Slashdot Mirror
Now That It's Here, Is There a Place For Windows RT?
concealment sends this quote from Ars:
"The argument back then was this: Windows on ARM would mean discarding the thing that makes Windows entrenched and important: Windows applications. Tablets need all-new applications, and if you're going to run all-new applications then you don't really need Windows. ... In the time it has taken Microsoft to bring Windows on ARM to market, ARM's once overwhelming battery life advantage has been erased. The ARM CPUs may still have a slight power use edge, but the difference will typically be dwarfed by the power consumption of the screen. The Intel processors, in turn, bring CPU performance that is probably best in class (or close to it), and most importantly of all the ability to run the full version of Windows 8 and existing Windows applications. The hardware could look identical to the user, but if it has Intel inside, the user experience will be quite different. ... With these constraints and limitations, it's hard to see who exactly Windows RT is for. I acknowledge that there are certainly some users who will be content to use the browser, mail app, and perhaps type the occasional letter in Word or balance their checkbook in Excel: people for whom the Windows Store's current gaps do not matter. But I think a much wider selection of users will be ill-served by Windows RT."
Yes
As a tablet OS, Windows 8 is actually pretty nice. It's just that it's being crammed down our throats outside of tablets that makes it a PITA.
As for RT vs. x86, I'd lean toward x86 unless there's a major price advantage to ARM. The Clovertrail chip looks to have good performance and battery life, so there's no massive technological reason to pick one over the other. Application compatibility is a nice win for x86 BUT.. the truth is you'll likely not want to run desktop applications on a tablet anyway.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
is it's rt distribution. Haven't tried it on a tablet but I am sure it's great for it. However, keep that crap away from my desktop where I need to get work done!
It has an active surface and digitizer, and it runs MS Office, which puts it light years ahead of the iPad in terms of productivity. Plus, it is an MS OS, which means that it probably comes with a lot of tools for IT managers to make it easier to deploy within an organization.
Sure, android might be better for nerds who want to hack their OS and the iOS might be better for the average Joe who wants to surf the web, but Windows RT and the MS Surface offer a much better choice than the iPad for corporations and people in academia. The superior keyboard dock, One Note, and Active digitizer put it light years ahead of the iPad for people who want to use it for note-taking.
I remember WindowsNT. What happened to WindowsOT, WindowsPT, and WindowsQT?
Silence is a state of mime.
Another in the seemingly endless torrent of stories about how Windows RT is imminently about to fail. Get back to me after xmas at the earliest. It is too soon too tell, all we know now is that a bunch of big name manufacturers are at least willing to give it a try.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
in other words, supported for a few years and then dropped when there's zero financial incentive to keep it going. It will be treated by developers as a dead-end, so there will never be compelling apps, which will sign the death-warrant.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
For me it's a non starter because you can't run existing Windows applications on it. Microsoft delivers a scaled down version of Office on it but it doesn't include Outlook. Apparently there is some sort of other email client on it. Why would I buy one of these things if I have to go out and buy new software for it? If I'm going to do that I might as well get an iPad or Android tablet. Those two also have a much, much bigger selection of titles in their respective app stores compared to MicroSoft.
I don't understand why the RT was released before the x86 model since RT seems to have a much more limited audience. Maybe there were some manufacturing delays with the x86 model? If I were going to buy one of the Surface tablets (and I'm not) I would go for the x86 model.
No.
It's great that Windows 8 might be a good tablet OS, but that doesn't change the fact that tablets have proven themselves to be over-hyped fad devices with no practical use for most people.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. There'll be a few people who'll respond to this describing their niche usage of a tablet, but they're in the minority. Most tablet purchasers got caught up in the hype, bought a tablet without thinking, and now they have yet another pointless device that they don't use. It sits there collecting dust.
For most people, it doesn't even take a month before the novelty wears off. I think this is exactly why, aside from Apple, we see basically no other company successfully selling tablets. Apple is a unique case. I suspect that many of its buyers are buying iPads as status symbols, rather than as a usable device. I'm not even sure if they should be considered tablet purchases. It's more akin to buying jewelry than it is to buying a computing device.
