C'mon, you know the answer to this. You don't declare a previous platform dead until you're ready to ship the replacement. And if you're wise, you provide some manner of backwards or forwards compatibility. New versions of iOS will often install on older devices, as will newer versions of Android. iOS and Android apps tend (not always, but often) to work on a wide range of OS versions.
WP8 will not install on WP7 machines, making them orphans by definition. WP8 apps won't work on WP7 phones, giving developers little incentive to create WP8 apps until it's clear whether the platform will be a success, leading to a chicken-and-egg problem.
Every platform becomes obsolete eventually, but Microsoft should know better than to declare a platform dead months before the replacement becomes available. That's a newbie mistake. It's almost like they're trying to sink Nokia. Maybe they're thinking of buying the wreckage and fleshing out their hardware portfolio?
> Apple gets flack for changing a CONNECTOR after NINE years...
By some, I guess. By many (including me) it gets flack for changing the connector to yet another proprietary connector, when the rest of the world has standardized on micro-USB.
> I meant "Windows phone" as in Windows on a phone in general, not specifically WP7. I own an Android phone, but I have to admit that I like WP7.
Then, trade in today. Nokia desperately needs the money.
> When I'm ready to upgrade my phone, I will definitely be looking at Windows 8 phones as well as all of the new Android phones. My biggest complaint about Android is it still feels clunky, like stuff is kind of cut and pasted together to create a Frankensteinesque amalgam of an operating system. WP7 feels a lot more unified and "device-like" and I hope Windows 8 on phones does too.
Nokia may not survive until then. That was the point.
Windows Phone 7 is dead. Microsoft declared it dead the exact moment Nokia needed it the most, but nevermind. Nobody in his right mind would buy one right now, even if they liked the platform, with Windows Phone 8 on the horizon. If 8 takes off, *and* Nokia can survive until 8 takes off, they could do fine, albeit as a somewhat smaller company. But when you read TFA, and look at the graphs, and look at the general user community reaction to 8 in general, neither of these things (8 takes off, and Nokia can survive until Windows 8 phones become profitable) seem particularly likely.
I did not mean to imply that it's a permanently bad idea to have a development environment where the same app will work on everything from your handheld appliance to a huge array. (Actually that's not a great example, because huge computing arrays have been made from large numbers of common gaming appliances, but you know what I mean.) I don't know if that would ever make sense for any but the most trivial of applications.
I work with enterprise-grade installations, and we are always running into issues that the vendor did not think to test for. Having over 5000 users is theoretically possible but certain unforeseen things break at that volume. We periodically run into clustering issues, installation issues and other bizarre stuff because we run the app stack on separate clusters of machines, and the vendor tests by installing the entire stack on a PC. I mean, it's good that he can do that (going back to the original point) but it's not a valid test of what the app will do in a really large installation.
On the other side, Microsoft in particular has had a history of dropping desktop paradigms on small touch devices, (Windows Mobile, Windows 7 "touch edition", both of which I've owned and tried to use) that fail miserably in usability. Sure, it's possible to write code that works on a desktop, netbook, tablet, and phone, but I've yet to see a single paradigm that works *well* in all of those places.
Microsoft itself has created an operating system and application platform which allows the same applications to run on a $200 throw away netbook and a $2000 workstation or a $20,000 multiprocessor array drive server. Nothing like that existed a few decades ago.
Yeeeeaaaah, the same applications will theoretically run on a $200 throw away netbook if you have enough patience, and you're not a geek that fumes that the box is swapping energetically before you even start your first app. And a $2000 workstation, sure, if you don't mind using a phone interface on a 24 inch screen. And a $20,000 multiprocessor array server, sure, if you don't care too much about scalability or having to reboot a $20,000 machine with 5,200 users periodically. In theory the same bits will work on all of these devices. Work *well*, in a useable fashion, is a different thing.
> Nothing like that existed a few decades ago.
Possibly. And Justin Bieber didn't exist a few decades ago either. That doesn't mean there's no better way to do it.
I'm pretty sure it's called UBUSDP - Unifying Barely Useful Single Developer Platform. By locking developers into a single developer platform, no matter how creaky, redundant, inconsistent, bloated, and self-contradictory, a single manufacturer maximizes penetration and profits. Why change something that is crazy profitable and can sometimes be used to create somewhat clunky applications? And you'll get new technology when we think you need it. Now shut up and code. We have ribbons now. You love them. Tiles are coming out in a month. You will love them, and you will forget about ribbons and icons and walking menus because we will tell you to.
