If I have to pay five bucks to fix something that was working fine in the previous release, anyone but a fucking shill would call that broken
Really, so the Win7 is broken compared to Vista and WinXP? Just because the start button is quite different? Is OSX broken, it changed dramatically a number of times. If functionality is removed you might say it is broken, in Win8 no functionality is removed, it is just changed. Slightly. Once you get used to it, it is a decent improvement.
The fact that things change doesn't mean that they are broken, it means that they are different. I have no need for the alternatives to the start button, the start screen is in fact far more flexible than the Win7 start button. Some people find it jarring to go to the start screen, but it isn't more jarring than minimizing an application and suddenly seeing the desktop with shortcuts on it. The start screen is like a highly advanced desktop with live icons.
There is no loss of functionality between Win7 and Win8, so how it might be broken escapes me. The start screen is not only far more functional than the start menu, it is also far more efficient in use. If your program is in a folder on the start menu it takes way more clicks to get it started than it does with the start screen. Of course, you'd have to actually use Win8 to know this, not just repeat religious nonsense from someone you consider an almighty priest or god. I have quite a few pieces of software I use every day. On Win7 I can have some of them directly on my start menu for quick access, I can also have some pinned on my task bar. None of these can hold all the apps I use though. The start screen does, organized, grouped by function.
I never launch the apps that ship with Win8. The email client is terrible, so are a bunch of others. I use them all the time though. When I click the start screen to launch an app, I glance around my screen too. In a second I take in how many unread email I have in my inbox at Gmail. I see the subject of the last to arrive. I know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, both at home and where I am traveling for business. I also know how my portfolio is doing. Just a quick glance. The start screen is a 27" wall of information which also lets me launch the apps I need. None of the apps I actually use are Metro apps, but who cares. They are very useful as information panels. I use my browser to read email, same with actually doing something with my portfolio. Doesn't mean I don't value the stock app that I actually bought or the Win8 email client, they give me instant information all the time.
As I said, let me know what is missing of functionality before continuing to look dumb. If all change is bad you really should not deal with computers at all, or anything else for that matter. Go find a cave and live happily there for the rest of your life.
Actually, I am not, and I have demonstrated why. You can easily prove me wrong by explaining how Win8 is dramatically different when using the desktop than Win7. Until you do, I am right and you are a learning-disabled moron.
It doesn't take active intervention to un-break it, it takes a minor add-in to make it so that people who have no capability to learn a singe incredibly minor new thing can be cuddled in the assurance that everything is as before. Nothing will rock their world so that they develop agoraphobia and will be unable to leave the house.
In other words, if you are retarded or just an moron with a chip on your shoulder, you can fix that with a $5 add-in. If you are not, no change needed.
how mundane tasks are now hidden behind multiple layers of obscurity, and generally user hostile
Only if you insist on using the Metro interface on the desktop. If you insist on doing so on the desktop you are either retarded or a journalist (which is basically the same). Using the standard Win interface on W8 is a matter of a single click with your mouse, or you can install an extension. Once you are in the desktop interface there is no difference between it and W7, so if that is an abomination then W7 is too, and XP for that matter since the interface mostly have visual non-intrusive differences.
Personally I (now) prefer the configurability of the start screen over the start menu, if that is not the case for you, then installing a start menu takes about 20 seconds.
So if you have an existing system with 7, stick with it
There is at least one good reason to upgrade, performance:
Same box, before and after upgrading to W8. Geekbench 64 bit on W7 and W8:
W7: 5665
W8: 7103
Not just identical hardware, the same box with the same apps installed (since I was upgrading, not fresh-installing W8). That's a rather good reason to upgrade, and there are no reasons not to since, for a desktop user, the two systems are basically identical.
Only if you are complete retard. In usability there is no difference at all between Windows 7 and 8, since the desktop interface is identical minus the start button. The start screen is infinitely more customizable than the start button was, so - after a few days of playing around, it is a better option. You can launch any app, also desktop apps, from the start screen. In many ways, the start screen is identical to having icons on the desktop, just more flexible.
So, if you find W8 completely unusable and you find W7 usable, you are a total, and astoundingly incompetent, moron. There is no real difference between the two.
I have had an ageing AMD box around for a while. Here are my geek bench results on this box using W7 and W8, nothing else has changed on the box. It was just upgraded from W7 to W8.