The success of Windows RT won't be about technology. It's going to come down almost entirely to how well Microsoft can leverage the power of their brand - a name known not just in technology, but to ordinary users. Without that, they are dead in the consumer space. Most they might achieve is some success in business, if they can sell based on superior AD integration and easier administration.
Windows 7 is undoubtedly mature, Windows 8 is arriving, and Windows Phone is getting to the point where it no longer blows (whole herds of syphilitic) goats. And surely all those smartphones running WP aren't Intel inside. Is Windows RT a tacit admission that Windows Phone doesn't, won't, or can't scale to devices with larger screens?
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Did you even read it? The submitter was questioning the rationale for Windows RT to exist in the first place. If he was an MS shill, why wouldn't he instead make bloated claims about how great Windows on ARM is?
you are a fucking moron.
Tablets need all-new applications, and if you're going to run all-new applications then you don't really need Windows.
What about integration? If what I create on the tablet is also usable on the PC, then that's why you would need windows.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No... Tablets do NOT need all-new applications. What tablets need is a non-phone/device OS environment based on existing, established OSes (Windows, Linux, etc.) that is low-resource-intensive (scratch Windows), but still has the expectation of *multiple* users and each user being a content producer.
I understand the corporate rush to get in on the smart-device bandwagon, but where the evolution of the USER is going is towards scalable portability.
Desktops led to laptops which led to ultra portables (high-cost) and netbooks (low-cost). The next step is the net-vertible (like the ASUS Transformer) that can be a highly portable tablet or a portable workstation like a laptop. What we need to continue the honing of this next step in the evolution of the PC is for a genuine personal computer OS to work on low-power tablets.
Yes, Windows 8 is hoping to be that option, but the weight and power requirements of that OS will be prohibitive for net-vertibles.
Windows RT will be right at home with people who have, until now, been okay with the fact that their Android and iOS tablets are not running a desktop class operating system. They just want the basic web and multimedia functionality.
The bigger question is this: How will Microsoft educate consumers about the difference between RT and 8; ARM and x86?
/* No Comment */
AC, meet Xbox.
/* No Comment */
Microsoft. It's for Microsoft.
Do you see what I did there?
To the extent it integrates well in an all-Windows shop, I could see it being very attractive. As a consumer, maybe not so much.
What struck me when I first heard that Windows RT will look like Windows 8 but won't run the same apps was that it'd be perfect for systems that traditionally run special purpose software on top of Windows. So as the title says, Kiosks, Point of Sale, and Control systems where they can trade on the fact that standard Windows vulnerabilities like viruses won't run on the ARM. - HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
Windows RT will have a place, but its the same place that is filled by other tablets, smartphones and netbooks. It is going into a crowded market to offer web surfing, app games, email, web apps and light duty documents. Casual users will probably love it, especially if they have Windows 8.
The real crowd MS might have been aiming for, the business community, is going to avoid this product thus limiting its lifespan. The biggest draw of Windows 8 is the ability to use the metro apps between all devices, this is greatest weakness also. To get the full functionality of Windows 8 cross platform features requires all new hardware on the mobile side, at least. Companies have already shelled out for Iphones/iPads or Andriod devices and adjusted their IT infrastructure to work with these devices, then add that Enterprise customers not jumping on the WIndows 8 bandwagon right away, it really puts a crimp in the user base of Windows 8 RT.
Windows 8 RT and its assoicated hardware products will enjoy a moderate sales number. Its inter-connectivity could make it a major force, but its hit the market a day late and a dollar short to knock off iOS and Andriod based products.
The flagship device for RT, along with the OS, and weak buggy ecosystem seem destined to flop.
Extensive Verge review.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/23/3540550/microsoft-surface-review
This isn't something that requires technical knowledge of, nor does it require a like or dislike for microsoft. The LAW says the answer is no: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
p. ...if you're going to run an OS on a device with a completely different input method that won't run your desktop applications, why does it need to look like your desktop?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Their loss. The devices are actually fine. I use android myself. Wouldn't touch that horseshit created by apple though (iTunes to copy music to my device? Seriously?).
