I agree. It's been over a decade and it's still in a shitty state. The only reason to use it is (was) reach. It seems that Unreal, which performs better and is tooled better, has the same reach. If you make one of the thousands of shitty games that this "article" refers to, then you'd even make less than the $50k/yr limit, making unreal's UDK free.
Mac sales are going down too, just so you know. It seems the general population is moving towards Android and iOS, with the majority of people using their smartphones for all their computing needs.
Actually, Apple has very high market share with iOS. It is cannibalizing their own macintosh lines. It is possible for OSX to vanish. Windows won't because the enthusiast and gaming PC markets (themselves at least as big as the OSX market) will continue to use it - the OS is just a part to them - and those markets are still growing.
Actually if Windows could 100% reliably sleep/hibernate AND 100% reliably wakeup then boot times are irrelevant
I'm running a dell xps that I installed Win8 on. It was running Win7 before. It has never, ever failed to sleep/hibernate or wake back up using either version. It's certainly much faster with 8, coming to life from a full hibernate in 6 seconds (2s from sleep). I have a custom-built desktop that ran W7 and now runs 8. It only ever restarts under 2 scenarios - either an major update was installed or the power goes out. It is always asleep instead of off, and never has a problem waking up. The problem you are referring to is probably not related to windows so much as it is related to a badly configured machine or crappy hardware.
OSX uses this same mechanism to achieve it's fast boot times. My understanding is the Linux even uses a similar trick to get the GUI and services up faster (since the kernel already boots very quickly)
We've had a few developers install 8 at work. They haven't found it to be a hindrance at all. I installed it on a machine in order to run VS12, and I haven't been slowed by the OS at all. The desktop is still there. They keyboard shortcuts are still there. Everything works effectively the same way but looks a bit different.
Those 20 lb mobile desktop replacements are fine when you have to compromise. However, even LAN parties are dominated by desktops to this day, as the mobile GPU parts, while having advanced, still don't hold a candle to their desktop counterparts, and never will.
Either that or they read the news. In terms of value, Angry Birds is exactly suited to just killing some time - pretty much all mobile games have little to no real value.
Quite the opposite. $1500 gets an amazing desktop machine - quite top-of-the-line in terms of performance and parts composition. We find these mobile systems too compromised for the sake of mobility. Paying $1000+ for these ultrabooks is quite ludicrous. Everyone wants to be like Apple, I suppose. They keep it up, they will get apple's tiny mac market share.
Aside from that, I do expect to be able to jailbreak my devices. If that costs me something in day-to-day security, I'm completely fine with that. I always want ultimate control over my hardware. The reason why you think Android is malware infected is because we have the option of installing our own software without the store. This is why developers are complaining that it's a platform for piracy - there is a path for software onto the device that is user-controlled. Also, google supplies the bootloader unlocking tools, effectively giving their blessing to people who want to jailbreak.
TBH, Win8 is really a non-issue to gamers. It runs legacy games just fine, it's a cheap upgrade, it gives access to the windows store (for better or for worse), and it several other improvement in security and resource use, native usb 3 support, etc. Also, install a start menu if you don't like metro, and you're golden. IMO, there's more hoopla about 8 than necessary. If anything, I'd say it just doesn't offer enough above 7 to be worthwhile, though if it was cheap enough, perhaps that won't matter. I don't like how they deprecated Unix in Win8 though - there's no SUA anymore:/.
Sure, but you still look like a complete idiot if you claim a bunch of functionality is not there when, in fact, it is. Also, most (or pretty much all except for the "Start" button thing) of his rant is in regards to metro. Now I didn't have a problem figuring out everything in metro inside of an hour, which I know is maybe a bit too long, but once you find it, the hinting issue is gone. Most of what was there I was able to access on the first try. Maybe I'm just smarter than him. Maybe he's just whining and trying to make a video that is amusing like those on The Escapist's Zero Punctuation, which means it's more for comedy and entertainment than actual content. He fails pretty badly in that regard. Really, there is no excuse for him.
