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Microsoft Reveals More Windows 8 Details
Barence writes "Microsoft has released the first full details of Windows 8, with an all-or-nothing approach to touchscreen technology. All versions of Windows 8 — whether used on a touchscreen device or not — will use the operating system's new Metro interface, which was first developed for Windows Phone 7 devices. The advent of Windows 8 sees Microsoft introduce a new style of application, dubbed Metro Style apps, and its own app store. The company also claims to have boosted Windows 8 performance with fast boot/shutdown times, a new Task Manager and the option to refresh a PC with a clean install of the OS with apps and settings left intact."
...as if millions of PC users suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
As I said when OS X Lion was released, I think this push towards full-screen apps is a move backwards. Yes, having the app fill the screen makes a lot of sense for smartphones and tablets, where screen/interface space is limited and you're typically focusing on a single task at a time. But on a desktop?
The whole point of a multi-purpose desktop computer is to be able to do a myriad of things, and more importantly to combine all the various resources/applications together in powerful ways. I want to be able to have a web-page reference document open while I code something, or copy-and-paste something from a spreadsheet into a text document. I want to be able to cross-compare multiple graphs/images/whatever at the same time. To do all this, I need to be able to tile, stack, and move windows on my screen. Endless alt-tabbing just doesn't cut it.
With desktop monitors getting bigger and bigger, fullscreen apps just don't make sense. Even maximized apps don't make sense: your mouse has to travel ridiculously far to get from content to controls if you make your app fullscreen on a 30-inch monitor. (There are of course times when you want a single app fullscreen; e.g. photo editing on a large monitor gives you a much better view of the content.) One of the main advantages of modern large monitors is the ability to have multiple apps open at once, without them blocking each other or being ridiculously constrained. Why are we throwing away these advantages?
I'm fully aware of the cognitive science research on multi-tasking (specifically, that people are bad at it and that focusing on a single task for a longer period of time has big advantages). What I'm questioning is whether any non-trivial task can really be accomplished using a single application. We should be optimizing our user interfaces to maximize the efficiency and focus on tasks and workflows: not boxing ourselves into stripped-down full-screen apps.
I think this push towards full-screen apps is a move backwards.
Only for us who know better. Unfortunately, we are not the target market, anymore. All I see all day at work is people swishing their middle fingers around on their smartphones, and they seem to love all this stuff.
From Firefox to Unity to Aero to Chrome to Ribbon to iAnything, everything released within the last 6 years has driven me nuts. I'm really trying to give this stuff a chance, but I just hate everything I come across. It was the obscure error messages and badly designed menus that confused people, not the taskbars, status bars, and maximize gadgets.
What really frightens me is that the Linux community is heading in this direction, too. WTF?