Oh, and I'd like to thank everyone else for beta-testing new versions of Windows for me. By the time I pick up a new version, service pack 2 or 3 have already been released, and the platform is usually stable enough to use. I couldn't do it without you.
And it still doesn't. Microsoft has for decades tried to sell us on the idea of one bloated, legacy-crap-filled OS on all devices, it was just a matter of the hardware catching up with their requirements. When they were finally convinced that a KVM interface didn't work on touch devices (giving us wonderful mind-numbing features like a "Start" button and walking menus on a 3 inch phone screen) the solution was obvious -- run a touch interface everywhere, using ideas, rebranded, that have already been successful on other platforms (example, "tiles" instead of "widgets") and convince the computing public that they will love a touch-based interface with huge sliding tiles on a 1920X1200 screen, unless they're some kind of communist.
And a few people will buy into it enthusiastically, as always, and some people will put up with it because it's a requirement for whatever they need to do, and because of Microsoft's lock on PC manufacturers, some people will put up with it because they bought the computer like that and they don't know what to do about it, and that might be enough to maintain their 60-odd percent market. And the rest of us will use something else.
I do have to use windows for some things I do. But I'm just now migrating to 7 from XP, and I have no intention of buying another copy of Windows until I see what 9 looks like. And maybe not even then, if a few companies get off their collective butts and port their products to some other platform.
Mod up. My company issued me an ipad earlier this year. After a week, I gave it back. Because I didn't want to carry an ipad *and* a laptop. The ipad is a hipster toy.
Tablets are great for meetings around a table where laptops are awkward. If you spend a lot of time bouncing from meeting to meeting, it's great.
Like other tools, not everyone needs one of each.
Comparing form factors, I agree. Tablets were made for meetings. We're not all huddled behind little privacy screens in our own world. It is easier to interact with other meeting members. It's easier to share data. Should be a win.
Unfortunately, I can't yet do everything I need to do in a meeting on a tablet. Unless I take along a keyboard and sometimes a pointing device. And carrying all that clutter is less convenient than taking a laptop. I've seen people carry a tablet, keyboard, mouse, and a little thing to prop up the tablet, all of which takes both hands and someone else to open the door. I have a laptop, which does the same thing and can be carried in one hand or under one arm.
Unless and until tablet-enabled apps become more common (and I don't mean "draw a small counter-clockwise circle on the screen to simulate a right mouse click" -- then do it again because it didn't work the first time. Or the second.), tablets will be a toy, a badge of the alpha-geek, not a serious tool.
Are you really that pale and weak that you can't carry the weight of a tablet computer?
Jesus, Saul.
It's not necessary. Why should I carry a device that doesn't do anything my other devices already do? To be an alpha geek? (That's like an alpha male, but without the spawning possibilities.)
I think what the author means is that a Windows enabled tablet could replace the laptop space. On your work desk, it's connected to an external mouse, keyboard and monitor - desktop mode When you go to a meeting, or go on the road, you take the tablet with you - mobile mode
The advance here is that you're running the same apps (yes, Word, Excel, legacy apps), same logon, same computer... whereever you go. In the corporate world, this could be huge.
I dunno. I have a Windows 7 "tablet edition" tablet collecting dust at home. As a tablet it was very nearly useless, because the OS didn't support touch properly (weird, unintuitive gestures to mimic a 3 button mouse, and odd design fails like the keyboard popping over the text field you were trying to type in) and none of the applications were even remotely tablet-enabled. So, to use it as a laptop was more complicated than a real laptop, and using it as a tablet was an exercise in frustration. Hence it's current status as shelfware.
A tablet has a completely different user interface with swipe gestures and a crappy keyboard.
Why would I want to run legacy windows applications on it that already had in many cases godawful overcomplicated user interfaces with tiny menus and microscopic meaningless icons.
Legacy photoshop on a windows tablet?
Or standard Excel or Word with a monstrosity of control toolbars/ribbons with gazillions of tiny controls?
Not going to happen.
Agreed, absolutely nobody. Tablets need a completely different OS and application design paradigm, from the ground up, and Microsoft may never understand that. They certainly don't yet.