Geek bench W7: 5665
Geek bench W8: 7103
These results are reflected in the day-to-day use of the computer. Honestly, if you want to have your computer perform at its best, there is no downsides to going W8, and a very clear advantage to doing the upgrade. In other words, if you prefer your computer to perform optimally and you need to run on Windows, your retarded if you stay on Windows 7 rather than upgrade to Windows 8.
There is no such thing in the x86 Windows world, and that is (at the moment) the only one that counts since the WinRT devices sell less than snow on Greenland. W8 (on x86) is not different than W7 in any way when it comes do installing apps.
Providing support for a walled garden design which restricts developers who don't play the "app store" game
BZZZZT! WRONG! There is no difference between W7 and W8 for app installation. You go to the vendors site, buy the app, download it, install it. I have installed exactly one app (Netflix) from the app store, just to try it. Every other app I installed the same way I did on W7. There is no difference between the two.
I dont want my computer to be an advertising platform, which is a big part of what metro is
Are you on drugs? Advertising platform? Advertising for what? The things you put there? Are you really this clueless or was your Cool Aid spiked this morning? I have never seen any kind of advertising on the Metro desktop. You really need to get out of your "Church of Sucking Jobs' Dick" a little more.
It does. There is no reason to use it. Have used W8 on a desktop for months and I never use the Metro interface. Give me a shout if you want any more clues to challenge your religious beliefs.
hardly a process most end-users can be expected to go through for the sake of getting a fifth of their hard drive back
According to MS, the process is well documented in the documentation for the device since it is a task they apparently expect a good chunk of users do.
It is, and it is also easier to analyze. The problem is, once you publish economic theories the market will adjust its behavior to fit the theory, which makes the basic tenets of the theory invalid. Economic theories are only useful and valid as long as nobody knows about them, including the theorist theorizing said theories.
Economics, psychology, astrology and palm reading are not scientific endeavors.
It can be science, as long as nobody publishes any economic theories...
One problem with economics is that people sit down, investigate market behavior, calculate some stuff, and then they theorize about this. Finally they publish their theories, and instantly they all become invalid. Why do they become invalid? The behavior of the market prior to the release of said theory is predicated on the non-knowledge of said theory. In other words, the market behaves the way it does because it doesn't know about the theory in question. Once the market knows about the theory (one person is enough really) it alters its behavior according to that theory, and then the basics of that theory are invalidated, and the theory becomes invalid.
Also, all economic theories are hokum, but that's another matter.
Economics and psychology are science in the same way that astrology and palm reading are science.
If market share == success and the company with the largest market share in an industry is not in fact successful then wouldn't that imply that market share is not the be all and end all?
Seriously? You are comparing HP to Apple? To you think they are similar companies? Are you really that clueless? Do you also think that IBM and Apple were similar companies back when IBM made PCs too? HP wanted to rid it self of the PC business because they no longer figured it as a loss-lead business, just as a loss business. It seems Whitman is not of that opinion, and that she thinks HPs PC division can work as a loss-leader for the business that HP is actually in, which is Services. Even Dell have been Professional Services companies for a long time.
Apple is a devices company. It isn't a professional services company like HP and IBM. Apple could use the phone business as a loss leader to sell more Macs, but that would probably be rather foolish since the Mac business could not recuperate any losses made by its phone/devices business. This more or less makes Apple a one-trick-pony. Its overall business is entirely dependent on the devices (iPod/Pad/Phone) division.
If you didn't know the difference you really should not have engaged in a discussion about business. You appear to be utterly clueless in that regard.
loss of profit and if Android has been gaining market share and Apple's profits haven't decreased, doesn't that kind of imply that your second hypothesis is also wrong
Fact 1: HP had the largest market share in PCs when they tried to dump their PC division
And? It is relevant how? What business decisions HP makes have zero relevancy for Apple. Do you think that IBM has relevance also? Why are you spouting irrelevant nonsense?
Engadget...
Yes, we know. Again, is it relevant that Apple grew in a single market when it fell everywhere else? Samsung took 70% of the market in Q4. That is a staggering growth. It is very scary to the folks in Cupertino. Why do you think the started their childish and absurd law suits? Samsung and Android is taking huge market share from Apple, and unless it turns around, it will have a significant impact on Apple's bottom line. Just ask Wall Street, they have already answered.