Also, in that particular case where I said, "The guy didn't even notice that..", was a case where there is no excuse. Windows 7 backup is not hidden. It's available via the desktop interface, and appears if you just search for "backup", choose backup and file history, then use your eyeballs to read what's on the screen, where you see "Windows 7 File Recovery" as a link at the bottom left.
I'm not arguing that, I'm agreeing with it. What I'm saying is that because he couldn't find it, he went online and posted a video about how it's not there, when in fact, it is. His claim that the functions are not there is completely false. Them not being there is a completely different issue than them being hidden. Sure, "hidden" is bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as "gone". That is why this video fails.
You can shrink the size of the tiles, but I think it would be a disadvantage. I can use a higher mouse sensitivity because I don't have to be anywhere near as precise when I actually click on those tiles. I can completely mitigate the gesture size, and use a mouse sensitivity I like. I see there is also an option to fill my large monitor (settings->show more tiles), which actually gives me an array of 8x12 tiles if I use the smaller setting for each tile - 92 icons I can access without navigating submenus or scrolling on a 2560x1600 monitor. That's actually not bad. I like flat structures, they are fast.
That said, I rarely have to use the start screen. I stay in desktop mode. I've pinned my commonly used applications, about 15 or so, to the taskbar. I never need to open the start screen to access them. It's how I used 7. The start screen comes in to play when I search, and I now access it using win+F intead of just hitting the windows key.
I've seen the actual "start" tiled interface a few times this month because I had something specific to do on it. I'm not even trying to avoid, it's just the way I use windows tends to avoid it. I would still prefer to have the old style search back - flat, and tucked down in the lower left, as it should be. In short, the new start screen is not the end of the world. As for gesture size, I don't care, because it's fairly silly to call an OS bad because of that, especially when a highly efficient type-to-launch system is in place. Win7's start menu needs more precise aim, but I never ran into that limitation because I never used my mouse to find and launch programs.
What I do agree with is that functionality is hidden. The problem with the video is that it claims that the functionality is not there at all first, then says, "actually it's hidden". Hidden is bad, but manageable. All the same shortcut keys work, so for keyboard users like me there's really no difference. The guy didn't even notice that the old windows 7 backup feature is still there, which would have allowed him to restore to an SSD. The video is pretty much completely un-researched, and while it makes one good point - don't hide features - it's a failure in every other sense. The person who made it should be embarrassed. He's also contradicting himself: In the past he claimed Vista was unusable, now he's claiming otherwise.
Yes. Win8 has problems, but this video is a piece of crap. The editors of/. need to pay more attention to the content before allowing it in. This video is an embarrassment to/. as well as it's creator.
Just because people have found ways to make Win8 more usable, or more like Win7, doesn't mean they are "promoters". They have spent the time to figure things out and are making suggestions. The common rhetoric that win8 detractors use is to call those who have learned to use it "promoters".
Unfortunately he presents one thing as another, a classic bait-and-switch: Features are hidden, not removed. Hidden is bad, but no-where near as bad as removed. Perhaps he could have taken the time to figure that out. Close any application (metro inclusive)? Alt-f4. Quick access to the desktop-based control panel? Right click the lower left corner instead of right. If you're a power user, it takes more time to get to use Win8 than if you're a complete novice. The reason? Our use cases are completely different. The rest of the video is more of an aesthetic rant. Whether or not icons have borders or your interface is skeuomorphic (an often badly executed idea these days) does not break an OS. Being able to figure things out at a glance (he of course chose common OSX icons vs. quite uncommon Win8 ones - I recognized every single stock win8 app by their icons instantly.
All that said, I certainly do not want to become a second-class citizen on my desktop, but at the same time I kindof hope that Win8 fails enough to oust Ballmer and kick MS in a better direction. I also hope it will really give rise to desktop Linux, but I know that's a bit of a stretch. The alternative to windows or Linux is icky, boring, and depressing.
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It probably has more to do with android, less to do with steam.
I agree. It's been over a decade and it's still in a shitty state. The only reason to use it is (was) reach. It seems that Unreal, which performs better and is tooled better, has the same reach. If you make one of the thousands of shitty games that this "article" refers to, then you'd even make less than the $50k/yr limit, making unreal's UDK free.
