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Windows RT vs. Windows 8 Could Burn Consumers
Nerval's Lobster writes "The Surface currently available for pre-order runs Windows RT, a version of the operating system designed to run on ARM architecture. Windows RT looks virtually identical to Windows 8, which, like previous versions of Windows, runs on the x86 architecture that dominates the laptop and desktop market. Microsoft's early marketing materials aren't exactly highlighting that differences between Windows RT and Windows 8 — and as a result, there's a high potential for unsuspecting consumers to end up burned when they buy a Windows RT tablet expecting the complete Windows experience. But Windows RT won't support legacy Windows applications — instead, users will need to hope and pray that developers port those applications to the Windows Store, the only venue for RT-supported apps. Over at The Verge, the intrepid Sean Hollister asked eight Microsoft Store representatives about the differences between Windows 8 and Windows RT, and received several confusing responses. 'To their credit, half of the representatives admitted that Windows RT wasn't as capable as Windows 8,' he wrote. 'The other half not so much. Moreover, those reps who did admit issues seemed dismissive of Windows RT as a whole.'"
...and I didn't have to read a disclaimer from Apple stating "Will not run OSX applications"...
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Microsoft is making a terrible mistake by not trying their absolute hardest to optimize the heck out of the Common Language Runtime for ARM. I don't think anyone would expect a tablet to be an acceptable desktop replacement machine - nobody thinks that of an iPad - but the fact they're not leveraging an existing architecture to bring application compatibility to the RT is going to cause major consumer headaches. No "native" apps would be a fine limitation, but they really should have the .NET CLR available for developers.
I occasionally chat with a few Microsoft SDEs who are directly involved in the development of native RT apps, and it usually goes something like this: "ARM is fucking terrible, it's weak and powerless!" "How come other platforms, including Linux, can run on ARM successfully?" "ARM isn't powerful enough to run Windows applications, that's what we mean. That's why we have to rewrite everything to be more highly optimized for these few Windows RT apps." "So, the reason Windows RT can't run Windows apps is because most Windows software is so bad, it wouldn't perform acceptably on something being run at its limits?" "Pretty much."
Perhaps that because iOS really looks nothing like OSX despite having the foundation of it?
...and I didn't have to read a disclaimer from Apple stating "Will not run OSX applications"...
And the Ipad didn't say 'OSX' on the front. This is being advertised as a Windows device, yet it won't run existing Windows programs.
Well.. It helped that the thing wasn't called "iMac RT".
But the iPad is advertised as having "iOS", not "Max OS X QF".
...and I didn't have to read a disclaimer from Apple stating "Will not run OSX applications"...
I had to crush the hopes and dreams of more than a few who didn't successfully draw that inference...
Also, that was called 'iPad' rather than "OSX AR on Apple iPad"...
That's the typical logic that a Microsoft fanbois would make that "I didn't realize I couldn't run iMac applications on my iPad - they both have 'i' in them - they must run the same apps..."
It's stupid whichever side uses the 'logic.'
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It's stupid whichever side uses the 'logic.'
It's stupid when you don't see the difference between 'buy this lovely Windows tablet*' and 'buy this thing from Apple that's kind of like an iPod but bigger'.
* Small print: which won't run any of your existing Windows software.
According to Wikipedia, "The RT acronym does not officially stand for anything." I predict that people will quickly take RT to stand for "ReTard" when they realize that Windows RT fails to run Windows software.
A Mac has "Mac" in its name (Mac mini, MacBook, iMac, etc). Its operating system is called "OS X".
An iPad doesn't have "Mac" in its name. Its operating system is called "iOS".
Hardware and software both have different names, there's no confusion.
Windows RT has "Windows" in its name, just like "Windows 98", "Windows XP", "Windows Vista" or "Windows 7". The Windows OS had names with numbers, letters, words... it's not constant, so "Windows (something) = Windows" for most people. And Windows RT certainly won't be an exception.
> Over at The Verge, the intrepid Sean Hollister asked eight Microsoft Store representatives about the differences between Windows 8 and Windows RT, and received several confusing responses.
And I would submit that this is intentional. The more the waters are muddied about the differences between the two operating systems, the larger the potential launch volume. And then you have a bunch of people out there who already own the product and are trying to make it work, giving additional motivation to vendors to port to it.
It's genius, although the kind of genius you pour out of a bottle.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It's not as illogical as you think. I've had several people showing me their CDs and DVDs telling me to install them on their Windows phones because "it says Windows and therefore it does work, and you're just incompetent if you can't do it!" I do not even know how they expected to use Office or their games on a phone, but that's the thing with luddites: often times they simply do not have any idea about what they're doing.
With the above in mind I can easily see people being burned by the whole Windows RT - thing.
Yeah, but did you expect your ipad 3 to run ipad 2 applications? Microsoft is selling two different tablets here, one that runs on x86, and one that doesn't.
Why, because of the menu bar? My wife's iMac desktop looks an alpha lot like her iPad, black background, rows of buttons/icons with shiny apple gradients across them.
I can see people possibly being confused by this, but these are the same people who are generally confused by everything involving choices in a computing environment.
The summary makes it sound like yet another conspiracy...
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Macs Run OS X.
iPad Runs iOS.
x86 and ARM machines both run "Windows 8".
Here is a perfect example of this SNAFU:
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/category/windows-tablets/31088.aspx?path=6d56ed26a8e2432d145864a8ee45cd37en01
This is the biggest Electronics retailer in Canada (does link work outside Canada?).
The First two tablets listed, both $599, Both look physically the same. Both have the exact same blue screen "Windows 8" logos on their screen.
There is absolutely no way that you can know by looking at any of the information at this level, that one of these tablets in x86 and will run legacy applications, and the other is ARM and won't.
If you go to each product page you can find in the fine print of specifications that one runs Intel, the other Tegra and one is Windows 8 RT. Which is incomprehensible nerd speak to most people.
It is that fact that they look the same, are marketed the same with the same graphical "Windows 8" is going to confuse almost everyone that isn't a hard core nerd.
Right, because THAT is how Apple goes about selling the iPad - "It's a bigger iPod."
LOL.
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I agree, but these are the type of people who get burned by anything technological ;) (as evidenced by them wanting you to put Exchange Server on their phones.)
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The two have gotten a lot closer looking of late; but that's because they've been iPadding the hell out of what used to be an endurable desktop OS...
Now how do we do this? Well, we start with a strong foundation: iPhone runs OSX. Now, why, why would we wanna run such a sophisticated operating system on a mobile device? Well, because it’s got everything we need. It’s got multi-tasking. It’s got the best networking. It already knows how to power manage. We’ve been doing this on mobile computers for years. It’s got awesome security. And the right apps.
Also on their product page:
“iPhone uses OS X, the world’s most advanced operating system. Which means you have access to the best-ever software on a handheld device”
They unequivocally stated that iPhone runs OS X, yet hardly anyone reasonably expected desktop OS X software to run on the iPhone. I argue that this is because iOS looks so different from OS X and that the form factor is so much different from a Desktop. Since then, Apple has trained people that on tablets, you get your software from Appstores. I think people will look at Windows tablets and have the same expectation, despite that it's called Windows. Again, how many people expected Windows Mobile or Windows Phone would run desktop Windows applications?
