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Windows 8 is a Failure
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mattyb
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May 7, 2013, 12:27 PM
 
Microsoft prepares U-turn on Windows 8 - FT.com

NOTE : I don't follow the NewsPoster threads, so no comments about this already being discussed.

Ballmer needs to step aside.
     
Chongo
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May 7, 2013, 12:57 PM
 
MS needs to buy OS XI and call it Windows 9
45/47
     
subego
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May 7, 2013, 01:13 PM
 
I think Ballmer took a gamble, and it only half paid off. Sinofsky is obviously good, but turned out to be too big of an asshole to pull back in the right places.

Apple should hire him.
     
Shaddim
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May 7, 2013, 05:19 PM
 
Indeed, it's rancid.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
     
lpkmckenna
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May 7, 2013, 07:45 PM
 
Frankly, the most important thing needed to fix Windows 8 is to bring back the Start Menu. Not just the Start button, which is I what I hear they plan to do. Everything else is just a minor gripe.

They need to wall off the desktop and tablet modes, so that if you only want one or the other, you aren't forced into the other environment for some dumb reason. I'm totally ok with giving desktop users access to tablet apps (something Apple doesn't allow), but just make it optional.

I also think the Win8 desktop mode looks ugly without drop shadows, but I don't think that's a deal-breaker.
     
Eug
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May 7, 2013, 09:38 PM
 
I still haven't met anyone who has willingly "upgraded" from Windows 7 to Windows 8. The only person I know that has Windows 8 only has it because she had to buy a new laptop. She doesn't like it.

BTW, I just read that Sony is increasing the resolution on its laptops, and there will be no more Vaio laptops with 1366x768. Too bad Windows 8 still has serious problems with high pixel density, despite the plethora of high pixel density laptops on the Windows side.

Mac OS X also had problems with high pixel density, but they got around it by going Retina and adjusting the OS elements to compensate. Windows 8 has not done enough of the necessary adjustments, and Sony doesn't have a Retina-level screen anyway.
     
ghporter
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May 7, 2013, 09:48 PM
 
Win8 is simply an even-numbered Windows version...does anyone remember Windows 2? That was dismal. The just can't come out with a decent OS that has an even number. Vista was an even number,,,

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
Eug
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May 7, 2013, 09:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
Win8 is simply an even-numbered Windows version...does anyone remember Windows 2? That was dismal. The just can't come out with a decent OS that has an even number. Vista was an even number,,,
Windows 1
Windows 95

Windows 98 was a massive improvement over 95. And Windows 2000 was a massive improvement over Windows 98.

Yeah, Vista is Windows 6, an even number, but Windows 7 is actually 6.1. Windows 8 is actually 6.2.
     
lpkmckenna
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May 7, 2013, 10:06 PM
 
Woah, ghporter just got schoooooled.
     
Spheric Harlot
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May 8, 2013, 07:39 AM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
Windows 1
Windows 95

Windows 98 was a massive improvement over 95. And Windows 2000 was a massive improvement over Windows 98.

Yeah, Vista is Windows 6, an even number, but Windows 7 is actually 6.1. Windows 8 is actually 6.2.
And Apple has been on version 10 for thirteen years.
     
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May 8, 2013, 08:07 AM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
Yeah, Vista is Windows 6, an even number, but Windows 7 is actually 6.1. Windows 8 is actually 6.2.
And this is where you should be looking - the second version number. The first truly successful Windows was 3.1. Then you had NT 3.5.1, which truly proved that a Windows could be stable, Windows 4.1 (Win 98), Windows 5.1 (XP) and Windows 6.1 (Win 7). MS is not good at getting the big bang releases out the door - Windows 4 (Win 95) , NT 4, NT 5 (Win 2000) and Windows 6 (Vista) all had to drop features to get out the door (in three of those cases, the dropped features included a file system) - but when they have managed to get something working, they're quite good at iterating on it. Windows 8 is technically quite well done, I understand, and the x86/x64 versions work well enough despite the unfamiliar interface.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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May 8, 2013, 08:14 AM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
Frankly, the most important thing needed to fix Windows 8 is to bring back the Start Menu. Not just the Start button, which is I what I hear they plan to do. Everything else is just a minor gripe.

They need to wall off the desktop and tablet modes, so that if you only want one or the other, you aren't forced into the other environment for some dumb reason. I'm totally ok with giving desktop users access to tablet apps (something Apple doesn't allow), but just make it optional.
So you want Windows 7, basically.

Microsoft's problem is that they own a market that is shrinking, and they want to jump to the next big thing - tablets - using their current monopoly as a springboard. This means that they're hanging their current desktop users out to dry. They won't wall off the modes - that's perfectly contrary to what they're trying to do!