Windows 8 Phone is supposed to have the same kernel as WinRT devices on ARM. If they can pull this off they will have it both ways: a huge desktop user base with tons of messy legacy and a sparkly new "walled garden" where they will have lots more control over the whole experience and what is allowed in. Writing for Metro mode is supposed to yield an app that will pretty much run on phones and tablets, without the fragmentation of Android devices/environments. Even if nobody else wants it on their tablets or desktops, at least one batch of Nokia phones will need it.
I use it. The problem's not so much that it's horrible as much as it's that you need a tutorial to learn how to use it. It's probably too much to expect users to make an effort to learn a new OS when the alternatives don't really have the same requirement.
More like doing an OSX thing ala Windows.
8/RT is kinda like OSX, a radical re-engineering of the OS for the next generation of computers. They keep backward compatibility on the desktop but restrict the new platform (surface) to be next-gen only - perfectly reasonable, it's a new platform.
Now MS has to invest in the time and effort for Metro to take off apps for desktop/surface will feed the desktop and hopefully supplant Windows legacy, they will bug fix 8/RT till it is a stable OS and compelling enough to get conversion. Once there they have a new OS with nice shiny new competitive features including spiffy new DRM, walled garden, etc, etc.
I'm thinking RT/8 is going to be an X-Box strategy, keep fueling it until they get a market for it to return profit, once there they will end up with a singular OS that spans desktop and portable devices (profit!).
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Because from a marketing perspective it is better to discuss something, even if in a negative tone, than to be simply ignored.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Being on Slashdot for a while I am torn between a lingering dislike of Microsoft and disagreeing with articles :)
Yes! In the "75% off" bin, right next to the TouchPads and Zunes.
Just kidding. I figure they'll do OK -- a bit better than some Android tablets, not as well as all Android tablets combined, and both competing for that fraction of the market that doesn't want iPads.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Microsoft requires all ARM devices implement SecureBoot with no way to turn it off. So, no, I have no place for RT.
Those Windows legacy apps have a bigger problem. Android has apps that are fragments joined together. So the GUI is really one or more 'Activities'.
The part that does the grunt work is called a 'service', and various message receivers are BroadcastFilters.
Only the bits of the app that are needed are loaded, yet the apps is running all the time. Not only that, an app can be waiting on a message and completely unloaded from memory. When the message arrives, Android fires up just the registered message receiver, and not the whole app. All fast and smooth as you'd expect from a tablet.
When legacy Office is running on Windows RT, it's fully in there, and using RAM. The RAM needs to be kept powered up and Office can't be partially unloaded. So they need the 2GB of ram at least, and as you use more apps, they have to flush and save the whole of Office in one go to flash. Which is slow and sucks battery.
When you open that cover, if it doesn't have the Office still powered up in ram, it has to reload the whole memory image from flash and restore it. Which is why it sometimes takes a long time to get going.
The legacy apps just aren't good for tablets. It's not just the design of them, it's a fundamental problem with the way they are written. Cross compiling those to ARM won't fix these problems.
The biggest threat to Windows RT / Windows 8 is Microsoft's recent destruction of developer (that is, the money people at dev houses) confidence in Microsoft's ability to "lead" any kind of technology drive.
I got my Windows Phone 7 phone because I could return it just in time for the phone I wanted. It took me by surprise and I got quite attached to it. You have to unlearn some bad habbits from years of working with UIs that came from keyboard and mouse toting designers. And then, Oh My Gosh.
My big issue was lack of any apps: People seemed reticent to jump into this untested pool. It turns out, developers target Windows because of the userbase and not because they think Microsoft employees poop magical and adorable APIs that are so cute, cuddly and just outright gorgeous that you just HAVE to develop with them.
WP7 had no userbase and no cross-over beyond ... well beyond that it uses technologies that Microsoft had recently kinda poo-poohed like .NET. So yes! If you just blew a billion dollars on .NET, come to WP7 because that's about all it's useful for.
Developers started to hear Metro was influencing Windows 8, and there was a brief spike in app ports to WP7. There's a Garmin app, Yelp, and a handful of others.