In fact, what I predict is that Microsoft will have the opposite problem: convincing people that Windows 8 on desktops will run desktop applications. You see that confusion here on Slashdot all the time.
I take it from that, you're not as hyped up about the new and amazing Windows Really Trendy edition as I am?
And Windows Mobile devices had Windows on the front.... was there a huge outcry from people who expected those to run desktop applications? I think the fact that Windows RT only comes on computers without a keyboard or mouse will be enough to frame consumer expectations that it won't run software designed for a keyboard and mouse. I think Microsoft will have the opposite problem of convincing people that Windows 8 runs the same desktop software as well as Windows 7.
The point of Microsoft’s Win8 (and WinRT tablets) is not to develop some awesome next generation UI, but rather to leverage its near-monopoly advantage and convince people to buy tablets that sound as if they could be the replacement for the current desktops. All the review articles seem to be pointing in that direction touting that you “should get a Windows tablet that runs everything.” The side that says “start developing new Metro applications or you will be left behind” misses the point that the Metro UI is not better for the desktop. Furthermore, Microsoft made the original desktop a second class citizen in Windows 8, complicating switching between programs or starting new programs. Enough inconvenience for the current users in hopes to drive the adoption for the new UI model. While the model works well for the touch enabled devices, it is a poor choice for the desktop or any large-screen workstations.
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
Well I am upset that the iOS on my touch would not provide routing, switching, internetworking and telecommunications functions.
There should of been a warning that this one did not provide that.
That's because the things thta run OS X applications are called "Macs". Like a Mac Mini. iMac. Mac Pro. Macbook Pro. Macbook Air. And all combinations thereof . "Mac" is part of the name.
iPad and iPhone? There's no "Mac" in the name, so no expectation to run Mac apps. There's an expectation to run iPhone apps on iPad, and probably the other way around too (which doesn't work unless it's universal).
Hell, I bet there are more people complaining they can't run MacOS Classic apps (or OS X PowerPC) apps on their Macs these days than people complaining about iOS apps working on their Mac or vice-versa.
Even the iOS things in OS X like the launcher aren't shown on first boot unless you click on them, further accentuating the difference.
Windows RT though, looks a lot like regular x86 Windows. And I'm sure people think Windows apps should run on Windows. Windows 8 RT and Windows 8? It's bound to be horrendously confused. After all, there's what, Windows 8 RT, Windows 8 Standard, Windows 8 Professional?
Hell I've had people ask about running Windows apps back when I worked on Windows CE.
If this article is right and Windows 8 ends up confusing and thereby pissing off consumers, I think this will be a huge win for Apple and Android. When you plopped $1k-$2k for a computer (in the olden days :-) and then added several $50-$150 software packages, the cost to abandon that platform is significant. But when your expenditures are in the $500-$600 range, tablet and apps, it'll be a lot easier to put the tablet up on eBay and go buy an alternative.
And the associated risks for Microsoft, let's call it the "horns effect*," could be catastrophic. People will say, "I gave Microsoft a chance for this new item, they suck. I'm not throwing more money at them. Look at how much I've spent on Windows computers/applications over the last 10+ years! Fool me twice, shame on me!" This really is a 'bet-the-company' move by Ballmer & Co (and of course we have 12 years of history of Microsoft under Ballmer to project from...)
* opposite of the "halo effect"
Your comment might be correct but for the fact that Microsoft is selling both the ARM "Windows RT" version of the surface AND the Atom x86 capable "Windows 8 Pro" version of the surface. Sure the x86 capable one is a little thicker and a little heavier - but to the untrained eye they are about the same. Yet one of them runs most of their legacy apps and the other won't run any of them. True the pro version won't be out until December or January - but it will be confusing as all hell for people.
I recently exchanged a couple of flames with a journalist because he wrote in an article that "The differences between Windows RT and Windows 8 are minor." I pointed out that Windows RT that Win32 is deprecated on it. It has a new API WinRT and I don't consider that a minor difference. He didn't get it "because the regular consumer wouldn't care about such details". So they don't care about the lack of apps perhaps? He still didn't get it...
Some consumers are going to care that you call something "Windows" and it doesn't run "Windows" applications like it used to. Windows RT will only run Microsoft approved Windows Store applications and I don't consider that a minor difference.
Perhaps the confusion is going to do us nerds a favor if the lock-down is shitty perhaps we could get our hands on some cheap nice hardware?
I can see people possibly being confused by this, but these are the same people who are generally confused by everything involving choices in a computing environment.
The summary makes it sound like yet another conspiracy...
I have to disagree:
;)
1). Windows 8 and windows rt look identical, both with tiles and touchscreens
2). Both designed for tablets
3). Both released around the same time
windows rt devices are cheaper though, so when consumers go into a store and see two tablets sitting side by side that look identical running windows, they're gonna grab RT, take it home, and be furious when they can't install any windows software on it, only software designed for Windows RT will work. I see this as a epic fail for Microsoft, biggest fail since windows ME. I do not understand why Microsoft made two identical OSes for tablets, they would have been better focusing on windows 8
Only good thing though is these RT devices will quickly be sold at fire sale and maybe we can put Android on them
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
> Moreover, those reps who did admit issues
> seemed dismissive of Windows RT as a whole.
Right, so those are the reps who know enough about Microsoft's fringe products to actually know what Windows RT is. Of course they're dismissive. It's an OEM-only OS intended exclusively for mobile devices. Since almost all mobile devices run either iOS or Android, and most of the rest run some custom OS produced by the device manufacturer, it's not surprising to me that half of Microsoft's own sales reps don't know anything about their mobile-only offering. How many of their sales reps five or ten years ago could explain Windows CE? Does anyone care?
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
If people don't expect the Windows Tablet to run Windows applications, then why is MS going to be selling a version that does in January? Don't you see that MS is going to need to make a concerted effort to let users know that this is THE difference between these two products, if the don't want people to buy the Windows RT tablet expecting it to run their existing applications.
Agreed, I was horrified when people started talking about OSX and iOS merging - a sure sign of the apocalypse.
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There's a different scale here. Sure someone trying to install a standard windows program on a phone will fall down at any old technological hurdle. The two are designed completely different, look completely different, and interact completely different.
But ... RT vs Windows 8. They have the same interface (metro), they run on the same type of hardware (laptops / slates), they come with identical software pre-installed (internet explorer 10, email clients, etc).
It's really not a stretch to see that this is going to be a far larger problem then the usual "Oh my god why are you even trying to use technology" type of crowd.
I agree it will be confusing, but not in the way everyone here is assuming. The overwhelming reaction from people when I show them my old tablet PC running Windows 8 is not "Oh, the obviously must be able to run my old software!" but is instead "Is this really windows? Can it even run my old software?"
Windows 8 looks so different from Windows 7, especially on a tablet, that people (at least in my experience) don't automatically assume it will run regular Windows applications. I think this is going to burn Microsoft in the opposite way everyone here is predicting.
Windows RT is just there to make things difficult for Android table makers. The "consumers" that buy them are merely colateral damage.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
In fact, what I predict is that Microsoft will have the opposite problem: convincing people that Windows 8 on desktops will run desktop applications. You see that confusion here on Slashdot all the time.
Exactly. RT launches first as 'the new windows'. People buy it, find it doesn't run their software - Windows 8 gets the same reputation, in much the same way as Vista's image was left tattered even after they had fixed most of the initial problems with it.