I've just showed you to examples where market share didnt imply business success.
Business is not about the now or the past, it is about the future. Your current profits may be good, even your short term profits may be good, but if you are not a tiny niche player, market share matters a lot more since it says something about your future profits. Market share in free fall means future profits are not going to be there. You may be a player, you may even make decent money, but you're going to be a niche player at best. With the current trend for Apple their smart phones will end up where the Mac was before Microsoft bailed them out, a niche player in a small niche.
I would not worry as much about toxic gasses as I would about the general stability of air in a cold climate with insane amounts of heat being pumped into the air. Helicopters are not the most stable and safe things when air gets very turbulent.
So you yearn for the days when the vendors split the hard drive into a C: and a D with a C: that inevitably became too small? When they did I always removed the vendor stuff, got back to a single partition, and lived happily ever after. This is a Windows device. Put everything on the C drive please, if I need more storage space, I will put the rescue partition on a memory stick and/or add more storage. It's not like storage is expensive.
I wouldn't be that certain. It all depends. According to the latest numbers I saw, the WP had a market share in 2012 moving closer to 3%, 2.7% or something. BB was about 5%, Apple was around 19%, Android going on 70% and some other stuff. Now, Windows Phone is 3% with a good growth factor and Apple is at 18% in free fall. It will probably depend on where Microsoft will steal market share. We'll see. If WP only eats into the BB market, iOS is probably good for a little while longer, but Apple will not be able to maintain momentum if their market share keeps dropping at this pace. If (and this depends on a lot of things) WP starts taking market share from iOS, Apple could be de-throned as the #2.
Slashdot Mirror
If I have to pay five bucks to fix something that was working fine in the previous release, anyone but a fucking shill would call that broken
Really, so the Win7 is broken compared to Vista and WinXP? Just because the start button is quite different? Is OSX broken, it changed dramatically a number of times. If functionality is removed you might say it is broken, in Win8 no functionality is removed, it is just changed. Slightly. Once you get used to it, it is a decent improvement.
The fact that things change doesn't mean that they are broken, it means that they are different. I have no need for the alternatives to the start button, the start screen is in fact far more flexible than the Win7 start button. Some people find it jarring to go to the start screen, but it isn't more jarring than minimizing an application and suddenly seeing the desktop with shortcuts on it. The start screen is like a highly advanced desktop with live icons.
There is no loss of functionality between Win7 and Win8, so how it might be broken escapes me. The start screen is not only far more functional than the start menu, it is also far more efficient in use. If your program is in a folder on the start menu it takes way more clicks to get it started than it does with the start screen. Of course, you'd have to actually use Win8 to know this, not just repeat religious nonsense from someone you consider an almighty priest or god. I have quite a few pieces of software I use every day. On Win7 I can have some of them directly on my start menu for quick access, I can also have some pinned on my task bar. None of these can hold all the apps I use though. The start screen does, organized, grouped by function.
I never launch the apps that ship with Win8. The email client is terrible, so are a bunch of others. I use them all the time though. When I click the start screen to launch an app, I glance around my screen too. In a second I take in how many unread email I have in my inbox at Gmail. I see the subject of the last to arrive. I know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, both at home and where I am traveling for business. I also know how my portfolio is doing. Just a quick glance. The start screen is a 27" wall of information which also lets me launch the apps I need. None of the apps I actually use are Metro apps, but who cares. They are very useful as information panels. I use my browser to read email, same with actually doing something with my portfolio. Doesn't mean I don't value the stock app that I actually bought or the Win8 email client, they give me instant information all the time.
As I said, let me know what is missing of functionality before continuing to look dumb. If all change is bad you really should not deal with computers at all, or anything else for that matter. Go find a cave and live happily there for the rest of your life.
Nice try, but you are completely wrong.
Actually, I am not, and I have demonstrated why. You can easily prove me wrong by explaining how Win8 is dramatically different when using the desktop than Win7. Until you do, I am right and you are a learning-disabled moron.
It doesn't take active intervention to un-break it, it takes a minor add-in to make it so that people who have no capability to learn a singe incredibly minor new thing can be cuddled in the assurance that everything is as before. Nothing will rock their world so that they develop agoraphobia and will be unable to leave the house.
