be several different definitions of "multitask" in use in the threads around here. While, yes, you can do what you are saying, you can't (for example) call up the Start menu without completely obscuring anything you are working with on the desktop or in other apps. That in itself is a serious limitation in my opinion, and one that would seriously hamper the way I regularly use my computer. See this post for an example of what I'm talking about here.

[BetaAddict]

That's debatable. Considering that the Start screen comes up as soon as you log in (instead of going to the desktop), I'd say that the intent is for people to spend more of their time there than at the classic desktop.

Again, this a dev preview. Many of the behaviors you see set by default are most likely going to be customizable come beta release or by RTM once user feedback rolls in. So the start screen should have an option to turn it off entirely if wanted to, or at least disable it from starting up upon login as it is very unlikely they will force any of the new features to those who prefer the traditional Windows experience.

The whole point of Win8 is to create a unified platform that will work both on tablets and desktops without creating separate, dedicated platforms entirely (e.g. Android Honeycomb and Gingerbread being separate right now, at least until Ice Cream Sandwich releases). The start screen is meant for tablets, while the traditional desktop is meant for, you guessed it, the desktop. You merge the two and it makes for quite an interesting experience on both types of hardware. Tablets have the full power computer in their hands while desktops have the ability to run a simplistic app-based interface in a way that the long-time Gadgets feature had failed to gain popularity and unnecessarily clutter up the desktop.

Personally, I don't really see why its a bad thing because you could theoretically have the tiles setup in a way to that the weather, news, and gmail inbox are in immediate view after logging in without having to open any other program. Does that still sound inconvenient? It's the same logic you would use on a smartphone when deciding what you want on the main homescreen so you don't spend time opening individual apps/programs to access what you want. MS definitely put some thought into it and decided this will be a logical and productive feature once devs code for high-demand metro apps, although a few will likely disagree.

[BajiRav]

I stopped reading at "I hate the term fanboy." when right above is a picture of Apple staff / Customers touching a giant Windows obelisk.

Gizmodo picks whatever is against popular opinion to get page impressions. Don't fall for their tricks.

That is a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey

Images: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=2001+monkey+obelisk&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=350l350l0l549l1l1l0l0l0l0l172l172l0.1l1l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.&biw=1680&bih=955&wrapid=tlif131612556548410&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi

You think it's a popular opinion that everyone hates Windows 8?

[.Neo]

Why this entire article is based around attacking Apple users I don't know. They have no reason to hate Metro nor Microsoft since they simply don't use it as their primary operating system. So for them making a huge fuss about Metro isn't necessary because they don't have to deal with it. So far the people that complain the most about Windows 8 and its Metro UI are, well, Windows users.

If anything the author is trying to generate hits by being quasi-offensive, even though it makes no sense at all.