I think you're wrong. I think people are going to buy the tablet and be satisfied with the software bumdled with it and what they can download off of the Windows Store. I think anyone concerned with legacy application support is going to know the difference between Windows RT and Windows 8. The lack of a DVD drive is going dissuade most people from even trying to load their legacy software. For the few people that do run into this issue, they can always bring their tablet back and upgrade to the Windows 8 version.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
future shop is best buy and they only want people working there who can sell over knowing about tech.
But ... RT vs Windows 8. They have the same interface (metro), they run on the same type of hardware (laptops / slates), they come with identical software pre-installed (internet explorer 10, email clients, etc).
And both look completely different from Windows 7. I think this anchors expectations for Windows 8 to be "Can this even run my software?" instead of "This obviously must run my software, it's Windows!" This is still bad for Microsoft, because it might reduce sales of Laptops people think won't run the software they're used to on their laptop. But I think the supposed confusion between Windows 8 and Windows RT is going to prove to be overblown.
1) Windows RT devices are few and far between to begin with, most customers will be getting traditional x86 devices when they upgrade.
2) Most people don't use a lot of their Windows applications outside of Office and the browser, and the rest will be filled in with the Metro apps, so consumers will likely not be pissed off...yes, get this, most people aren't power users.
Microsoft's -real- mistake here is not killing the desktop off entirely in RT...it's still there, that's where Office resides, otherwise it's useless, don't even let people have the confusion when they test demos, period. Another mistake is the inability to join network domains...but that's another story.
Apple never used the Macintosh or MacOS branding in conjunction with the iPhone or iPad. In contrast, Microsoft insists on misleadingly using the same OS name – Windows – for both products.
That's the typical logic that a Microsoft fanbois would make that "I didn't realize I couldn't run iMac applications on my iPad - they both have 'i' in them - they must run the same apps..."
It's stupid whichever side uses the 'logic.'
Except, if I'm not mistaken, Windows 8 CAN run RT apps, but RT can't run all Windows 8 apps. So you've got two devices that look nearly identical to the non-obsessive eye, both in device shape and UI design, may have similar hardware specs, and both run what is otherwise the same OS, but one of them, for arbitrary reasons, won't run SOME apps the other one can.
Or in other words, iThingamajig apps don't run on OSX, never have run on OSX, and after the world bears witness to Microsoft's inevitable catastrofuck coming up, never will run on OSX. There's no confusion there, and I have yet to see anyone who legitimately thinks an iWhatever app should run on OSX*. But Microsoft is saying that SOME apps will run between their two OSes with seemingly arbitrary restrictions on which will do what to the untrained user.
*: Okay, it might also be because so few people have OSX devices compared to owners of iDoodads, but still.
They're already sold out and now are on backorder.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/trending/2012/10/17/surface_sold_out_new_microsoft_tablet_on_backorder_before_oct_26_release.html
apple macBook
apple iPad
????
It's debatable. I don't know many people expected to be able to run Microsoft Word on their Windows CE devices.
Android? You are weird.
A nice Linux with KDE is what this hardware needs.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Well, they have different OSes (MacOS vs iOS), a different UI (static icons vs a regular desktop), so you'd have to be really dumb to confuse them.
Both Windows 8 have essentially the same name, exactly the same UI... the difference is much less obvious. Especially since Windows has always existed in a plethora of compatible versions (Home, Pro, Entreprise, Ultimate, Media Center...) only the one and only RT flavor of Windows is incompatible with all those other versions.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
What is especially jarring is seeing all the tablet-esque window management misfeatures at play even as it has never been cheaper to have a couple of big monitors on your desk. In particular, the behavior where 'full-screen' on one application causes all your other monitors to blank to a grey background can only be Apple's way of giving the finger to their remaining pro users...
I can't think of anyone I know who would assume that Windows 8 won't run everything that Windows 7 runs.
I've been warning people away from Windows 8 (in any form) for the time being, until it becomes clear how big a mess this is going to be.
Yes, but they were all called Apple iPad, Apple iPod, Apple iPhone, Apple iMac - why does "Windows*" imply to you cross-compatibility but "Apple i*" does not?
A lot of people will potentially hate Windows 8 because they try to cram a tablet interface into a desktop OS.
A lot of people will potentially hate Windows tablet because they thought with an OS that is also available on the desktop, that this also means they can run the same apps as on the desktop.
Instead of calling it "unified vision" they need to call it "unified shooting in your two feet" vision.
Yes there will be a lot of confusion when some tablets can run their apps and some don't. Most non techies don't care or even know about different architectures. And when the general public becomes aware that not all tablets can run their apps, the only thing they will see is that you will have "non" expensive tablets that are crippled in their eyes and expensive tablets that can run their apps. Not a positive image for Microsoft.
The difference between iOS/Android is that their is a clear distinction between the desktop OS and the mobile OS. Some things that gets into OS X for example, is very subtle. With Windows Microsoft made the decision to make it unified which is nice if you have platforms that are compatible, but if you mix x86 with ARM it gets confusing fast.
Yes they did, and it came pre-installed on some devices.
http://www.pocketpcfaq.com/faqs/PocketOfficeFeatures.htm
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
But I really think that in this case ***Futureshop*** is confusing customers, not Microsoft.
Those stock photos showing the Windows 8 logo were not likely provided by ASUS for the RT product. >
Really this is a Microsoft Problem because they named them too closely. They should have called WinRT something totally different, to avoid this mess, really anyone thinking about it should have been able to predict this.
If all the product specialists are the biggest electronic retailers in North America are confused and making mistakes, what chance does the average consumer have.
Essentially the same thing happening at Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Tablets-Accessories/Category/ID-164?Tpk=tablet
Check the top of the page.
Win 8 Tablets!
Then they have a mix of ARM/x86 tablets all with the same graphics (this time Metro).
But it is still both kinds of tablets called Windows 8 and undifferentiated.
Just as everyone who buys a current "Windows 7" phone will soon discover that they are totally obsolete. 2012 is not a good year to be buying new Microsoft devices.
I had to explain to some folks in the photography business when the original iPad was released that it would not run Adobe PhotoShop even though it was an computer made by Apple. I expect there will be some folks who will make the same mistake with the MS RT tablets.
Because Apple is a company and Windows is an operating system?
The differences are:
1. Apple never marketed the IPad as running MacOS RT or anything resembling MacOS.
2. Apple doesn't market one tablet running MacOS and another tablet running iOS that look and operate the same but are incompatible.
Well, they certainly don't sell it as an OSX machine.
Unlike calling the new Microsoft devices "Windows tablets."
1) Windows RT devices are few and far between to begin with, most customers will be getting traditional x86 devices when they upgrade.
If it weren't for the hype about the Surface devices, I'd agree. I wonder how many will be returned because they can't run Borderlands 2 or whatever.
2) Most people don't use a lot of their Windows applications outside of Office and the browser, and the rest will be filled in with the Metro apps, so consumers will likely not be pissed off...yes, get this, most people aren't power users.
Depends entirely on the category of user. At home? Windows is big in the games market and the Surface can't run any of them. At work? It has no Outlook, no Active Directory support and ships with a version of Office you're prohibited from using in the office without buying upgrade licenses first.