I think that the Start button is coming back because it is an immense aid to discoverability, but the old menu is gone and not coming back. The menu has changed so much over the years - the Start Screen is in many ways a natural evolution of the concept. Now, I would probably make it a little more organized and strict in the default install, but I don't think the basic idea is going anywhere.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
lpkmckenna
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May 8, 2013, 01:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
So you want Windows 7, basically.
No, I think giving desktop users access to tablet apps (and vice-versa) is a great idea. I just think it should be optional.

I would love to be able to access iOS apps in Dashboard.
     
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May 8, 2013, 02:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
No, I think giving desktop users access to tablet apps (and vice-versa) is a great idea. I just think it should be optional.

I would love to be able to access iOS apps in Dashboard.
Enough of them would be broken or completely inoperable to make the feature frustrating, unpredictable, and a totally failed user experience.
     
lpkmckenna
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May 8, 2013, 02:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Enough of them would be broken or completely inoperable to make the feature frustrating, unpredictable, and a totally failed user experience.
That depends. If it's a game with on-screen or gyro controls or, yeah it won't work. Everything else would be fine. There's no reason to think the iOS versions of Evernote or Facebook or any other typical app focused on click and scroll would be unusable.
     
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May 8, 2013, 05:27 PM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
No, I think giving desktop users access to tablet apps (and vice-versa) is a great idea. I just think it should be optional.

I would love to be able to access iOS apps in Dashboard.
So run them in the simulator?
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Spheric Harlot
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May 8, 2013, 05:37 PM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
That depends. If it's a game with on-screen or gyro controls or, yeah it won't work. Everything else would be fine. There's no reason to think the iOS versions of Evernote or Facebook or any other typical app focused on click and scroll would be unusable.
Yes, it "depends" whether something will work or not, or just be broken slightly, or work partially, or be just fine.

And that would "make the feature frustrating, unpredictable, and a totally failed user experience," as I wrote in the post you quoted.

Building a feature, where you cannot know in advance whether it will reliably work or not, is fine for some open-source hack that the odd geek will install on the chance that it will prove useful for something or other.

It is certainly not something that should ever be shipped as part of a commercial product, regardless of what Microsoft might be misunderstanding this time.
     
lpkmckenna
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May 8, 2013, 06:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Yes, it "depends" whether something will work or not, or just be broken slightly, or work partially, or be just fine.
I've never seen a non-game app where this might be true.
     
lpkmckenna
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May 8, 2013, 06:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
So run them in the simulator?
I'm led to understand that compiled apps don't run in the simulator. Not a dev so I wouldn't know first-hand.
     
Spheric Harlot
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May 8, 2013, 06:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
I've never seen a non-game app where this might be true.
GarageBand. Animoog. MIDI Designer, MIDI Touch. iMS-20. Paper.

Pages, Numbers, Keynote, iMovie, iPhoto, and GarageBand have desktop equivalents, but we're talking about iOS software, and just looking at the differences between the iOS versions and their Mac counterparts gives you a good idea of what would go wrong.
     
ghporter
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May 8, 2013, 08:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
Windows 1
Windows 95

Windows 98 was a massive improvement over 95. And Windows 2000 was a massive improvement over Windows 98.

Yeah, Vista is Windows 6, an even number, but Windows 7 is actually 6.1. Windows 8 is actually 6.2.
Win 1 was not a real OS, it was a DOS app. And Win95 was a huge improvement over Win3...and had a follow on "upgrade" history that was anything but simple. Then came 98, which wasn't as great as many remember until Win98 Second Edition, which was itself a huge success.

And while Win7 may be thought of as "6.1," it is substantially different under the hood, particularly in the management interface (which in many ways went back to XP's interface), the overall interface of Win 8 is the real problem people note, and it sort of undid all the "let's fix the issues in Vista that people complained about" and then goofed up the paradigm Windows users had decades of experience with.

Will "Blue" be "6.3"? Who knows. But it will be different from Win8. And though the specific details of version history may be as clear as mud to most users, my observation isn't even mine, just me repeating something that has floated around since NT came out...

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
lpkmckenna
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May 8, 2013, 08:24 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
GarageBand. Animoog. MIDI Designer, MIDI Touch. iMS-20. Paper.
Paper's just a painting app. Can't see why that wouldn't work.

Virtual keyboard apps would certainly feel clunky, but they would work. Hell, GarageBand and Logic actually have virtual keyboards you can play with the mouse.
     
Spheric Harlot
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May 8, 2013, 08:37 PM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
Paper's just a painting app. Can't see why that wouldn't work.

Virtual keyboard apps would certainly feel clunky, but they would work. Hell, GarageBand and Logic actually have virtual keyboards you can play with the mouse.
Have you ever actually used an iPad?

Maybe you really can't see it, or maybe you're just unwilling to seriously consider what I'm saying. But even if you completely dismiss all my other points (like comparing the Mac and iOS versions of iWork and iLife), I'll just leave you with a greek word to look up:

polyphony.

I'll leave it at that.