Mac sales are going down too, just so you know. It seems the general population is moving towards Android and iOS, with the majority of people using their smartphones for all their computing needs.
Actually, Apple has very high market share with iOS. It is cannibalizing their own macintosh lines. It is possible for OSX to vanish. Windows won't because the enthusiast and gaming PC markets (themselves at least as big as the OSX market) will continue to use it - the OS is just a part to them - and those markets are still growing.
Actually if Windows could 100% reliably sleep/hibernate AND 100% reliably wakeup then boot times are irrelevant
I'm running a dell xps that I installed Win8 on. It was running Win7 before. It has never, ever failed to sleep/hibernate or wake back up using either version. It's certainly much faster with 8, coming to life from a full hibernate in 6 seconds (2s from sleep). I have a custom-built desktop that ran W7 and now runs 8. It only ever restarts under 2 scenarios - either an major update was installed or the power goes out. It is always asleep instead of off, and never has a problem waking up. The problem you are referring to is probably not related to windows so much as it is related to a badly configured machine or crappy hardware.
OSX uses this same mechanism to achieve it's fast boot times. My understanding is the Linux even uses a similar trick to get the GUI and services up faster (since the kernel already boots very quickly)
since it (currently) hampers the hell out of work
We've had a few developers install 8 at work. They haven't found it to be a hindrance at all. I installed it on a machine in order to run VS12, and I haven't been slowed by the OS at all. The desktop is still there. They keyboard shortcuts are still there. Everything works effectively the same way but looks a bit different.
Show me an ultrabook that runs Crysis - it's only a 5 year old (or so) game, so by now ultrabooks should be able to run it on max settings.
Those 20 lb mobile desktop replacements are fine when you have to compromise. However, even LAN parties are dominated by desktops to this day, as the mobile GPU parts, while having advanced, still don't hold a candle to their desktop counterparts, and never will.
Either that or they read the news. In terms of value, Angry Birds is exactly suited to just killing some time - pretty much all mobile games have little to no real value.
You silly laptop gamers, *real* gamers use desktops :s
Of course, since we're talking about windows, the desktop space was implied. I can forgive your transgression just this one time.
Is that why chrome is installed on enough machines to be the most commonly used browser in the world (we already know windows is the most common OS in the world). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
Quite the opposite. $1500 gets an amazing desktop machine - quite top-of-the-line in terms of performance and parts composition. We find these mobile systems too compromised for the sake of mobility. Paying $1000+ for these ultrabooks is quite ludicrous. Everyone wants to be like Apple, I suppose. They keep it up, they will get apple's tiny mac market share.
Are we? Do explain.
Fine for regular folk. Us enthusiasts have vastly higher expectations, and we're not a shrinking market.
No. The first worm was in 2009, and it was possible to jailbreak iOS from safari (it still is, in some cases) -- http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/09/first_known_iphone_worm_rickrolls_jailbroken_apple_handsets.html
Aside from that, I do expect to be able to jailbreak my devices. If that costs me something in day-to-day security, I'm completely fine with that. I always want ultimate control over my hardware. The reason why you think Android is malware infected is because we have the option of installing our own software without the store. This is why developers are complaining that it's a platform for piracy - there is a path for software onto the device that is user-controlled. Also, google supplies the bootloader unlocking tools, effectively giving their blessing to people who want to jailbreak.
TBH, Win8 is really a non-issue to gamers. It runs legacy games just fine, it's a cheap upgrade, it gives access to the windows store (for better or for worse), and it several other improvement in security and resource use, native usb 3 support, etc. Also, install a start menu if you don't like metro, and you're golden. IMO, there's more hoopla about 8 than necessary. If anything, I'd say it just doesn't offer enough above 7 to be worthwhile, though if it was cheap enough, perhaps that won't matter. I don't like how they deprecated Unix in Win8 though - there's no SUA anymore :/.
Sure, but you still look like a complete idiot if you claim a bunch of functionality is not there when, in fact, it is. Also, most (or pretty much all except for the "Start" button thing) of his rant is in regards to metro. Now I didn't have a problem figuring out everything in metro inside of an hour, which I know is maybe a bit too long, but once you find it, the hinting issue is gone. Most of what was there I was able to access on the first try. Maybe I'm just smarter than him. Maybe he's just whining and trying to make a video that is amusing like those on The Escapist's Zero Punctuation, which means it's more for comedy and entertainment than actual content. He fails pretty badly in that regard. Really, there is no excuse for him.