I'm pretty sure that issue with multi-monitor setups and full screen apps have been resolves in Mountain Lion. At least that version of the OS solved my VMWare fusion problem running in full screen mode. But yes, prior versions of OSX did exactly as you described.
Life is not for the lazy.
RT is what MS want Windows to become. The desktop is legacy and at some point it will be dropped (admitedly, likely to be many years in the future). Dropping legacy support is one of Apple's strengths so why shouldn't MS try the same approach? Sure, on Oct 26th the RT tablets are going to be a bit of a dissapointment, but that will change. RT is a powerful framework:
From http://www.winsupersite.com/blog/supersite-blog-39/windows8/winrt-replacing-win32-140605
"...And in the same vein of blowing past peoples' expectations, virtually no app could not be written as a WinRT app. Many are imagining very simple, HTML-like apps, and while I'm sure there will be plenty of those, you need to reset your expectations up. WinRT is amazingly full-featured and not constrained to goofy utilities and simple games. The next "Call of Duty" could be a WinRT app, complete with support for Edge UIs and Charms..."
It is the x86 tablets that are the stop-gap
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
Because Apple is the company name and Windows is the name of a product line. If it were Microsoft RT then your argument might be valid. It would also be less confusing. If Samsung introduced a new laptop and called it the Samsung Galaxy LT I would expect it to run Android out of the box.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
As opposed to poorly handled Xinerama support stretching an image or game across five?
That is some messed up shit. Even Windows 98 handled multiple monitors better.
The confusion is with people that keep stating that it's "Windows 8 RT" It's not "Windows 8 RT", it's "Windows RT".
I don't think too many people thought "Windows CE" or "Windows Mobile" would run legacy applications.
No, the summary correctly explains that this is a disaster waiting to happen for support. Windows has been Windows for the last 30 years because they've reasonably well managed compatibility from one version to the next, and usually several versions beyond that. Microsoft money doesn't work anymore, but I have stuff from the late 90's that works fine on regular windows 8.
Windows RT is a different animal entirely, and I hope it's not intended as a serious product but just as a bone being thrown to the ARM guys in case that really becomes a future necessity, but that doesn't seem to be the case. It seems like they really are forking windows with the hope that new programs will support both. I certainly know I'm not supporting windows RT with anything I'm working on though, but who knows, maybe the big guys at EA and Activision will.
With Windows 8, and Windows RT and surface microsoft has picked fights with their biggest supporters, developers, consumers and manufacturers, in that order. This is bad all ways around. The app store risks limiting the open platform nature of Windows, Windows RT is going to confuse everyone who isn't on /. on a daily basis, and Surface is making all of the hardware partners wonder if microsoft is more competitor than ally. All of this could go very badly for everyone, although the hardware partners needed a good kick in the pants 10 years ago. And I haven't even gotten into the clusterfuck that is the design of windows 8.
Right, because THAT is how Apple goes about selling the iPad - "It's a bigger iPod."
LOL.
The iPad looks a lot like an iPod and nothing like a Mac. It does not say Mac anywhere on the box. It does not say MacOS anywhere on the box.
Now compare that to a Windows tablet, which says 'Windows' on the box.
I wonder which one users might be confused about? Particularly given that most iPad buyers probably got there from iPods and iPhones, not Macs, whereas most Windows tablet purchasers will probably be buying one after using a Windows PC.
You can have any Zune you want.
So long as it runs a fallible OS designed to function badly on a desktop and semi-reasonably on a mobile device.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Windows RT won't support legacy Windows applications — instead, users will need to hope and pray that developers port those applications to the Windows Store, the only venue for RT-supported apps."
Any technology that's misunderstood by consumers or sufficiently misrepresented by its reps will appear to be magical to its users. And when it doesn't live up to the hype... who ya gonna blame? (Hint: not Ghost Busters)
And Man_Is wrote:
"I don't think anyone would expect a tablet to be an acceptable desktop replacement machine - nobody thinks that of an iPad..."
And I would have assumed that to be true, except for the earlier post about the school in the UK that traded ALL their Mac Books in exchange for iPads and learned to regret the decision based on 1st hand, empirical observation.
IMHO: The shrinkage effect isn't confined to the beach. The tech industry has been busy hyping all things small while failing to adequately differentiate its offerings to the consumer. Appropriate I/O and form factor are important, but the industry leaves it to the end user to do their own research.
Thanks Microsoft - Caveat Emptor suckers!!
This is actually the first I've heard of Windows RT actually being a separate copy of Windows. I'm a techie (but don't run windows, forgive me), and whenever I saw Windows RT.. I thought it was "evolution" of Microsoft's "RC" designation. Every time I read about Windows RT, I never saw "ARM-version" or anything of the like.. so I figured they were talking about the testing version of Windows 8.
Then, of course, there's Windows 8 RTM.. which is Windows 8.. and not the RT version, which also isn't Windows RC, a release candidate. Brilliant, Microsoft. Why didn't they just name it Windows ARM? It does sound like they purposely made it ambiguous in the typical Microsoft fashion. Not a good start with a "revolutionary" product :-/
Now just two versions of Windows is too confusing for consumers?!
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
Windows RT runs on the ARM, not the x86. Older Windows applications just won't work on it without including emulation software of some sort, which would be slow and bulky.
The biggest problem with Windows and Intel architectures in general is this need to be backwards compatible, and it make sense at some point to cut the connections and say that the ARM version of Windows is only for ARM applications, leaving any emulators as optional add-ons.
That's because Windows is being used as too broad of a marketing label. Their tablet versions should have had different names from the full sized operating systems. Ie, a Macintosh is seen by customers as a real computer. An iPad is seen by customers as a stripped down computing device with less CPU, RAM, and storage than a full computer, with a tablet basically being like a larger smart phone.
Maybe they're planning on full edition Windows 8 to be on a small tablet, but that's a separate problem of Microsoft shoving too much stuff into small devices. Then again if they do manage to get Windows 8 to run smoothly and quickly on a tablet, then people can start demanding the same performance on a real machine as well instead of the typical mantra that everyone must upgrade their machines to run the latest OS.
Weird, my Windows 8 doesn't look like WinRT at all, it looks like Windows 7, no tiles.
do people really expect a Pad to be the same as a PC? I know that that is an image that is showing up, keyboards, external touchpad etc, but a Tablet/Pad is just a machine that does the routine and fun things, not full-blown Office work.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Suppose Apple had two nearly-identically named products with nearly identical apparent functionality which couldn't run the same programs. Say, iPad 3 and iPad X. Look the same, appear to function the same, same product line name, just a different version to indicate there's some sort of difference. The iPad 3 runs everything that can run on iOS, but the iPad X runs only apps made just for the iPad X.
Then, and only then, would the comparison be fitting.
I've been fixing computers for over 20 years and without prior knowledge to the contrary, I'd expect two devices that both say Windows to run virtually the same software. I might expect the cheaper one to be slower, but I certainly wouldn't expect them to be completely incompatible with each other.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
n/t
You guys are Pros. I have never seen a thread critical of Microsoft derailed into an Apple bash-fest quite as fast as this one. TFA wasn't even suggesting that MS was up to no good.
I do not even know how they expected to use Office or their games on a phone, but that's the thing with luddites:
If they're using new technology they're the diametric opposite of Luddites. Perhaps "technologically inept" is the phrase you were looking for?