Also, the Surface may be for you. Apple doesn't understand how to do what you think you're asking for.
     
subego
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May 8, 2013, 08:56 PM
 
Some people hunt and peck on their keyboards.
     
lpkmckenna
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May 8, 2013, 11:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Have you ever actually used an iPad?
Yes. And I own an iPhone. Is your rhetorical question going somewhere?

Maybe you really can't see it, or maybe you're just unwilling to seriously consider what I'm saying.
I understand exactly what you said, thought about it, and decided it's unlikely to be true for anything but games. The touch controls for most non-game iOS apps is limited to tap, tap'n'hold, and scroll. They'll work fine.

But even if you completely dismiss all my other points (like comparing the Mac and iOS versions of iWork and iLife)...
You didn't really make a point, you just said "something would go wrong," which isn't a real point.

I'll just leave you with a greek word to look up:

polyphony.

I'll leave it at that.
I'll just leave you with what I already said: the Mac versions of GarageBand and Logic have GUI keyboards. The iOS version of GarageBand would work no worse than that.

Oh, and polyphony is an English word, not a Greek word. Photography and telephone aren't Greek words either. None of those fancy dinosaur names are Greek either. It's like, I dunno, there's a whole phenomenon of new words created with Greek syllables or something. Neologism isn't a Greek word either.

Also, the Surface may be for you.
Sure, an overly hot and heavy tablet with terrible battery life is exactly what I'm looking for.

Apple doesn't understand how to do what you think you're asking for.
Of course they do. Or do you think Apple is run by a gang of idiots?
     
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May 9, 2013, 01:53 AM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
I've never seen a non-game app where this might be true.
Just last weekend, I was in a store, shopping for a shirt. When I wanted to know whether they had one in my size, the girl took her iPhone and checked the inventory. iPhones and iPads are used a lot for inventory and asset management (e. g. big car companies, insurances), but iPads are also popular as »live menus« as well as points-of-sales. For certain niches, they have become an indispensable tool already. Some DJs also use an iPad in connection with an external controller.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
Spheric Harlot
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May 9, 2013, 02:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
I understand exactly what you said, thought about it, and decided it's unlikely to be true for anything but games. The touch controls for most non-game iOS apps is limited to tap, tap'n'hold, and scroll. They'll work fine.

You didn't really make a point, you just said "something would go wrong," which isn't a real point.
Just for starters, let's take the obvious: How would you re-size anything?

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
I'll just leave you with what I already said: the Mac versions of GarageBand and Logic have GUI keyboards. The iOS version of GarageBand would work no worse than that.

Oh, and polyphony is an English word, not a Greek word. Photography and telephone aren't Greek words either. None of those fancy dinosaur names are Greek either. It's like, I dunno, there's a whole phenomenon of new words created with Greek syllables or something. Neologism isn't a Greek word either.
I thought the trees were so obvious, and here you're arguing about when they became native species.

POLYphony involves SEVERAL concurrent notes. MORE THAN ONE.

iOS interfaces would break in many subtle ways or become tremendously clunky simply because moving a cursor across an interface with any precision is vastly different from putting down your fingers on a touch surface, and decent interface designs take this fully into account.

But the truly basic aspect, and one that I tried to make painfully obvious without doing all the legwork for you, is that the Mac IS NOT MULTITOUCH.

Those "virtual keyboard apps" aren't for the most part actually virtual keyboards: they're new musical interfaces that DO NOT WORK with a single mouse-based pointer. Even if you haven't the slightest idea what that might mean, it should be at least comprehensible that it is a fundamental characteristic of many musical instruments that several notes can be played AT THE SAME TIME.

Any app that actually relies upon multitouch will not work on a mouse-based system. Even the most basic functions like resizing or zooming would have to be completely rewritten — they won't just work; they'll be broken.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
Sure, an overly hot and heavy tablet with terrible battery life is exactly what I'm looking for.
A weird hybrid interface that throws you back and forth between touch interface modes as it deperately attempts to integrate two fundamentally different concepts that don't work together is exactly what you are looking for.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
Of course they do. Or do you think Apple is run by a gang of idiots?
No, THEY are not.

Let me decipher the phrasing (I thought it was rather elegant, but it obviously went over your head):

I think they fully understand what you think you want.

I think they are absolutely convinced that what you ask is not possible in a non-broken product.

Thus: Apple doesn't understand how to do what you think you're asking for.

Microsoft, by contrast, does, and they think they've pulled it off, which is why Windows 8 is so universally loved, and the Surface is flying off the shelves—into the trash bin.
     
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May 9, 2013, 04:49 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Some people hunt and peck on their keyboards.
I know lots of people who have labels stuck to the keys on their synths. But they all have an idea that pressing more than one key at a time can lead to interesting results.
     
lpkmckenna
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May 9, 2013, 11:01 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Just for starters, let's take the obvious: How would you re-size anything?
If you mean, how would you do the "pinch," Apple's mice and trackpads can do that. If you don't have one of those, Apple could emulate it with something like pressing Shift while scrolling. But if you mean, how would you resize an iOS app like a window on the Mac, you simply wouldn't. Like I said, they would be repackaged as Dashboard apps, which don't suffer if they can't be resized. Most are fixed size anyways.

