Parent poster here. I'm not a native speaker of English. "learnt" is the way I learnt the past of to learn. I know "learned" is also valid
I guess we were taught British English.
UI (I still like 7's start menu better, many new apps and versions of common apps like image viewer have touch optimized UI. I don't like touch optimized UIs on PCs).
Telemetry (that can't be completely disabled)
Ads in the OS (in the live tiles, the OS "helpfully" suggesting that you use Edge instead of Chrome or Firefox)
Heavy pushing towards using Ms' services (Microsoft login, Cortana, Bing, their cloud storage service, Windows Store)
Loss of control for the user (forced updates)
Many updates have caused instability
Of course Microsoft is going to criticise their own old versions of Windows and recommend people to upgrade to the latest. Why is this even news?
Also, their incredible insistence in people upgrading to 10 makes it clear they learnt with Windows XP that people don't rush to upgrade to a new OS if they're happy with what they have. Also that they had a plan to make a lot of money off Win 10 even if people upgraded for free (increased used of MS' services (bing, hotmail, their cloud service), data gathering, people buying from the Windows Store...).
And pretty obvious that "Windows 7 increases maintenance and operating costs for businesses" actually means "we'll make less money if you don't upgrade".
Maybe if you gave people what they want people would willingly update to your latest OS instead of rejecting it even when given away for free.
Make a Windows 7 with the internals of 10 and I'll upgrade.
As an Android user who doesn't like iOS allow me to say thanks. Thanks for spurring everyone else to make hardware and software better than what we had before.
Once again, this proves the wonders of competition even if you don't like a specific product.
Yeah, obviously we do have the hardware needed for running voice recognition locally. Maybe sending the voice data to the "cloud" allows for more precise recognition. Anyway, I bet that's not why that's done. You and I know that the game nowadays is to get all data you can get from the user to build a profile of them to send them ads and generally get money off the user/user data.
It's everywhere nowadays and more often than not, you can't opt out making me hate many modern services. Yeah, I understand I can get the service cheaper (or free as in no money exchanged) if I give you some of my data but sometimes I want the option to pay just with money. That's even embedded in the OS (or included apps which you can't remove which is effectively the same) as you can see in Android and Windows 10.
Also a question: I guess it's only really necessary if you're going to use it to drive some special hardware or something like that. For everything else I'd think it'd easier to use something like DOSBox
Yup, and the version that includes publicity and the Windows Store.
Obviously, the exec made a mistake: When he said "security" he actually meant "more money for us"
Submitter here. What they're doing is just giving the users some predefined options for configurations of the toolbar or something with equivalent functionality.
The proposed options are:
Classic toolbar
Simplified toolbar (just the most common options
Sidebar
Notebook bar/aka the Ribbon clone
I find great that, differently to current trends in UI design, they're giving the users options. Everyone can choose whatever they like best.
Yeah, it may be confusing to some users that there're several options (although I guess that that kind of users will probably never even stumble upon the option to change the default), it does add a bit of extra code (but not much, since it's just a bit of UI code that ends up calling the same logic code) but I think it's positive overall.
This also touches me personally since I don't like some current trends in UI design (e.g. Win 10's mobile UI elements for every form factor, very limited theming, latest Gnome...) and usually they give you no choice.
Please mod parent up.
I'm wary of making a commitment by anything Microsoft. The.NET situation might be ok right now but you never know, specially with a company with the history of Microsoft.
Windows 10 may be technically ok (actually, not even that since its update have created lots of problems: Net not working...) but they made a few very user-hostile decisions and that's why I don't like it.
- You'd be required to login into a Microsoft account before starting your car
- You wouldn't be able to schedule sw updates and you could be forced to reboot your car at any time.
- They'd replace the dashboard of your car with a metro screen full of tiles
- You'd get automatic traffic violation tickets since your car sends telemetry to Microsoft
I wouldn't care so much about Samsung bloatware if you could actually remove it...but no they must make them system apps so that you can't remove them without rooting the phone. That also goes for some Google apps which I never use and thus are also bloatware to me
AFAIK we could up to now. Samsung, in an effort to differentiate their phones, has been including their own version of many Google services in their hardware.
That's good for Samsung though a bit confusing for customers. I understand Google wants to control Android and to make it a more coherent experience across devices from different brands.
They know they got hardware manufacturers by the balls since Android is the only viable alternative to iOS and they're using that power.