You didn't mention that a phone looks totally different from a computer. A tablet, not so much (but now thanks to Apple, they are now classified as very separate devices with different expectations).
convincing people that Windows 8 on desktops will run desktop applications. You see that confusion here on Slashdot all the time.
Confusion? No... more like complaining. People on Slashdot know the difference, they just don't like Microsoft or they just want to complain about something.
The desktop/laptop form factor will almost certainly use full Windows 8. The confusion should be minimal. But I'm sure there will be some ARM netbooks/tablets with built-on physical keyboards... that will be the most confusing area for consumers.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Oops... I now see you did mention that the form factor looks different from a desktop.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I never expected my iPad to run OSX applications
I can see people possibly being confused by this
Some percentage of users will definitely be confused by it. I do support for software sales of Windows-only software, it's clearly labelled Windows only, and yet a regular request is processing refunds for users who bought the software and then claim to be confused that it doesn't run on their iPad or iPhone or Mac. If people can't even tell the difference between Mac and Windows then they sure aren't going to grasp these relatively finer distinctions. If you're stupid you must suffer.
8 home basic
8 home plus
8 professional
8 professional extreme
8 professional plus office
8 server
8 advanced server
8 professional server
8 data center server
8 mobile
8 home extreme basic plus limited
8 media
8 media server
8 home lightweight
8 professional with surface
8 media with surface
8 surface server
stupidd littel cuints if i ever done sean wun
fuck off and dye you dumb cuints
So you missed posted by Missing.Matter above?
Its from the Apple website back when the iPhone launched:
“iPhone uses OS X, the world’s most advanced operating system. Which means you have access to the best-ever software on a handheld device”
For some bizarre reason, Microsoft seems to think that tablets will replace all other forms of computing. This is bizarre thinking on their part.
Tablets are useless, anything they (or smartphones) can do, my laptop does better. Easily 90% of the people around campus at my University use their laptop for everything (though many of them have a smartphone for some reason).
My Desktop at home is even more powerful and ergonomic than my laptop, and was slightly cheaper to boot. The computers in the math lab and the computers people use for working on around campus are all decent Desktop machines. There's a reason for this- there are plenty of times where mobile computing isn't necessary.
I do eventually want to get a new motherboard for my Desktop so I can crossfire my 6950, and I"m going to get a cooling system for my CPU as well. My machine is still important. Real gamers use Desktops, and always will. I can game on my Laptop, but I'm not nearly as good and I have literally half the performance.
I was at a customers the other day, and they asked exactly the opposite of that... Asking how they could install their iPad apps on their iMac.
Don't underestimate the stupidity of users.
People have been downloading software instead of installing it from DVDs for a long time now. I suspect that quite a few people will try to install Steam on it, for example.
Only good thing though is these RT devices will quickly be sold at fire sale and maybe we can put Android on them ;)
Nah. My understanding is that MS is requiring all Win 8 tablets to be UEFI protected so you won/t be able to replace the OS.
they will only give store credits for returns? Then the people will have to buy something from that store and will buy the only alternative, the device that actually runs the software they want. Forcing them to spend the extra $$ to get it and causing them to spend a lot more money then they ever wanted? Nah.
Do you really think Luddite is the correct term for people that want to install software on a smartphone?
Can we stop using the word legacy for all windows applications not for RT. It's not like they are suddenly superseded.
> RT is what MS want Windows to become.
Exactly. With legacy Windows anyone can develop and sell apps without Microsoft getting a cut. Anyone can set up a service (such as dropbox) that bypasses MS revenue collection Juggernaut. THIS MUST STOP. Microsoft deserves to collect a tax on _all_ IT and consumer spending for _all_ services and _all_ software. Retail shops and third party software houses are stealing from the mouths of microsofties, ms stock holders and CEOs. More importantly Google is stealing from Bing by taking searches from Windows machines that rightfully belong to MS. The FTC have been told about this anti-competitive work by Google, but Windows RT will take direct action and will forbid any searches except via Bing. That will teach Google to not be anti-competitive.
Wait what? Who cares about what runs on Windows 7. The point of the article is that Windows 8 and Windows RT are very similar yet applications from one won't run on the other.
Windows 98 did not have the OS X concept of full-screen apps. If you never use st feature in Lion you will not have multiple monitor problems there, either.
But, but, ... I got told my smart phone is as powerful as the early supercomputers!
The point of the article is that Windows 8 and Windows RT are very similar yet applications from one won't run on the other.
And this is only a problem if people have an expectation that Windows tablets will run their desktop software. Since Windows 8 and Windows RT running on a tablet bears no resemblance physically or visually to what people are used to in terms of a traditional Windows 7/XP desktop/laptop form factor. I think they're more likely to associate Windows 8/RT on a tablet to an iPad, with an expectation of only being able to install apps from an appstore.
That could be because all the rumors leading up to the launch assumed it would run the desktop OS because that was what the existing Windows tablets did.
Except they didn't name the iPad a Mac tablet now did they? I've been saying for months this would happen, when you have consumers that don't know ARM from leg and retail employees that are glorified "card readers" like on the NewEgg commercial you have a perfect storm of fail for Windows 8 all around. Now once the word gets out that SOME Windows 8 will run their stuff and SOME Windows 8 won't and they can't tell by looking, how many will just avoid it altogether?
mark my words Win 7 is the new XP, Win 8 the new Vista, and WinRT the new WinPhone 7, Win 8 devices end up joining the Touchpad and playbook on Woot! and the web will be filled with people saying how much you should avoid Win 8. Kinda telling how for every. single. new. version. of Windows released there were transformation packs to bring the look and feel to previous users, now there is a pack to bring the Win 7 look and feel to Win 8.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
As a highly experienced small business solutions consultant (18+ years and running) who has specialized in steering small private businesses and non-profits into the low cost world of cloud services, and also being responsible for the tech purchases for such organizations (i.e. a business level usage of otherwise consumer-oriented devices, such as the iPad), I agree that the distinction between a Windows RT tablet and a Windows 8 tablet will be confusing to your average consumer. However, savvy SMB owners and others looking to reduce hardware costs will have either the benefit of their own research (if you're running a business on a shoe-string budget you try to never purchase gear that doesn't meet requirements, which means research) or your guy (like me) makes it a point to be aware of available offerings and steers you, as the business owner, in the right direction.
And as such, the difference between RT and 8 will be understood. In essence maintaining Microsoft's core base of "professional" usage.
Yeah, your average Best Buy shopper might F up and grab a surface running RT and encounter the whole "oops wrong version" scenario, but the real bread & butter customers of Microsoft won't have that problem (so long as their IT group/guy does his job).
In addition, most tablet/smartphone using consumers are already accustomed to the "get apps from the app store" model and won't expect a windows tablet to be any different.
The problem that Windows 8 faces, in my opinion, is widespread adoption both at a consumer and corporate level. It's enough of a divergence from commonly accepted UI paradigms that using it in a work environment will have a bit of a learning curve, which is enough to indefinitely postpone user land upgrades in favor of preserving deprecated workflows that the existing workforce is comfortable with. If I were running the Windows 8 team I'd have ensured that there'd be an install option to boot to a traditional Windows desktop, allowing firms to take advantage of the improved OS security and stability features without requiring a couple seconds (and if you've ever worked in user land support at a high frequency company you'd know how many complaints an ostensibly minor software change can generate from the corporate savants). Give us an install toggle to enable boot to desktop instead of metro and MS would have an incredibly worthwhile product. As-is, the railroading desktop users to Metro is a bit premature. I think we can all agree that the future for your average office drone is going touchscreen and, for what it's worth, MS is right at the vanguard, but 8 should be more of a crossover UI to get people used to some elements of Metro, not just a cold turkey cutover.