I thought the trees were so obvious, and here you're arguing about when they became native species.

POLYphony involves SEVERAL concurrent notes. MORE THAN ONE.
Holy crap, I know what it means. You refuse to listen to my point: Apple is already using point and click audio keyboards in their own music software, so there is no reason not to permit it in iOS/Dashboard apps.

Besides, Apple already provides a way to plug keyboards into iOS devices to activate the on-screen keyboards, and it would be trivially easy to let iOS apps take input from midi keyboards plugged into the Mac. You're complaining about nothing of any substance.

iOS interfaces would break in many subtle ways or become tremendously clunky simply because moving a cursor across an interface with any precision is vastly different from putting down your fingers on a touch surface, and decent interface designs take this fully into account.
You pretty much have it completely backwards. Activating desktop apps with our fingers on a touch screen (like the Surface) works very poorly, but activating tablet apps with a mouse pointer is trivially easy. Go watch any YouTube video of apps being run in the simulator.

But the truly basic aspect, and one that I tried to make painfully obvious without doing all the legwork for you, is that the Mac IS NOT MULTITOUCH.
And like I keep saying, most iOS apps use a very limited touch interface and would work just fine. And like I keep saying, Apple needs to provide a way to repackage iOS apps as Dashboard apps. Clearly, that means apps that rely heavily on complex multitouch would never get repackaged by devs because they wouldn't work anyways. You're literally complaining about a problem that wouldn't exist. No dev is gonna repackage his iOS app as a Dashboard app if it just won't work anyway.

Even the most basic functions like resizing or zooming would have to be completely rewritten — they won't just work; they'll be broken.
Nonsense. We know this because basic iOS apps work just fine in the simulator.

A weird hybrid interface that throws you back and forth between touch interface modes as it deperately attempts to integrate two fundamentally different concepts that don't work together is exactly what you are looking for.
Running iOS apps in Dashboard isn't particularly weird. Particularly since they changed Dashboard in Mountain Lion to look a lot more like iOS.

Microsoft, by contrast, does, and they think they've pulled it off, which is why Windows 8 is so universally loved, and the Surface is flying off the shelves—into the trash bin.
You don't seem to understand why Windows 8 is failing. It's not because Windows 8 has two modes. It's because desktop mode isn't improved from Windows 7, and is actually worse because the tablet interface intrudes awkwardly on the desktop interface. If they were properly walled off, there would be no complaints.

You know, just like Dashboard is completely walled off, and never pops up unless the user actually wants to use it.

And Surface isn't failing because it has two modes, but because the ARM version is painfully slow and you can't install Windows apps, and the Intel version is hot, heavy, and has poor battery life.
     
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May 9, 2013, 11:15 AM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
Win 1 was not a real OS, it was a DOS app. And Win95 was a huge improvement over Win3...and had a follow on "upgrade" history that was anything but simple. Then came 98, which wasn't as great as many remember until Win98 Second Edition, which was itself a huge success.

And while Win7 may be thought of as "6.1," it is substantially different under the hood, particularly in the management interface (which in many ways went back to XP's interface), the overall interface of Win 8 is the real problem people note, and it sort of undid all the "let's fix the issues in Vista that people complained about" and then goofed up the paradigm Windows users had decades of experience with.

Will "Blue" be "6.3"? Who knows. But it will be different from Win8. And though the specific details of version history may be as clear as mud to most users, my observation isn't even mine, just me repeating something that has floated around since NT came out...
To be clear, when I say that Win 7 is 6.1, I mean that the internal version number actually is 6.1. I'm not making it up to make a point. Vista included many under-the-hood changes that weren't quite fully baked yet, and 7 fixed them while not making any more significant changes: e.g. they fixed Aero, which was new with Vista, but did not try to reintroduce the cut WinFS. It is when MS does this that they are at their best, simply because they can keep testing for years in small groups to polish individual features until they shine. For this reason I think that Blue might be a success.

Win 8 for x86 was badly received because people didn't like the changes MS made, while Vista was badly received because MS executed badly - the changes they wanted to make were well received. Not the same problem at all.

You have a point about Win 98 and SP1 (SE was SP1 plus new versions of IE and Media Player), but it is notable how many people stayed on 98 and XP and refused to upgrade. Absolutely no one refused to upgrade from Vista, SP1 or not.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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May 9, 2013, 11:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
If you mean, how would you do the "pinch," Apple's mice and trackpads can do that.
No, their mice can NOT. You can enable such gestures by way of third-party extensions like BetterTouchTool, but it's pretty fiddly and not a default option for a reason.

No other input devices other than trackpads support anything of the sort.

And again, you're sidestepping my point: The fact that it could work with some of those devices means that it WILL BE BROKEN WITH ALL OTHERS.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
If you don't have one of those, Apple could emulate it with something like pressing Shift while scrolling.
Good idea: a perfect third-party opportunity.