Mod up. My company issued me an ipad earlier this year. After a week, I gave it back. Because I didn't want to carry an ipad *and* a laptop. The ipad is a hipster toy.
That's true. Yet, two things jump out at me: "69%" and "still". The percentage used to be a LOT higher, and even the people who believe MS is not going anywhere soon, acknowledge that they're hold onto a diminishing empire.
Every Wednesday is Preprod day, and every Sunday is Production Deploy. Production was done by a rotating group of about a dozen people, so you didn't have to work on Sunday too often.
It was a rare week that had nothing to deploy. It was also rare (thank Fudd) for us to have to do an emergency backout on Monday.
Speaking of which, it's good to have different teams testing and deploying. It's less likely that the deploy team will try to fix the bits after they're deployed in Prod, and maybe forget to fold the fix back into Development. Having teams with different privileges and different responsibilities helps preserve consistency, and tends to avoid the morass of twisty passages that often results from free-form development.
...but I don't work in that group anymore, since it was all outsourced to India. I have no idea what's done now. But the system we used to have, worked really well.
I've had three accidents in the last 20 years that required a visit to a body shop. In each case there was considerable damage requiring considerable time in a body shop. (In two cases the cars were totalled by insurance, but I bought them back and had them repaired anyway.) Now, in none of the accidents did any of the air bags deploy. But, now I'm thinking, if my car goes to an independent shop, would there be a profit margin in swapping out my airbag for a fake so they had a real airbag to install elsewhere? (Is this even possible?)
Lots of models to choose from. Many are already camoflaged. As someone else mentioned, you can (somewhat dimly) see the IR LEDs if the ambient light is dim enough. To avoid having your trail camera stolen, one idea might be to put it inconveniently high up in a tree. So unless one of the things they're throwing away is a really long ladder, they won't be able to retrieve it, and its presence may act as a deterrent.
(You could also have multiple cameras watching each other, but at $180 apiece, maybe not a lot of them.)
Slashdot Mirror
There is no budget...give me a break.
Whatever passes in the house will be round filed by Harry and he'll just write a continuing resolution.
The Senate has ceased to act as a deliberative legislative body and is just a place for rich Senators to hang out.
Agreed. Except I'd say "old rich senators". And it'll remain that way until we get sufficient new blood in there.
C'mon, you know the answer to this. You don't declare a previous platform dead until you're ready to ship the replacement. And if you're wise, you provide some manner of backwards or forwards compatibility. New versions of iOS will often install on older devices, as will newer versions of Android. iOS and Android apps tend (not always, but often) to work on a wide range of OS versions.
WP8 will not install on WP7 machines, making them orphans by definition. WP8 apps won't work on WP7 phones, giving developers little incentive to create WP8 apps until it's clear whether the platform will be a success, leading to a chicken-and-egg problem.
Every platform becomes obsolete eventually, but Microsoft should know better than to declare a platform dead months before the replacement becomes available. That's a newbie mistake. It's almost like they're trying to sink Nokia. Maybe they're thinking of buying the wreckage and fleshing out their hardware portfolio?
> Apple gets flack for changing a CONNECTOR after NINE years...
By some, I guess. By many (including me) it gets flack for changing the connector to yet another proprietary connector, when the rest of the world has standardized on micro-USB.
You could wait until January.
> I meant "Windows phone" as in Windows on a phone in general, not specifically WP7. I own an Android phone, but I have to admit that I like WP7.
Then, trade in today. Nokia desperately needs the money.
> When I'm ready to upgrade my phone, I will definitely be looking at Windows 8 phones as well as all of the new Android phones. My biggest complaint about Android is it still feels clunky, like stuff is kind of cut and pasted together to create a Frankensteinesque amalgam of an operating system. WP7 feels a lot more unified and "device-like" and I hope Windows 8 on phones does too.
Nokia may not survive until then. That was the point.
Windows Phone 7 is dead. Microsoft declared it dead the exact moment Nokia needed it the most, but nevermind. Nobody in his right mind would buy one right now, even if they liked the platform, with Windows Phone 8 on the horizon. If 8 takes off, *and* Nokia can survive until 8 takes off, they could do fine, albeit as a somewhat smaller company. But when you read TFA, and look at the graphs, and look at the general user community reaction to 8 in general, neither of these things (8 takes off, and Nokia can survive until Windows 8 phones become profitable) seem particularly likely.