Windows RT has "Windows" in its name, just like "Windows 98", "Windows XP", "Windows Vista" or "Windows 7".
And also just like Windows CE, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone, none of which has resulted in mass confusion over whether you can install regular Windows aps.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Experience leads me to strongly disagree, just about every change was a support disaster but a lot of people have forgotten because XP was around for so long and we had other reasons to bitch about Vista. MS Windows breaks things with every version, especially things that use Microsoft libraries. Dotnet (fucking stupid name that is impossible to use on a written page without looking like an illiterate idiot) gets around this very well by finally following the example of just about every other software project written since 1970 by actually keeping the different incompatible versions of the libraries separate, so you can actually run your old dotnet apps alongside your new ones. Just about everything else that wasn't built with portability in mind still has the stupid DLL hell problem and is going to break a version or two down the track.
With an N900 or an Android phone it's not an entirely insane idea - there are emulators for a lot of environments. Recent MS windows and usable - unrealistic - old MSDOS stuff, atari etc - not so silly.
And: It doesn't run ... Unity Hooray!!!!
Since Windows 8 and Windows RT running on a tablet bears no resemblance physically or visually to what people are used to in terms of a traditional Windows 7/XP desktop/laptop form factor
No, their laptop is likely to come with Windows 8. Tiles and the works.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
And this is only a problem if people have an expectation that Windows tablets will run their desktop software.
But the Windows 8 Pro tablets WILL run their desktop software. The ARM ones won't, but both will look superficially identical.
Hardly anyone will understand the concepts involved. Look at the number of people who are happy to believe that OpenOffice is "the new version of Office", or who cant tell the difference between MS Office and Windows. What percentage of Americans know what an OS is? Probably more would know that A4 is a paper size, but I have no research to prove it. (In Europe "Load Letter" means its time to discard your printer and buy a new one - preferably with better support for users)
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
We soon found out that Winows Mobile was pretty much incapable of running any software at all. They lost all your data, had no support worth talking about, and upgrade was impossible. Hence dismal sales. We are sure as hell not going to buy any more portable devices with the word "Windows" on them. Symbian devices may not be upgradeable, and have few apps, but at least they dont crash and lose your data several times a week.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Tell them they needed to buy a phone with a DVD-ROM drive. Take it back and swap it over.
The iPad was iconic, and this helped establish it for consumers as a new category.
Microsoft Windows doesn't have that problem. You know Windows is a variety of stuff anyway, and are expecting to make a bunch of choices about how to work with it.
This is an area where perhaps the worst thing Microsoft could do is try to imitate Apple. It isn't how MS works really, and it isn't how MS users work.
Speaking as an Apple fanboi (of product design and focus), I don't see how MS can pretend its users are fanbois or try to turn them into that. Like Google, it'll have people tripping over themselves (Google trying to not be an advertising revenue driven bottom line. )
Windows 8 doesn't need to be simple or iconic. They have other ways of making you buy.
"a high potential for unsuspecting consumers to end up burned"
"users will need to hope and pray"
???
Let's call it the 'Metro effect'.
There are apps for Dropbox and Google Search on Windows Phone.
MS want a nice fat revenue stream just like Apple's. Who wouldn't?
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
Sure you can, as long as they're signed.
Manufacturers who decide to make Windows based tablets or even phones should base them on the Medfield or the Hondo. Don't even look @ ARM. Of course, in reality, it'll be a lot of work getting a Windows 7 app to run on a Windows 8 tablet, but it's at least doable. With ARM, it'll be next to impossible.
Microsoft is pretty much stuck w/ the x86, since they passed up the golden opportunity that they had in the 90s to make all their apps available for all their Windows platforms - MIPS and Alpha. Had they done that, they'd have caused a major coup on the portability front, and what's more, they could have even bought up DEC if they wanted to get a platform for their hardware. That would have given them both Alpha and StrongARM. Instead, they stuck to x86, and only focused on servers for the RISC platforms (which was not the appropriate case for MIPS, which was more of a workstation CPU). As a result, those platforms went nowhere, since they were nowhere near Sun in terms of Unix (although SGI was next only to Sun). If Microsoft couldn't do squat w/ such great CPUs, them going far w/ far inferior CPUs like ARM is out of the question.
However, as I pointed out in yesterday's thread about the ChomeOS loaded ARM laptops, ARM is definitely a better platform for all the Linux or BSD guys. First of all, despite all the 'open' claims, it'll be a lot more closed - Windows won't run on it (a box would have to be Microsoft certified, since the ARM CPU implementations vary so much that there is no such thing as a generic ARM version the way there is for say, x64, SPARC, POWER, MIPS, et al.) Then again, any software that an user needs will either come with it, or will need to be downloadable as either tarballs, or .deb, .rpm, .pbi or so on. It too will effectively be a walled garden, but mainly b'cos you can't put DVD boxes on shelves for Linux/ARM and expect them to sell, since most Linux users are either too cheap to buy, and a lot of lay users would just buy them expecting them to work on Wintel boxes. Similarly, the peripherals for these things will be highly specialized, and only those for which drivers have been specifically created. In short, it will be a hark back to the days when you got specialized equipment from Sun or SGI to run on Solaris or Irix.
... if Intel does the work right it will kill ARM in tablets and in the future on mobiles. If prices and battery duration gets equivalent in a Win 8 tablet versus a Win RT tablet, which one would you buy?. Maybe will see an iPad X on a x86/x64 processor.
You're pretty mistaken. Mountain Lion full-screen apps work just like Lion full-screen apps did. Secondary monitors are grey. If the app has multiple windows you can arrange those on the secondary monitor, but that's the extent of multiple monitor support.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
That's actually much less bothersome that trying to ditch 30 years of UI expecations.
Attempts to sabotage the UI impact everyone as opposed to a few trolls fixating on some corner case.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
People have been downloading software since the 70s.
That doesn't mean that they have given up completely on physical media. The fact that kids with no memory or experience are excited about something doesn't mean that every thing else suddenly and magically goes away.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You would have the same exact problem if Microsoft suddenly started supporting Sparc and PPC. You would have these other flavors of Windows floating around and most users not realizing that there are other platforms out there that won't run an x86 binary.
It's all about managing expecations and clearly Microsoft wants you to associate their legacy application monopoly with their tablet. It's really the only advantage they have.
Otherwise it just seems silly like a Windows phone.
They need to conflate their tablet and their PC product just to be competitive but that's going to ultimately cause some people to be disappointed.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
One of the problems is that it's called Windows RT. To this point "Windows compatible" has never had such a serious compatibility regression. Sure, some programs broke between windows versions in the past, but ALL applications not working hasn't been the case.
There's also the issue that Microsoft is pushing their monopolist practices really hard: a forced walled garden with WinRT, and a purposefully non-user-friendly standard of EUFI SecureBoot (there were ways proposed to make it just as secure, but muti-os friendly, and microsoft chose the monopolistic method). It seems PCs are becoming a niche. I can only hope it will remain possible to run whatever software you want at all.