Build your goddamn own non-intuitive, non-discoverable access to basic functionality. Apple ain't ever gonna give it to you.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
Holy crap, I know what it means. You refuse to listen to my point: Apple is already using point and click audio keyboards in their own music software, so there is no reason not to permit it in iOS/Dashboard apps.

Besides, Apple already provides a way to plug keyboards into iOS devices to activate the on-screen keyboards, and it would be trivially easy to let iOS apps take input from midi keyboards plugged into the Mac. You're complaining about nothing of any substance.
Look, I kept the examples to an absolute minimum because it's perfectly clear that you have absolutely no clue what I'm talking about.

At least pretend to be aware that I'm only scratching the surface to Keep It Simple.

The fact that Apple ALLOWS single-click virtual keyboards is as relevant as the fact that you can use KeyCaps for typing. Try it - it works. Now type your reply to this post using that interface. That's not "broken", by your definition, and I guess you're right. But it's a completely idiotic way to work with an interface that was designed to be operated from a keyboard.

Here, play a nice pattern on this using your mouse, or a hooked-up MIDI keyboard:


Now build a cool groove to underpin it in this interface, using a single-pointer mouse:


Now, switch to Maschine, and hack out a cool sample-based tune at 126 BPM on this thing, using your mouse:


Or, indeed, just ACKNOWLEDGE the existence of something like Musix, the whole point of which is that it is NOT a standard keyboard, and NOT operated like one:


Incidentally, the whole reason why Paper (which, as you say, is "just a drawing app") is so successful, is because it was among the first to be designed specifically NOT to be used with a mouse, but to utilize the touch interface. "Undo" requires a two-finger tap with a hold-and-rewind motion.
There is NO WAY this could work on a computer interface.

The more developers figure out how to really leverage the advantages of a multi-touch interface, the less likely it will work on the Mac.

In fact, the only things we're really missing out on on the Mac are those things that WOULDN'T EVEN EXIST if it weren't for the multi-touch interface. Everything else already pretty much has desktop counterparts.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
You pretty much have it completely backwards. Activating desktop apps with our fingers on a touch screen (like the Surface) works very poorly, but activating tablet apps with a mouse pointer is trivially easy. Go watch any YouTube video of apps being run in the simulator.
I believe I have just conclusively proven your assertion to be entirely wrong.

In fact, the better multi-touch apps get, the LESS likely they are to function properly on a traditional computer interface.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
And like I keep saying, most iOS apps use a very limited touch interface and would work just fine. And like I keep saying, Apple needs to provide a way to repackage iOS apps as Dashboard apps. Clearly, that means apps that rely heavily on complex multitouch would never get repackaged by devs because they wouldn't work anyways. You're literally complaining about a problem that wouldn't exist. No dev is gonna repackage his iOS app as a Dashboard app if it just won't work anyway.
Ah, NOW you're finally making sense: You're asking for a simple way for iOS developers to adapt their apps to run on a Mac, and now suddenly stating, for the first time, that they would actually need to do this for them to work.

Well, we're in complete agreement here: That makes perfect sense.

Except that is what we've already had for five years.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
You don't seem to understand why Windows 8 is failing. It's not because Windows 8 has two modes. It's because desktop mode isn't improved from Windows 7, and is actually worse because the tablet interface intrudes awkwardly on the desktop interface. If they were properly walled off, there would be no complaints.

You know, just like Dashboard is completely walled off, and never pops up unless the user actually wants to use it.
I was talking about the Surface failing. And by all possible measures of success, failing it is.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
And Surface isn't failing because it has two modes, but because the ARM version is painfully slow and you can't install Windows apps, and the Intel version is hot, heavy, and has poor battery life.
The prime criticism in the initial reviews was that the interfaces weren't walled off.
     
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May 9, 2013, 12:03 PM
 
DAE see the irony of arguing you can use a touch interface just fine without a touch screen in a Windows 8 thread?

Try putting 8 on non-touch hardware. See how that works for you.
     
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May 9, 2013, 12:21 PM
 
Yep.
     
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May 9, 2013, 01:17 PM
 
I think he's still typing up that reply using KeyCaps and his mouse.
     
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May 9, 2013, 01:35 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Try putting 8 on non-touch hardware. See how that works for you.
I have Windows 8 on my Mac, which I bought to play BioShock Infinite.

I've toyed only a little with it, using the built-in apps. But they work fine without a touch interface. Unlike iOS apps, "Metro" apps are expected to be accessible with and without touch.
     
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May 9, 2013, 01:38 PM
 
I think you should work with a touch version before you make that claim.
     
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May 9, 2013, 03:18 PM
 
This thread will be moved to the Pol Lounge if you guys aren't careful.
     
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May 9, 2013, 03:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
No, their mice can NOT.
Didn't know that. Thanks.