Why (from TFA) haven't the board fired Elop? Corruption, perhaps? Payoffs?
Virus developers especially.
I did not mean to imply that it's a permanently bad idea to have a development environment where the same app will work on everything from your handheld appliance to a huge array. (Actually that's not a great example, because huge computing arrays have been made from large numbers of common gaming appliances, but you know what I mean.) I don't know if that would ever make sense for any but the most trivial of applications.
I work with enterprise-grade installations, and we are always running into issues that the vendor did not think to test for. Having over 5000 users is theoretically possible but certain unforeseen things break at that volume. We periodically run into clustering issues, installation issues and other bizarre stuff because we run the app stack on separate clusters of machines, and the vendor tests by installing the entire stack on a PC. I mean, it's good that he can do that (going back to the original point) but it's not a valid test of what the app will do in a really large installation.
On the other side, Microsoft in particular has had a history of dropping desktop paradigms on small touch devices, (Windows Mobile, Windows 7 "touch edition", both of which I've owned and tried to use) that fail miserably in usability. Sure, it's possible to write code that works on a desktop, netbook, tablet, and phone, but I've yet to see a single paradigm that works *well* in all of those places.
Microsoft itself has created an operating system and application platform which allows the same applications to run on a $200 throw away netbook and a $2000 workstation or a $20,000 multiprocessor array drive server. Nothing like that existed a few decades ago.
Yeeeeaaaah, the same applications will theoretically run on a $200 throw away netbook if you have enough patience, and you're not a geek that fumes that the box is swapping energetically before you even start your first app. And a $2000 workstation, sure, if you don't mind using a phone interface on a 24 inch screen. And a $20,000 multiprocessor array server, sure, if you don't care too much about scalability or having to reboot a $20,000 machine with 5,200 users periodically. In theory the same bits will work on all of these devices. Work *well*, in a useable fashion, is a different thing.
> Nothing like that existed a few decades ago.
Possibly. And Justin Bieber didn't exist a few decades ago either. That doesn't mean there's no better way to do it.
I'm pretty sure it's called UBUSDP - Unifying Barely Useful Single Developer Platform. By locking developers into a single developer platform, no matter how creaky, redundant, inconsistent, bloated, and self-contradictory, a single manufacturer maximizes penetration and profits. Why change something that is crazy profitable and can sometimes be used to create somewhat clunky applications? And you'll get new technology when we think you need it. Now shut up and code. We have ribbons now. You love them. Tiles are coming out in a month. You will love them, and you will forget about ribbons and icons and walking menus because we will tell you to.
Oh, and I'd like to thank everyone else for beta-testing new versions of Windows for me. By the time I pick up a new version, service pack 2 or 3 have already been released, and the platform is usually stable enough to use. I couldn't do it without you.
And it still doesn't. Microsoft has for decades tried to sell us on the idea of one bloated, legacy-crap-filled OS on all devices, it was just a matter of the hardware catching up with their requirements. When they were finally convinced that a KVM interface didn't work on touch devices (giving us wonderful mind-numbing features like a "Start" button and walking menus on a 3 inch phone screen) the solution was obvious -- run a touch interface everywhere, using ideas, rebranded, that have already been successful on other platforms (example, "tiles" instead of "widgets") and convince the computing public that they will love a touch-based interface with huge sliding tiles on a 1920X1200 screen, unless they're some kind of communist.
And a few people will buy into it enthusiastically, as always, and some people will put up with it because it's a requirement for whatever they need to do, and because of Microsoft's lock on PC manufacturers, some people will put up with it because they bought the computer like that and they don't know what to do about it, and that might be enough to maintain their 60-odd percent market. And the rest of us will use something else.
I do have to use windows for some things I do. But I'm just now migrating to 7 from XP, and I have no intention of buying another copy of Windows until I see what 9 looks like. And maybe not even then, if a few companies get off their collective butts and port their products to some other platform.
Mod up. My company issued me an ipad earlier this year. After a week, I gave it back. Because I didn't want to carry an ipad *and* a laptop. The ipad is a hipster toy.
Tablets are great for meetings around a table where laptops are awkward. If you spend a lot of time bouncing from meeting to meeting, it's great.
Like other tools, not everyone needs one of each.
Comparing form factors, I agree. Tablets were made for meetings. We're not all huddled behind little privacy screens in our own world. It is easier to interact with other meeting members. It's easier to share data. Should be a win.