"Sold out" doesn't mean much without absolute numbers.
> The Desktop and Laptop will live forever, and anyone who thinks they won't is just fooling themselves.
Yes they will. The problem that MS has is that the desktops and laptops that users have right now are good enough to last forever (except for gamers who will spend their money on getting another few fps) even if they are running XP or 7. This is especially true when the users have smartphones, iPads and smart TVs that replace much of what desktops are doing. Instead of buying a new upgraded desktop, or a 2nd one for the kids to use, the mobile stuff and TV frees up the desktop machine for others to use.
Hence, desktops will be there forever, but sales of them will not.
Microsoft is trying to kick both developers, OEMs and consumers. They need to get their platform to advance.
Windows 8 creates an OS so now hardware partners can start selling more innovative hardware that will work with the OS.
Window 8 RT allows for arm systems, i.e. high battery life and somewhat lower costs. Which is an example fo the kind of diversity they want.
Developer moving to Metro helps to break things that will hold the platform back like non scalable graphics.
Microsoft is assuming a leadership position, the sort of thing they did during the migration to Windows and again during the Enterprise migration but not much since.
They need to conflate their tablet and their PC product just to be competitive but that's going to ultimately cause some people to be disappointed.
Remember their goal is to conflate their tablet and PC product completely not just in name but in fact. The disappointment will help to push developers to support that objective.
And they both run Metro apps.
So when an app doesn't work, "well its old legacy Win32 not Metro. The app needs to updated"
Their goal is ubiquitous computing. All applications respond to the form factor they are being run in and are capable of automatically upgrading is larger form factors become available.
This is what they are aiming for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0
Well funny enough:
Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro X
Don't run the same scripts and don't have the same feature set.
Right and when they see apps run under Windows 8 they run is this very counter intuitive way. Like a guest operating system.
I think it is going to send a very strong message to developers.
You can run iOS apps on Mac. The iOS emulator is included in XCode. Which nicely sends the message: this is not going to be user friendly and is intended for developers.
And that's fine with Microsoft. Windows Vista moved the OEM's from one driver model to another which allowed for the improvements in Windows 7.
You can't actually. Apple doesn't make an iOS emulator, only an iOS SIMULATOR. That means you have to recompile your iOS app as an i386/Mac OS X application, and then run it under the simulator which simulates an iPhone display.
You could run Windows Mobile apps on windows if you had .NET and a few other things installed.
Why couldn't Mircosoft do this again?
When the first netbook shipped, it ran Xandros (a GNU/Linux distro) instead of Microsoft Windows, partially because the Windows OS was too demanding of the hardware a partially because the license fees wiped out then entire profit margin for the manufacturer. Sales were briesk at first, but then Microsoft dropped the license fees (sellings Windows at a loss to muscle in to an emerging market) and demanded that the manufacturers up the specs to that of a small notebook so their XP product would run. People immediately abandoned their Linux netbooks because, according to the feedback we received at Xandros, "it didn't run Photoshop."
I suspect when folks find out Windows RT doesn't run the copy of Photoshop or Office they's brought home from wor, borrowed from a friend, or downloaded, they're going to raise a stink and abandon it for a "real" computer. If it has a screen and a keyboard and says Microsoft on a sticker on the front it had better run that free copy of expensive software otherwise it's just not going to work. If it doesn't have a keyboard, why don't iPad or Android apps work on it?
Surely Windows Championship Edition should run Windows software? Or did noone else play Street Fighter 2 :-)
Point taken. Thank you for the correction.
You seem to have completely missed the point. The point is not a desktop vs tablet thing. It's a current operating system with Windows 8 logo, vs another current operating system with Windows 8 logo on it being unable to run the same software.
If I buy an Android phone I sure as hell expect it to run Android applications.
If I buy an iPhone / iPad I sure as hell expect to it to run iOS applications.
As someone else has posted: here's an example of what the sale of these things look like. Now you and I are intelligent people. We'll go through the specs and be able to see the 2 character difference in description between devices.
Yet here's a list of "Windows 8" tablets, and half of them won't be able to run the software from the other half. Half of them have full backwards compatibility to the rest of the windows brand, and the other doesn't.
You have an operating system with a full internet explorer that looks identical and in half the cases will be 100% identical to the system you have on your desktop, what on earth makes you think that people magically will associate that device as being a walled garden? What differentiates one sheet of glass with rounded corners and a Windows logo capable of running any standard "compatible with windows operating system" executable from the other which is app store only?
This is a fuckup on huge proportions. Think back to the netbook days. Big words like Linux, Ubuntu, a complete different look and feel, a complete different box, with no mention of Microsoft or Windows on it, and people still bought them and then promptly returned them after their favourite windows program didn't work. Now we're trying to screw around some of the slightly more clued on users by making only subtle differences in markings on the devices the main differentiator.
Funny I remember the thousands of slashdot posts saying how much of a bad idea it was having the desktop OS and tablet OS look identical is a bad idea, and here we are taking our first steps towards trying to confuse the hell out of the device users. Tim Cook and Larry Page must be grinning in their big chairs stroking their white long haired cat right now.
Users shouldn't expect everything to just work with different technologies. It is the users that need to be better educated. It was never expected that Windows CE applications would work alongside the x86 architecture. The same concept goes for Windows Mobile and Windows phone 7, Android x86 and ARM and iOS/OSX.
The notion of customers being "burned" because Windows RT won't support legacy applications is an absolute joke. The general public needs to sit down and educate themselves rather than expecting everything to just work. This is just a gripe of changing architectures and as technologies develop and more mainstream desktop side ARM software becomes readily available this is just something we have to deal with. It is due to this school of thought that we have 'technicians' servicing general consumer grade hardware.
We've seen this before.
I expect this RT thing might actually boost sales of the Surface Pro and all the other x86 devices when people get into the mob rush of, "Waitasecond! I really NEED a tablet which can run all my old software!"
But who knows. MS is saying they've already sold through their pre-order stock of every RT model in a couple of days. Not bad.
They'll have to wait a few months to do that. The Windows 8 version of Surface isn't supposed to be available until January.
Android? You are weird. A nice Linux with KDE is what this hardware needs.
Linux on all computers, that's what the planet needs!
Most of the iOS applications designed for the iPad dont work on the iPhone...
You would have, if Apple called it a MacOS pad. You also might have been upset if it didn't run iPhone applications, despite being called an iOS device.
Microsoft is saying "Windows" here -- that has a 30 year history of application compatibility, to most consumers. Not to mention that Microsoft (and others) are also building Windows tablets that do run legacy code.
I'm also not suggesting that this is confusing to the typical /. reader... of course it's not. But regular consumers don't even begin to understand these things. I know more than a few people who call their web browser "the internet"... and yeah, I've tried to explain multiple times the difference between a web browser and the internet... doesn't get in.
This is going to be a huge source of confusion. Users are going to be trying very hard to install their existing applications ("how do I get the program from the CD") onto the tablets. They're likely going to be very bent out of shape over having to re-purchase the very few applications that have been ported to WinRT, and worse, angry about those that haven't been. Microsoft has not been clear about this, seemingly intentionally so. Maybe they'll clear things up by the ship date, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Expect record product returns.