And again, you're sidestepping my point: The fact that it could work with some of those devices means that it WILL BE BROKEN WITH ALL OTHERS.
No, I didn't side-step your point at all. I said Apple would have to provide the functionality, like shift-scroll. I'm not side-stepping your point if I address directly. Sheesh.

Or they don't even have to use Shift-Scroll. You can zoom in Safari for Mac with the pinch, or you can Cmd+ or Cmd-, they just need to make that same option available in Dashboard wigdets too. This isn't rocket science. These are utterly trivial things for Apple to address.

Good idea: a perfect third-party opportunity.

Build your goddamn own non-intuitive, non-discoverable access to basic functionality. Apple ain't ever gonna give it to you.
Really? This is the company that makes you close Dashboard widgets by holding down the Option key so the Close box can appear? (They finally sorta corrected this in Mountain Lion.)


Look, I kept the examples to an absolute minimum because it's perfectly clear that you have absolutely no clue what I'm talking about.
Look, I understand exactly what you're talking about. Complex multi-touch doesn't translate to mouse and keyboard systems.

You don't seem to be listening at all to what I'm talking about, even though I'm being clear as day: basic iOS apps with basic UI input would easily translate to the Mac. Easily.

That's all I'm saying. Apple provides a method to repackage as widgets, the devs decide to do it or not.

You can list all the complex multi touch apps you want. That doesn't change the fact that hundreds and hundreds of simple apps could be easily converted. I could type out the names of iOS apps that would translate well until my hands disintegrated from all the typing, or I died of old age.

BTW, making a drum groove with a mouse in a virtual drum machine is easy as pie: Create an 8 measure loop, play a rhythm on the high hat, then the snare on the 2s and 4s, then tap out the bass drum beat. I used to do it all the time in Logic back when I was into that stuff.

And isn't that guitar designed to be played with a single press of the chord tabs, and the rhythm is automated?

Or, indeed, just ACKNOWLEDGE the existence of something like Musix, the whole point of which is that it is NOT a standard keyboard, and NOT operated like one:
Sure, I acknowledge its existence. Whatever it does, doesn't look mouse-friendly.

So congrats, I need to modify my original statement from "If it's a game with on-screen or gyro controls, yeah it won't work." to "if it requires complex multi-touch or gyro controls, like games and one or two other things, yeah it won't work. Everything else would be fine." Glorious victory, chap.

Incidentally, the whole reason why Paper (which, as you say, is "just a drawing app") is so successful, is because it was among the first to be designed specifically NOT to be used with a mouse, but to utilize the touch interface. "Undo" requires a two-finger tap with a hold-and-rewind motion. There is NO WAY this could work on a computer interface.
If that's the only example of a complex gesture in that app, that's exactly the kind of trivial thing that could be addressed in the repackaging process. Like, I dunno, Cmd-Delete.

Try to remember (hell, acknowledge), that I'm not saying Apple should permit all iOS apps on the Mac. I'm saying Apple should provide a method to repackage iOS apps for the Mac as Dashboard widgets. Can you acknowledge that point, so I don't feel like I'm yelling at a deaf person?

In fact, the only things we're really missing out on on the Mac are those things that WOULDN'T EVEN EXIST if it weren't for the multi-touch interface. Everything else already pretty much has desktop counterparts.
I'm not talking about desktop counterparts, I'm talking about Dashboard widgets. Yes there's a bunch of Twitter apps, and Twitter websites, but there are no good Twitter widgets. Repackage those Twitter apps as Dashboard widgets, and let devs charge money thru the Mac App Store for them, and Dashboard would turn from a wasteland into a wonderland. I would gladly dump that hateful Dropbox menu item for the Dropbox iOS app as a widget.

iOS is loaded with clever little apps that would be perfect as Dashboard widgets. Apple should facilitate that.

I believe I have just conclusively proven your assertion to be entirely wrong.
No, my point is and always was: Basic iOS apps would translate easily. If they didn't, devs won't do it.

In fact, the better multi-touch apps get, the LESS likely they are to function properly on a traditional computer interface.
But I never said otherwise! You're arguing with a ghost.

I mean, just go back to my original point:
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna
If it's a game with on-screen or gyro controls or, yeah it won't work. Everything else would be fine. There's no reason to think the iOS versions of Evernote or Facebook or any other typical app focused on click and scroll would be unusable
.
Look at my examples. You can't tell me apps like that wouldn't easily translate.

Ah, NOW you're finally making sense: You're asking for a simple way for iOS developers to adapt their apps to run on a Mac, and now suddenly stating, for the first time, that they would actually need to do this for them to work.

Well, we're in complete agreement here: That makes perfect sense.

Except that is what we've already had for five years.
Really? Point out the iOS to Dashboard conversions that I can buy in the Mac App Store. Thanks, that was really helpful.

And I said "repackage," not adapt. Overwhelmingly, most iOS apps would need no adjustments at all to work, since their interface is just click/pinch/scroll.