Then W8/Windows RT were announced in a sort of arm flurrying of "don't worry about the money you've invested in what's on the market now because Windows 8 will make lots of money with all the new tech it's going to introduce". Because, yes, "new tech" doesn't impart the sense that OMG YOU'RE SAYING OUR WP7/METRO INVESTMENT IS A DEAD END?
So very few apps have matured into real Metro apps and the WP7 experience isn't everything it could be because the app store is just ... crappy.
Windows 8 - and thus Windows RT - is very risky looking waters. I know it's not important in the grand scheme of things, but imagine a million bucks in your pocket, a pen in your hand ready to sign it off and ... tell me that Microsoft -- MICROSOFT! -- futzing the name of their flagship UI redesign doesn't scream "EYES NOT ON THE BALL" as you evaluate the risks of committing resources to dedicated Windows-8-UI tech and development rather than simply making sure your existing userbase and Windows 8 adopters will be able to run app smoothly on the desktop...
IMHO: Windows 8 is the Vista/ME of this particular Windows phase-shift. And that's cool, but as it applies to phone/tablet, the OS immediately preceding it ALSO happens to be a Vista/ME.
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
Surface is going to be a train wreck, I believe. People who have no clue what the difference between ARM and x86 iterations (atom, core, etc) are going to be befuddled that their new Windows device can't run their other windows programs. Then the pro version will come out and people will spot Windows tablets running regular windows apps and be baffled why their surface can't do the same. Windows application developers will have to start deciding whether to target one CPU architecture or the other or both, meaning there will be two app eco systems out there for devices that look the same on the outside. Joe Computer User with his RT sees a new widget on his friends x86 surface and discovers he can't get it. Likewise, the same potentially for x86 users, where maybe a company makes an app that only targets ARM.
This will be a mess. Microsoft made their fortune based on backwards compatibility, and now they're throwing a consumer system out there that lacks that one thing that kept people coming back to them.
Yes, x86 surface seems interesting, but its not here yet. But the ARM version, I'm positive, we'll all look back at it in the same dustheap as the Zune and so many other things.
I can't imagine what Microsoft is thinking. Or, wait, I know what they're thinking - they're moving to emulate apple, rolling out their own hardware and aiming for as high of margins as possible. Really, what can the cost savings be for using ARM over Atom? Will those savings be worth the tons of confused customers they're about to create? I doubt it.
Somewhere in their organization, alarmbells should have been ringing this whole time.
I can't pretend to be interested even in the x86 version, being that outside the office I live a windows free lifestyle (Mac OS, iOS, Ubuntu and, now recently, IRIX). If it gets jailbroken and we can see a linux distro on it, I may get excited. And if some enterprising person manages to get Mac OS to run on the thing.... well, I could imagine retiring my macbook air if the keyboard was usable.
But back to the original thought that spawned this disjointed rant:
What in the world are they thinking? Do the few extra dollars saved by using ARM rather than Atom make sense at all, when most of their customers are going to be blithefully unaware of what a hobbled machine they're going to get? It's not like there are Microsoft Stores all over with cool kids at the genius bar waiting to explain the the RT version won't run a single one of the applications they're used to using, unless it's Microsoft Office.
A lot of people are going to be very disappointed. And not just at their new surfaces, i can imagine a lot of blame being cast at Windows 8 itself for "breaking" their applications. I mean, Windows 8 just comes out, here's Microsoft showcasing surface, one would only assume that surface is their flagship product to demonstrate how cool Windows 8 is.
I guess that'll make all of us happy. Again, unimaginable that Microsoft would do this. Balmer will be lucky to be there next year, I'll tell you that.
Many would like a device that could be a Wintel laptop when they wanted it to be (to run Windows software), but also be a tablet when they remove the keyboard and stand.
That would be cheaper and more convenient than buying two devices and transferring files back and forth.
That's where Microsoft could shine. But if you get used to it, then in the future you would be more likely to buy an RT device even if it didn't run a good portion of "traditional" Windows software. Familiarity with the OS and the other apps that ran on both is still a selling point.