-Dave Haynie
Only after you crack the bootloader. At least they're only using SH-1 for authentication....
-Dave Haynie
Pretty much all of the iPhone apps run on the iPad. Apple's primitive demand for fixed resolutions and bitmaps has certainly fragmented the iOS market -- yeah, you just can't shoehorn an iPad app onto the iPhone. This may well be the same for Windows... Microsoft is making a distinction between Windows, Windows RT, and Windows Phone, and they've said Windows Phone apps (both 7 and 8) will run on Windows and Windows RT, but is it generic WinRT/Metro running on all three, or do you have to code specifically for tablets and phones. At least in Android these days, it's all one thing, and the app adjusts to the device resolution... just as PC apps have been doing for decades.
-Dave Haynie
But it's more than that.
They did this, back in the day, with Win32 on x86, PPC, MIPS, Alpha, etc. Sure, there was no binary compatibility from one CPU to the next. But it pretty much was a simple matter of a recompile, even for device drivers -- the Windows NT HAL actually worked.
And of course, anything written in .NET would presumably "just work" on the ARM systems. That's a pretty big collection of modern Windows programs. But you'd need Win32 to make that possible (well, sure, and .NET libraries and all of that old Windows stuff), and in Windows RT and Windows Phone, only Microsoft gets to use Win32 calls.
For everyone else, Windows RT vs. regular Windows, it's a complete redesign, from Win32 to WinRT. Less work, certainly, if you wrote the app in HTML or something to begin with (not uncommon for Windows UIs), but it's still lots of work. And a complete UI redesign.
-Dave Haynie
And you're not going to get any love from the consumer telling them that, either. They have to update the application they already bought... only, no update's yet available for 3/4 of them. And they have to re-purchase all the rest? That sure starts to make the price of the full Windows 8 tablets (particularly those Atom-based units that'll compete on price with the ARM-based units) even a bargain, if for some reason one must have Windows on a tablet.
Or, looking at it the other way, the only reason you buy Windows is for the applications. Which aren't there yet, on the Windows RT devices. So what's the point? Android and iPads are better supported than RT, unless "Office" is the only application you run. But hey, there are those hundreds and hundreds of wonderful Windows 7 Phone apps that will run on these tablets -- that should make the consumer all bubbles and smiles.
-Dave Haynie
Or, looking at it the other way, the only reason you buy Windows is for the applications. Which aren't there yet, on the Windows RT devices. So what's the point?
Two responses.
a) A really good form factor (assuming this is true). That is something priced like a tablet with many of the interface elements of an ultrabook. I think, like lots of other people, Microsoft priced the Surface about $100 too high. The problem they are going to run into is that at around $450 you can pick up a used Macbook air and at around $600 a so / so ultrabook. But imagine it were $100 cheaper....
b) A few years from now assuming Metro is successful they will be there. It is relatively easy for people to move Metro apps from Win8 to WinRT and visa versa. The strategy is move the OS which causes a move in the hardware which causes a move in the applications.
Actually, Microsoft's Surface Pro is based on the i5, not the Atom. That's why the rumors are it'll top a grand in price. And big questions about the weight and battery life.
Intel does have the Atom Z2760 as their go-to chip for tablets. This is x86, 32-bit only, dual core, each core about as powerful as an ARM Cortex A9 at the same speed. But it does have a dual bus memory interface (some ARM SOCs do, some don't), one of the fastest PowerVR GPUs, etc. It'll suck at most traditional Windows apps, but run them, and get priced and stocked right next to Windows RT machines. That's not going to cause confusion?
In fact, I bet it does, but gets solved in the way of competition, and only after a few months of thick consumer confusion. Expect Intel to get out the word, not Microsoft. They'll have some kind of sticker for the x86 based tablets that suggests they're "real" or "full" Windows. Why not -- Intel felt entitled to all of Windows, Microsoft's letting ARM play the game, and so Intel needs some serious payback. Plus, they're at least as hungry as Microsoft for the mobile market -- they apparently see the same writing on the wall, and just as "Windows" is Microsoft's answer to everything (even when they completely change the definition), so x86 is Intel's. Curiously, this Z2760 will be first x86 that's regularly outperformed by ARMs (both quad-core A9s and dual-core Krait, A15, or whatever Apple's using in the A6 SOC) on performance.
Should be an interesting few months...
-Dave Haynie
Yup... and this was a huge benefit to .... not users, but -- oh yeah! Adobe and Avid. Signed FCP users up like crazy last summer, offering 50% competitive upgrades, etc. This was oddly Microsoftian, in that Apple even bent to pressure and put Final Cut Pro 7 back on sale.
That's a good lesson about professional environments -- you really don't mess with them when you can help it. If I buy a new version of Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas or Altium Designer or AutoCAD, I expect it to be an upgrade for what I'm doing. I'm buying it to get new features of some kind, but I probably don't want a revolution, even when that might be useful two years or more down the road.
Most companies solve this by splitting the line... so Adobe had Premiere, very popular and terribly primitive compared to FCP, Vegas, Media Composer, whatever. They launched Premiere Pro as a new thing... not exactly an upgrade, but a reinvention. The old one was still around for a little while, so users could judge the transition. And they understood their users. Same thing happened when Calkwalk broke 15 years of incremental upgrades to completely reinvent their DAW with Sonar.
Apple, on the other hand, re-wrote from scratch, added some sorely needed features the ailing FCP7 needed (64-bit support, asset managment, etc), but then killed compatibility and eliminated all sorts of professional features. They basically built a great upgrade to iMovie, but a downgrade to FCP7.
Very much what Microsoft is doing in Windows 8. Except for the "sorely needed features" part.
-Dave Haynie
Again the context here was about Microsoft causing confusion.
In terms of your analysis, a new topic.... I agree with you. Apple's current direction is advanced amateur not professional.
FCPX = iMovie Advanced
Aperture = iPhoto Advanced
Logic = Garage Band Advanced
etc...
I see Apple's "professional" applications as playing the same role to iLife that as the Microsoft Office Microsoft Works did for consumers. I suspect eventually, you'll have a whole generation of people that know the iLife suite and so easily up to these more advanced tools. The professional tools will be highly specialized and niche. Moreover, I see this "iLife advanced" as future killer apps for the OSX platform.
This is a very different strategy than when Apple originally brought these applications out, where they were to be niche so as to attract power users to their platform.
Maybe they're hoping people will buy the RT version, then say "Oh ****" and buy the other one in January. Two sales for the big M.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
That's because Apple didn't try to fool everyone that they were the same. All of MS's propaganda about Windows 8 was that it was supposed to seamlessly integrate everything with a common interface. Apple never made that claim.
Free Martian Whores!
Windows RT and 8 shouldn't be marketed as being the same, iOS and OSX are spelled completely different. MS should have called Windows RT something different... like Porthole 8, then customers wouldn't get confused.
Windows 8 for Desktops and Laptops.
Porthole 8 for Tablets and Phones.
The same thing happens on Android, there are many apps that are only available for certain Android versions and hardware specs, and they call it all android. People will buy the device and the buy whatever software it is available to them, or if they want some specific software they will inform themselves if it can run on the device. It wasn't that many years ago that you would buy a "Windows" computer and you wouldn't be able to run the latest games because you didn't have a modern graphics card or a new version of the operating system.