I was talking about the Surface failing. And by all possible measures of success, failing it is.
You sarcastically said Windows 8 "is universally loved", so I addressed that.

The prime criticism in the initial reviews was that the interfaces weren't walled off.
I recall that being a criticism of Windows 8, not of Surface itself. Every tech site I read reviewed Windows 8 and Surface independently, and what I said about Surface is what they said. I certainly can't recall a single reviewer ever saying something as silly as the blended interface being the "prime reason" for criticism, but I can recall every single one of them complaining about weight, heat, battery (Pro), and speed (RT).
     
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May 9, 2013, 03:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
iOS is loaded with clever little apps that would be perfect as Dashboard widgets. Apple should facilitate that.
Amen. Certainly the dashboard could use the love.
     
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May 9, 2013, 04:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by mattyb View Post
This thread will be moved to the Pol Lounge if you guys aren't careful.
Are you kidding? It's like the good old days, when people argued about whether Apple could or should make a headless iMac, whether PowerPC was hurting the Mac, whether PhotoShop bake-offs were a bunch of marketing fluff, and how the world ended when Steve cancelled the Newton.
     
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May 9, 2013, 04:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
Didn't know that. Thanks.

No, I didn't side-step your point at all. I said Apple would have to provide the functionality, like shift-scroll. I'm not side-stepping your point if I address directly. Sheesh.
You're "addressing it directly" by providing a SINGLE example where it might work properly.
My entire point is that a single instance of something working, and every other instance being unknown, or even known not to work, is utterly inconsistent and/or unpredictable interface behavior.

That is the very definition of "broken interface".

I call this "side-stepping" because I'm saying "if you offer the whole box of crayons, there's no way of telling whether the one that's picked will be blue", and you're saying "if you pick the blue one, it will be blue", and I'm like "yes…and?" and listing a bunch of the other colors they could, and which you proceed to dismiss as exceptions.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
Or they don't even have to use Shift-Scroll. You can zoom in Safari for Mac with the pinch, or you can Cmd+ or Cmd-, they just need to make that same option available in Dashboard wigdets too. This isn't rocket science. These are utterly trivial things for Apple to address.
And that is complete poppycock.

WHAT would Cmd+ or Cmd- zoom in or out? The entire interface? The selected object? On iOS, that depends upon what exactly you're pinching and zooming on, and in which app. Along with two-finger drags meaning different things in different apps. There is NO WAY for Apple to implement a one-size-fits-all approach for multi-touch gestures.

None at all.

This is not a "trivial" problem, in the least.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
Really? This is the company that makes you close Dashboard widgets by holding down the Option key so the Close box can appear? (They finally sorta corrected this in Mountain Lion.)
Well, the fact that it was deemed a problem, AS PER YOUR OWN ARGUMENT, should tell you something.

"Well, they broke their own interface back here — surely that's reason enough to break it in this case?" Er. Um.

(in addition, the reason that was "hidden" was that the primary interface for modifying Dashboard content was through the "+" icon at the bottom, which showed the close button on all Dashboard widgets and let you add other widgets to the screen. This was about as intuitive as using the "Start" button to shut down your computer, though—broken in its own way.)


Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
Look, I understand exactly what you're talking about. Complex multi-touch doesn't translate to mouse and keyboard systems.

You don't seem to be listening at all to what I'm talking about, even though I'm being clear as day: basic iOS apps with basic UI input would easily translate to the Mac. Easily.
And lo and behold! — that's exactly why those apps that easily translate HAVE LARGELY BEEN PORTED.

Take a look through the Mac App Store.

You are asking for Apple to create a usability nightmare to solve a problem THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN SOLVED for half a decade, by offering a single set of developers' tools for both iOS AND the Mac.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
That's all I'm saying. Apple provides a method to repackage as widgets, the devs decide to do it or not.
Apple provides a method to repackage as APPS; it's called Xcode. The devs decide to do it or not.


Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
You can list all the complex multi touch apps you want. That doesn't change the fact that hundreds and hundreds of simple apps could be easily converted. I could type out the names of iOS apps that would translate well until my hands disintegrated from all the typing, or I died of old age.
Spend that time looking them — or equivalents — up on the Mac App Store, instead. It would waste a lot less of both our time.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
BTW, making a drum groove with a mouse in a virtual drum machine is easy as pie: Create an 8 measure loop, play a rhythm on the high hat, then the snare on the 2s and 4s, then tap out the bass drum beat. I used to do it all the time in Logic back when I was into that stuff.
Did you follow my advice and type all that using the mouse on the virtual keyboard? Because unless you did, you don't follow my point.

I can hack individual notes into a piano roll editor using Cmd-click all day. Or I can spend twenty seconds just PLAYING the ****ing thing in a single take. But that requires a different interface.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
And isn't that guitar designed to be played with a single press of the chord tabs, and the rhythm is automated?
No.

It does that when "auto-play" is switched on. But Apple is smart enough to realize that having a multi-touch display makes different input modes possible.


Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
So congrats, I need to modify my original statement from "If it's a game with on-screen or gyro controls, yeah it won't work." to "if it requires complex multi-touch or gyro controls, like games and one or two other things, yeah it won't work. Everything else would be fine." Glorious victory, chap.
Careful there: That's getting dangerously close to my point, which is:

"If it's actually well-made and properly geared towards iOS devices, it won't work. Everything else IS ALREADY EASILY PORTED."

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
I'm not talking about desktop counterparts, I'm talking about Dashboard widgets.
I think you really need to face up the reality that Dashboard has been dead for about three years now. Macs have no longer had a dedicated Dashboard key for some time now.

The default app model is shifting towards widget-like usage and interfaces, and being able to nail those widget-apps to a specific desktop is not just coincidentally exactly like the default way Apple implemented Dashboard in 10.7.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
I recall that being a criticism of Windows 8, not of Surface itself. Every tech site I read reviewed Windows 8 and Surface independently, and what I said about Surface is what they said. I certainly can't recall a single reviewer ever saying something as silly as the blended interface being the "prime reason" for criticism, but I can recall every single one of them complaining about weight, heat, battery (Pro), and speed (RT).
That was true of the Surface Pro.

The initial criticism that I refer to came with Surface RT, and was already accepted wisdom by the time the Surface Pro came out (after all, the RT had completely flopped). It was mostly along the lines of this:
Daring Fireball Linked List: MG Siegler Reviews the Surface With Windows RT
After using it for over a week now, it’s hard to come up with a lot of nice things to say about the Surface. Don’t get me wrong, there are some solid things here. But by and large, it’s a strange, buggy, and clunky product that I simply can’t imagine many people buying after the initial hype wears off.

Put another way: I got one, but I don’t get it.

[…]

Desktop mode (or the Desktop app, if you prefer) is a cruel joke. It’s the same old Windows of decades past that you’re used to (well, minus the Start button itself), but it’s on a touchscreen device. And while some of the UI has been updated to make it more touch-friendly, a lot of it has not been well, touched. I’ve never had more mis-clicks, accidental closings, and all-around frustration with a computer. Ever.
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/su...sing-1C6643458
I keep falling in love with the thing, only to be yanked out of infatuation by the recurring appearance of "classic" Windows. It's not just when I launch Office apps, which are not touch friendly and require a mouse/keyboard interaction; it even happens when interacting with the tablet in ways that really don't necessitate the old interface.
     
Spheric Harlot
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May 9, 2013, 04:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
Are you kidding? It's like the good old days, when people argued about whether Apple could or should make a headless iMac, whether PowerPC was hurting the Mac, whether PhotoShop bake-offs were a bunch of marketing fluff, and how the world ended when Steve cancelled the Newton.
Yes, of course he was kidding.

I have to say, I'm rather enjoying this back-and-forth. Like the good old days, indeed.
     
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May 11, 2013, 10:43 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
To be clear, when I say that Win 7 is 6.1, I mean that the internal version number actually is 6.1. I'm not making it up to make a point. Vista included many under-the-hood changes that weren't quite fully baked yet, and 7 fixed them while not making any more significant changes: e.g. they fixed Aero, which was new with Vista, but did not try to reintroduce the cut WinFS. It is when MS does this that they are at their best, simply because they can keep testing for years in small groups to polish individual features until they shine. For this reason I think that Blue might be a success.

Win 8 for x86 was badly received because people didn't like the changes MS made, while Vista was badly received because MS executed badly - the changes they wanted to make were well received. Not the same problem at all.

You have a point about Win 98 and SP1 (SE was SP1 plus new versions of IE and Media Player), but it is notable how many people stayed on 98 and XP and refused to upgrade. Absolutely no one refused to upgrade from Vista, SP1 or not.
I have some issues with how Microsoft decides what is a .x update and what's a new version. It seems that almost everything to them is marketing and face-saving, and this looks pretty much like the latter. Perhaps there is not enough change in the code base for them to decide that 7 was a major version update from Vista, but it sure looked that way to users. And 8 may be substantially the same as 7 under the hood, but what people see is that hood, and they really hated that. My boss bought his wife a laptop for work, but took it back because it had Win8 on it and they couldn't get past the user interface. I should note that my boss is extremely tech savvy; he wound up getting a less expensive laptop that came with Win7 because both he and she were able to use it out of the box.

I like it when Microsoft gets it right. People still remember that I have a degree in computer science, and they still come to me with tech problems, despite my protestations that I haven't done any really technical work on computers in years. When MS messes up, it makes life hard for regular users, and that makes life quite hard on me. But it also makes them look bad, and the public's memory is always very short, so they take a very harsh hit in public opinion when they do this. And it is enough of a pattern (joking aside) that their even-numbered releases have problems that you would think they'd try extra hard to make sure all of the parts of these releases are solid (and user tested with lots of people, not just folks near their Redmond offices ) that nobody is surprised by "radically new user interface" issues, etc.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
   
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