In other words, if you are retarded or just an moron with a chip on your shoulder, you can fix that with a $5 add-in. If you are not, no change needed.
how mundane tasks are now hidden behind multiple layers of obscurity, and generally user hostile
Only if you insist on using the Metro interface on the desktop. If you insist on doing so on the desktop you are either retarded or a journalist (which is basically the same). Using the standard Win interface on W8 is a matter of a single click with your mouse, or you can install an extension. Once you are in the desktop interface there is no difference between it and W7, so if that is an abomination then W7 is too, and XP for that matter since the interface mostly have visual non-intrusive differences.
Personally I (now) prefer the configurability of the start screen over the start menu, if that is not the case for you, then installing a start menu takes about 20 seconds.
So if you have an existing system with 7, stick with it
There is at least one good reason to upgrade, performance:
Same box, before and after upgrading to W8. Geekbench 64 bit on W7 and W8:
W7: 5665
W8: 7103
Not just identical hardware, the same box with the same apps installed (since I was upgrading, not fresh-installing W8). That's a rather good reason to upgrade, and there are no reasons not to since, for a desktop user, the two systems are basically identical.
it is somewhere just north of completely unusable
Only if you are complete retard. In usability there is no difference at all between Windows 7 and 8, since the desktop interface is identical minus the start button. The start screen is infinitely more customizable than the start button was, so - after a few days of playing around, it is a better option. You can launch any app, also desktop apps, from the start screen. In many ways, the start screen is identical to having icons on the desktop, just more flexible.
So, if you find W8 completely unusable and you find W7 usable, you are a total, and astoundingly incompetent, moron. There is no real difference between the two.
I have had an ageing AMD box around for a while. Here are my geek bench results on this box using W7 and W8, nothing else has changed on the box. It was just upgraded from W7 to W8.
Geek bench W7: 5665
Geek bench W8: 7103
These results are reflected in the day-to-day use of the computer. Honestly, if you want to have your computer perform at its best, there is no downsides to going W8, and a very clear advantage to doing the upgrade. In other words, if you prefer your computer to perform optimally and you need to run on Windows, your retarded if you stay on Windows 7 rather than upgrade to Windows 8.
since they'll need to have sideloading enabled
There is no such thing in the x86 Windows world, and that is (at the moment) the only one that counts since the WinRT devices sell less than snow on Greenland. W8 (on x86) is not different than W7 in any way when it comes do installing apps.
Providing support for a walled garden design which restricts developers who don't play the "app store" game
BZZZZT! WRONG! There is no difference between W7 and W8 for app installation. You go to the vendors site, buy the app, download it, install it. I have installed exactly one app (Netflix) from the app store, just to try it. Every other app I installed the same way I did on W7. There is no difference between the two.
I dont want my computer to be an advertising platform, which is a big part of what metro is
Are you on drugs? Advertising platform? Advertising for what? The things you put there? Are you really this clueless or was your Cool Aid spiked this morning? I have never seen any kind of advertising on the Metro desktop. You really need to get out of your "Church of Sucking Jobs' Dick" a little more.
If Metro existed without being forced to be used
It does. There is no reason to use it. Have used W8 on a desktop for months and I never use the Metro interface. Give me a shout if you want any more clues to challenge your religious beliefs.
Wooooosh!
hardly a process most end-users can be expected to go through for the sake of getting a fifth of their hard drive back
According to MS, the process is well documented in the documentation for the device since it is a task they apparently expect a good chunk of users do.
By your reasoning, one cannot properly study psychology ... not a prerequisite to perform science
Psychology is not science. Never was. Never will be. It can be studied, and it uses scientific tools, but it is not science.
Not that I'm particular thrilled with the idea of kings in general
I love Diederot's statement in that regard: "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest".
Sadly for Diederot, there will always be Kings, no matter what we call them. At least we could start on the priests and see where that leads us.
Climate in economics is much more predictable
It is, and it is also easier to analyze. The problem is, once you publish economic theories the market will adjust its behavior to fit the theory, which makes the basic tenets of the theory invalid. Economic theories are only useful and valid as long as nobody knows about them, including the theorist theorizing said theories.
Economics, psychology, astrology and palm reading are not scientific endeavors.