Unfortunately, I can't yet do everything I need to do in a meeting on a tablet. Unless I take along a keyboard and sometimes a pointing device. And carrying all that clutter is less convenient than taking a laptop. I've seen people carry a tablet, keyboard, mouse, and a little thing to prop up the tablet, all of which takes both hands and someone else to open the door. I have a laptop, which does the same thing and can be carried in one hand or under one arm.
Unless and until tablet-enabled apps become more common (and I don't mean "draw a small counter-clockwise circle on the screen to simulate a right mouse click" -- then do it again because it didn't work the first time. Or the second.), tablets will be a toy, a badge of the alpha-geek, not a serious tool.
Are you really that pale and weak that you can't carry the weight of a tablet computer?
Jesus, Saul.
It's not necessary. Why should I carry a device that doesn't do anything my other devices already do? To be an alpha geek? (That's like an alpha male, but without the spawning possibilities.)
> Microsoft is making money.
Although, less now.
I think what the author means is that a Windows enabled tablet could replace the laptop space.
On your work desk, it's connected to an external mouse, keyboard and monitor - desktop mode
When you go to a meeting, or go on the road, you take the tablet with you - mobile mode
The advance here is that you're running the same apps (yes, Word, Excel, legacy apps), same logon, same computer... whereever you go. In the corporate world, this could be huge.
I dunno. I have a Windows 7 "tablet edition" tablet collecting dust at home. As a tablet it was very nearly useless, because the OS didn't support touch properly (weird, unintuitive gestures to mimic a 3 button mouse, and odd design fails like the keyboard popping over the text field you were trying to type in) and none of the applications were even remotely tablet-enabled. So, to use it as a laptop was more complicated than a real laptop, and using it as a tablet was an exercise in frustration. Hence it's current status as shelfware.
A tablet has a completely different user interface with swipe gestures and a crappy keyboard.
Why would I want to run legacy windows applications on it that already had in many cases godawful overcomplicated user interfaces with tiny menus and microscopic meaningless icons.
Legacy photoshop on a windows tablet?
Or standard Excel or Word with a monstrosity of control toolbars/ribbons with gazillions of tiny controls?
Not going to happen.
Agreed, absolutely nobody. Tablets need a completely different OS and application design paradigm, from the ground up, and Microsoft may never understand that. They certainly don't yet.
Mod up. My company issued me an ipad earlier this year. After a week, I gave it back. Because I didn't want to carry an ipad *and* a laptop. The ipad is a hipster toy.
That's true. Yet, two things jump out at me: "69%" and "still". The percentage used to be a LOT higher, and even the people who believe MS is not going anywhere soon, acknowledge that they're hold onto a diminishing empire.
Every Wednesday is Preprod day, and every Sunday is Production Deploy. Production was done by a rotating group of about a dozen people, so you didn't have to work on Sunday too often.
It was a rare week that had nothing to deploy. It was also rare (thank Fudd) for us to have to do an emergency backout on Monday.
Speaking of which, it's good to have different teams testing and deploying. It's less likely that the deploy team will try to fix the bits after they're deployed in Prod, and maybe forget to fold the fix back into Development. Having teams with different privileges and different responsibilities helps preserve consistency, and tends to avoid the morass of twisty passages that often results from free-form development.
I've had three accidents in the last 20 years that required a visit to a body shop. In each case there was considerable damage requiring considerable time in a body shop. (In two cases the cars were totalled by insurance, but I bought them back and had them repaired anyway.) Now, in none of the accidents did any of the air bags deploy. But, now I'm thinking, if my car goes to an independent shop, would there be a profit margin in swapping out my airbag for a fake so they had a real airbag to install elsewhere? (Is this even possible?)
Lots of models to choose from. Many are already camoflaged. As someone else mentioned, you can (somewhat dimly) see the IR LEDs if the ambient light is dim enough. To avoid having your trail camera stolen, one idea might be to put it inconveniently high up in a tree. So unless one of the things they're throwing away is a really long ladder, they won't be able to retrieve it, and its presence may act as a deterrent.
(You could also have multiple cameras watching each other, but at $180 apiece, maybe not a lot of them.)
Good luck. The bastards deserve to be arrested.
Geeze, sorry Big Bird, looks like you're out of a job.
I know just the gesture...
Why not build it into a wristwatch?