Also, in that particular case where I said, "The guy didn't even notice that..", was a case where there is no excuse. Windows 7 backup is not hidden. It's available via the desktop interface, and appears if you just search for "backup", choose backup and file history, then use your eyeballs to read what's on the screen, where you see "Windows 7 File Recovery" as a link at the bottom left.
I'm not arguing that, I'm agreeing with it. What I'm saying is that because he couldn't find it, he went online and posted a video about how it's not there, when in fact, it is. His claim that the functions are not there is completely false. Them not being there is a completely different issue than them being hidden. Sure, "hidden" is bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as "gone". That is why this video fails.
You can shrink the size of the tiles, but I think it would be a disadvantage. I can use a higher mouse sensitivity because I don't have to be anywhere near as precise when I actually click on those tiles. I can completely mitigate the gesture size, and use a mouse sensitivity I like. I see there is also an option to fill my large monitor (settings->show more tiles), which actually gives me an array of 8x12 tiles if I use the smaller setting for each tile - 92 icons I can access without navigating submenus or scrolling on a 2560x1600 monitor. That's actually not bad. I like flat structures, they are fast.
That said, I rarely have to use the start screen. I stay in desktop mode. I've pinned my commonly used applications, about 15 or so, to the taskbar. I never need to open the start screen to access them. It's how I used 7. The start screen comes in to play when I search, and I now access it using win+F intead of just hitting the windows key.
I've seen the actual "start" tiled interface a few times this month because I had something specific to do on it. I'm not even trying to avoid, it's just the way I use windows tends to avoid it. I would still prefer to have the old style search back - flat, and tucked down in the lower left, as it should be. In short, the new start screen is not the end of the world. As for gesture size, I don't care, because it's fairly silly to call an OS bad because of that, especially when a highly efficient type-to-launch system is in place. Win7's start menu needs more precise aim, but I never ran into that limitation because I never used my mouse to find and launch programs.
What I do agree with is that functionality is hidden. The problem with the video is that it claims that the functionality is not there at all first, then says, "actually it's hidden". Hidden is bad, but manageable. All the same shortcut keys work, so for keyboard users like me there's really no difference. The guy didn't even notice that the old windows 7 backup feature is still there, which would have allowed him to restore to an SSD. The video is pretty much completely un-researched, and while it makes one good point - don't hide features - it's a failure in every other sense. The person who made it should be embarrassed. He's also contradicting himself: In the past he claimed Vista was unusable, now he's claiming otherwise.
Yes. Win8 has problems, but this video is a piece of crap. The editors of /. need to pay more attention to the content before allowing it in. This video is an embarrassment to /. as well as it's creator.
Just because people have found ways to make Win8 more usable, or more like Win7, doesn't mean they are "promoters". They have spent the time to figure things out and are making suggestions. The common rhetoric that win8 detractors use is to call those who have learned to use it "promoters".
Unfortunately he presents one thing as another, a classic bait-and-switch: Features are hidden, not removed. Hidden is bad, but no-where near as bad as removed. Perhaps he could have taken the time to figure that out. Close any application (metro inclusive)? Alt-f4. Quick access to the desktop-based control panel? Right click the lower left corner instead of right. If you're a power user, it takes more time to get to use Win8 than if you're a complete novice. The reason? Our use cases are completely different. The rest of the video is more of an aesthetic rant. Whether or not icons have borders or your interface is skeuomorphic (an often badly executed idea these days) does not break an OS. Being able to figure things out at a glance (he of course chose common OSX icons vs. quite uncommon Win8 ones - I recognized every single stock win8 app by their icons instantly.
All that said, I certainly do not want to become a second-class citizen on my desktop, but at the same time I kindof hope that Win8 fails enough to oust Ballmer and kick MS in a better direction. I also hope it will really give rise to desktop Linux, but I know that's a bit of a stretch. The alternative to windows or Linux is icky, boring, and depressing.