If I were Samsung I'd include all of their services in Tizen phones and promote them heavily. Although I must admit that's likely to fail because this late in the game is very difficult to get to thrive a new smartphone OS. Microsoft weren't able with Windows Phone.
I do and also know several people who also do.
And it's not absurd: Nowadays a smartphone has more or less the same components of a portable console, adding a gamepad allows it to play games which require precision beyond what you can get from a touchscreen. Also, many games on Android already support gamepads. What do you prefer? playing GTA San Andreas (available both for iPhones and Android) with crappy touchscreen controls or use a gamepad which is the originally intended control method?
Agree on the SteamOS thing. It's sad it hasn't taken off more. It'd be a great thing for everyone if Linux was receiving releases of major AAA games: People who only use Windows for gaming wouldn't have to put up with all the Win 10 crap and it would force Microsoft (and the PS4) to be better to compete.
If Valve can't make it work I don't know who will.
Apple even has MP3 players without screens (the ipod shuffle). Yes, that's not absolutely necessary to listen to your audio files but it severely limits the player's usability
Reportedly phones which very small bezels (like the Xiaomi Mi Mix) have implemented some filtering in software to (hopefully) prevent accidental touches. How well that works I don't know.
I'm not into tech news these days but has anyone been able to build a smartwatch with as long a battery life as the Pebbles? I always thought epaper was the right tech for smartwatches since because of size limitations they are restricted to a small battery
You don't really *need* more battery life but it's nice to have it and being able to forget charging for a few days.
I currently have a Xiaomi Mi band 2 and, while it's not exactly a smartwatch I love that its battery life is long (around 2 weeks). Also, since it tracks your sleep it's nice being able to wear it while you're sleeping since you don't have to charge it every day
I didn't buy any Pebble hardware but by what I've read it seems like the right approach to smartwatches: epaper displays, software that's useful but doesn't try to do too much, long battery life. It's a pity they couldn't make their business profitable
Hey, I replaced the battery on my s2 when the original started to lose capacity. I'm doing the same on my s4 now. I'll buy phones with user replaceable batteries as long as they're being made.
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Parent poster here. I'm not a native speaker of English. "learnt" is the way I learnt the past of to learn. I know "learned" is also valid
I guess we were taught British English.
UI (I still like 7's start menu better, many new apps and versions of common apps like image viewer have touch optimized UI. I don't like touch optimized UIs on PCs).
Telemetry (that can't be completely disabled)
Ads in the OS (in the live tiles, the OS "helpfully" suggesting that you use Edge instead of Chrome or Firefox)
Heavy pushing towards using Ms' services (Microsoft login, Cortana, Bing, their cloud storage service, Windows Store)
Loss of control for the user (forced updates)
Many updates have caused instability
Of course Microsoft is going to criticise their own old versions of Windows and recommend people to upgrade to the latest. Why is this even news? ...).
Also, their incredible insistence in people upgrading to 10 makes it clear they learnt with Windows XP that people don't rush to upgrade to a new OS if they're happy with what they have. Also that they had a plan to make a lot of money off Win 10 even if people upgraded for free (increased used of MS' services (bing, hotmail, their cloud service), data gathering, people buying from the Windows Store
And pretty obvious that "Windows 7 increases maintenance and operating costs for businesses" actually means "we'll make less money if you don't upgrade".
Maybe if you gave people what they want people would willingly update to your latest OS instead of rejecting it even when given away for free.
Make a Windows 7 with the internals of 10 and I'll upgrade.
As an Android user who doesn't like iOS allow me to say thanks. Thanks for spurring everyone else to make hardware and software better than what we had before.
Once again, this proves the wonders of competition even if you don't like a specific product.
Yeah, obviously we do have the hardware needed for running voice recognition locally. Maybe sending the voice data to the "cloud" allows for more precise recognition. Anyway, I bet that's not why that's done. You and I know that the game nowadays is to get all data you can get from the user to build a profile of them to send them ads and generally get money off the user/user data.
It's everywhere nowadays and more often than not, you can't opt out making me hate many modern services. Yeah, I understand I can get the service cheaper (or free as in no money exchanged) if I give you some of my data but sometimes I want the option to pay just with money. That's even embedded in the OS (or included apps which you can't remove which is effectively the same) as you can see in Android and Windows 10.
Also a question: I guess it's only really necessary if you're going to use it to drive some special hardware or something like that. For everything else I'd think it'd easier to use something like DOSBox
Gaming is also the only thing tying me to Windows.