It can be science, as long as nobody publishes any economic theories...
One problem with economics is that people sit down, investigate market behavior, calculate some stuff, and then they theorize about this. Finally they publish their theories, and instantly they all become invalid. Why do they become invalid? The behavior of the market prior to the release of said theory is predicated on the non-knowledge of said theory. In other words, the market behaves the way it does because it doesn't know about the theory in question. Once the market knows about the theory (one person is enough really) it alters its behavior according to that theory, and then the basics of that theory are invalidated, and the theory becomes invalid.
Also, all economic theories are hokum, but that's another matter.
Economics and psychology are science in the same way that astrology and palm reading are science.
Um, Intelligent Design is skepticism
No, it isn't. ID is religion, superstition (OK, that was redundant, all religion is superstition) and dogma. It has nothing to do with skepticism.
If market share == success and the company with the largest market share in an industry is not in fact successful then wouldn't that imply that market share is not the be all and end all?
Seriously? You are comparing HP to Apple? To you think they are similar companies? Are you really that clueless? Do you also think that IBM and Apple were similar companies back when IBM made PCs too? HP wanted to rid it self of the PC business because they no longer figured it as a loss-lead business, just as a loss business. It seems Whitman is not of that opinion, and that she thinks HPs PC division can work as a loss-leader for the business that HP is actually in, which is Services. Even Dell have been Professional Services companies for a long time.
Apple is a devices company. It isn't a professional services company like HP and IBM. Apple could use the phone business as a loss leader to sell more Macs, but that would probably be rather foolish since the Mac business could not recuperate any losses made by its phone/devices business. This more or less makes Apple a one-trick-pony. Its overall business is entirely dependent on the devices (iPod/Pad/Phone) division.
If you didn't know the difference you really should not have engaged in a discussion about business. You appear to be utterly clueless in that regard.
loss of profit and if Android has been gaining market share and Apple's profits haven't decreased, doesn't that kind of imply that your second hypothesis is also wrong
No, it just demonstrates that you can not read.
Fact 1: HP had the largest market share in PCs when they tried to dump their PC division
And? It is relevant how? What business decisions HP makes have zero relevancy for Apple. Do you think that IBM has relevance also? Why are you spouting irrelevant nonsense?
Engadget...
Yes, we know. Again, is it relevant that Apple grew in a single market when it fell everywhere else? Samsung took 70% of the market in Q4. That is a staggering growth. It is very scary to the folks in Cupertino. Why do you think the started their childish and absurd law suits? Samsung and Android is taking huge market share from Apple, and unless it turns around, it will have a significant impact on Apple's bottom line. Just ask Wall Street, they have already answered.
I've just showed you to examples where market share didnt imply business success.
Business is not about the now or the past, it is about the future. Your current profits may be good, even your short term profits may be good, but if you are not a tiny niche player, market share matters a lot more since it says something about your future profits. Market share in free fall means future profits are not going to be there. You may be a player, you may even make decent money, but you're going to be a niche player at best. With the current trend for Apple their smart phones will end up where the Mac was before Microsoft bailed them out, a niche player in a small niche.
I would not worry as much about toxic gasses as I would about the general stability of air in a cold climate with insane amounts of heat being pumped into the air. Helicopters are not the most stable and safe things when air gets very turbulent.
So you yearn for the days when the vendors split the hard drive into a C: and a D with a C: that inevitably became too small? When they did I always removed the vendor stuff, got back to a single partition, and lived happily ever after. This is a Windows device. Put everything on the C drive please, if I need more storage space, I will put the rescue partition on a memory stick and/or add more storage. It's not like storage is expensive.
phone profits
If you did not understand what I wrote you should just have asked.
I wouldn't be that certain. It all depends. According to the latest numbers I saw, the WP had a market share in 2012 moving closer to 3%, 2.7% or something. BB was about 5%, Apple was around 19%, Android going on 70% and some other stuff. Now, Windows Phone is 3% with a good growth factor and Apple is at 18% in free fall. It will probably depend on where Microsoft will steal market share. We'll see. If WP only eats into the BB market, iOS is probably good for a little while longer, but Apple will not be able to maintain momentum if their market share keeps dropping at this pace. If (and this depends on a lot of things) WP starts taking market share from iOS, Apple could be de-throned as the #2.