Table-ized A.I.
It was a hedge against Intel, nothing more, nothing less. It looks like Clover Trail will allow powerful and long lasting 9mm tablets, and valley view even better yet. So, I don't see RT actually going anywhere, but it was a smart play overall.
YES. But now that the programming model is html5 based they loose their strangehold.
And also because its all just html5 with local storage API, then an app can be on any device.
So you can run it on a 100 dollar device too.
People will buy a win RT surface and love them. MS is trying to innovate on the hardware front and copy Apple. Google.
BUT; the programming model is no a block you in model. IOS and Android is a block you in model.
MS have been surprisingly nice to allow the html5 api. Sure its a little bit customised but then JavaScript adapter software will be open soruces and you wont be tied to winrt.
So this is all up bad news for MS and great news for consumers.
i look forward to FireFox OS and Boot to gecko taking off. All those apps written for windows will be able to run on boot to gecko.
I'd like to focus on this bit: "The ARM CPUs may still have a slight power use edge, but the difference will typically be dwarfed by the power consumption of the screen."
What ever happened to Pixel Qi anyhow? What ever happened to OLEDs? I assume people are still working on these more efficient display technologies. What is the hold up, and will any of them start turning up in the marketplace any time soon?
"Are you tired of the walled garden offered by Apple on their iOS devices? Well, now you can purchase a similarly priced Windows device that offers the same walled garden 'features' while providing a different selection* of applications and all of Windows award winning** look and feel."
*and by 'different selection', we mean 'limited subset' and a crippled and/or difficult to use copy of Office.
**we didn't threaten them to not send free samples if we didn't get positive reviews, but we are pretty sure the review sites got our point.
-
So with the Surface Pro vs. Surface RT pricing, MS is doing the usual manipulation of their prices, to benefit them, independent of the actual costs involved. The Surface Pro will cost little more to manufacture and support (in fact, it likely costs them less, when you factor in the "soft" costs to re-work the OS and Office to compile/function on ARM for the Surface RT), and yet, a Surface Pro unit is projected to cost several hundred dollars more.
And corporate America, at least (not as certain about international adoption), will no doubt pay their fee to belly on up to the trough, knowing that they can in turn pass that cost on to their customers.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
At this moment, the best niche for Windows RT seems to me like it might be: cheap, low-power, portable devices with very good Microsoft-provided remote desktop client support.
Throw your "real" apps on a VM that you manage centrally, use an RT device to RDP into them, and you might end up with long-lasting, cheap, supportable devices in client hands, but applications running on powerful, centralized, managed systems.
Won't be suitable everywhere, of course, but I see niches in which this could work.
Sorry I should have used TWOSFKAM (The Windows Operating System Formerly Known As Metro)
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
RT and the artificial "Styled" Tile interface is an oversimplification of the familiar "Icon" lexicography popularized in the MacIntosh interface programming framework.
Skew morphic is the opposite to the Tile interface carrying the abstraction to extremes, distilling it into a theology.. which also has its disadvantages when it meets a person with no common points of cultural reference.
It's the very thing they have thrown out as chaf or "useless" that makes both iOS and Windows Phone interfaces more customized to a generation and subculture than to the masses and will ultimately prove out less sales.
In effect iOS and WP are "old man" interfaces and will pander towards the last generation of people. They may persist in our culture for historical purpose but will be recognized as paleolithic artforms that fossilized in place. They served a particular pecular form of Aristocracy for a brief instance in time, before being overwhelmed by a more generalized "moderate" rather than misguided "fundamentalist" user interface.
The Baby boomer generation will help iPhones and TileOS for a while.. but ultimately will be overturned by a morphic interface more like Android or generic Windows interfaces like XP or Gnome which will prove to be the real workhorses of the 21st Century.
http://www.zdnet.com/writing-business-apps-for-microsofts-windows-8-developers-weigh-in-7000003241/
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
The Raspberry Pi uses a Broadcom BCM2835 SOC, which contains an ARM11 series core -- a step below the old ARM Cortex A8, the CPU core in the early iPhone and Android devices.
-Dave Haynie