I find PC gaming much better than console gaming but this whole thing makes me want to buy a PS4.
Yup, and the version that includes publicity and the Windows Store.
Obviously, the exec made a mistake: When he said "security" he actually meant "more money for us"
The proposed options are:
I find great that, differently to current trends in UI design, they're giving the users options. Everyone can choose whatever they like best. ...) and usually they give you no choice.
Yeah, it may be confusing to some users that there're several options (although I guess that that kind of users will probably never even stumble upon the option to change the default), it does add a bit of extra code (but not much, since it's just a bit of UI code that ends up calling the same logic code) but I think it's positive overall.
This also touches me personally since I don't like some current trends in UI design (e.g. Win 10's mobile UI elements for every form factor, very limited theming, latest Gnome
Please mod parent up. .NET situation might be ok right now but you never know, specially with a company with the history of Microsoft.
I'm wary of making a commitment by anything Microsoft. The
Windows 10 may be technically ok (actually, not even that since its update have created lots of problems: Net not working...) but they made a few very user-hostile decisions and that's why I don't like it.
- You'd be required to login into a Microsoft account before starting your car
- You wouldn't be able to schedule sw updates and you could be forced to reboot your car at any time.
- They'd replace the dashboard of your car with a metro screen full of tiles
- You'd get automatic traffic violation tickets since your car sends telemetry to Microsoft
If you really want a NES like controller I've seen (I don't remember where right now) USB imitations that work will computers
I wouldn't care so much about Samsung bloatware if you could actually remove it ...but no they must make them system apps so that you can't remove them without rooting the phone. That also goes for some Google apps which I never use and thus are also bloatware to me
AFAIK we could up to now. Samsung, in an effort to differentiate their phones, has been including their own version of many Google services in their hardware.
That's good for Samsung though a bit confusing for customers. I understand Google wants to control Android and to make it a more coherent experience across devices from different brands.
They know they got hardware manufacturers by the balls since Android is the only viable alternative to iOS and they're using that power.
If I were Samsung I'd include all of their services in Tizen phones and promote them heavily. Although I must admit that's likely to fail because this late in the game is very difficult to get to thrive a new smartphone OS. Microsoft weren't able with Windows Phone.
As other people have said this has existed for a long time. Example: http://www.dx.com/es/p/ipega-p...
I do and also know several people who also do.
And it's not absurd: Nowadays a smartphone has more or less the same components of a portable console, adding a gamepad allows it to play games which require precision beyond what you can get from a touchscreen. Also, many games on Android already support gamepads. What do you prefer? playing GTA San Andreas (available both for iPhones and Android) with crappy touchscreen controls or use a gamepad which is the originally intended control method?
Some home users also care about that, it's a pity Microsoft isn't willing to provide that option even in exchange for money.
Agree on the SteamOS thing. It's sad it hasn't taken off more. It'd be a great thing for everyone if Linux was receiving releases of major AAA games: People who only use Windows for gaming wouldn't have to put up with all the Win 10 crap and it would force Microsoft (and the PS4) to be better to compete.
If Valve can't make it work I don't know who will.
...yeah sure, except for the Windows' updates and telemetry which you can bet the user won't be able to disable.
Apple even has MP3 players without screens (the ipod shuffle). Yes, that's not absolutely necessary to listen to your audio files but it severely limits the player's usability
Reportedly phones which very small bezels (like the Xiaomi Mi Mix) have implemented some filtering in software to (hopefully) prevent accidental touches. How well that works I don't know.
I'm not into tech news these days but has anyone been able to build a smartwatch with as long a battery life as the Pebbles? I always thought epaper was the right tech for smartwatches since because of size limitations they are restricted to a small battery
You don't really *need* more battery life but it's nice to have it and being able to forget charging for a few days.
I currently have a Xiaomi Mi band 2 and, while it's not exactly a smartwatch I love that its battery life is long (around 2 weeks). Also, since it tracks your sleep it's nice being able to wear it while you're sleeping since you don't have to charge it every day
I didn't buy any Pebble hardware but by what I've read it seems like the right approach to smartwatches: epaper displays, software that's useful but doesn't try to do too much, long battery life. It's a pity they couldn't make their business profitable
Hey, I replaced the battery on my s2 when the original started to lose capacity. I'm doing the same on my s4 now. I'll buy phones with user replaceable batteries as long as they're being made.