Sure, it's right here. Check out XDA devs, there are tons of ROMs built off of AOSP.
Any other uninformed comments you want to make, Crapple shill?
So why isn't this whole StageFright vulnerability a non-issue? (Which it isn't).
Because pretty much most of the whole Android Userbase DOESN'T even know what ROOTING is, let alone how to do it, or how to install a custom ROM without borking their device.
So, even if there ARE custom ROMs available (that you can trust!!!) for a given device, only a vanishingly small percentage of the Android Userbase knows how to take advantage of them.
No, manufacturers are responsible. Why the fuck would a carrier have anything to do with the OS on *my* phone which another company manufactured?
Because, dimwit, if you have an Android phone, it is the CARRIER that gets the last word on the OS software running in your phone; not Google; and not the phone's manufacturer.
So I'm not sure why you are baffled. Except perhaps your inability to understand that a statement about Apple does not mean that it applies exclusively to Apple and no other company.
Nice backtracking.
While I understand it could be about other companies besides Apple, it was obvious to the most casual observer that it was not intended to be about anyone but Apple.
Where is the support for Apple PPC products? Nonexistent? oh yeah, they really keep things up to date! No worries!
The simple fact is, Apple expects every single one of their plebs to buy the latest hardware every few years. Fucking hell, their whole business model depends on it.
Um, Apple made the switch to Intel in 2006, NINE YEARS AGO. The switch was announced on June 6, 2005.
I happen to have a G5 1.8 Dualie that I purchased new in April 2005, about 2 mos. before the announcement of the Intel Switch (Grrr!). When they switched, the current version of OS X (which was available for both PPC and Intel in separate versions) was 10.4 (Tiger). My G5 still works fine on 10.5 Leopard (which was released on 10/26/2007 as a Universal Binary). They issued periodic Updates for the Applications and OS 10.5 up through the launch of 10.7 Lion on 7/20/2011, and even issued a few critical Security Updates after that.
As far as Application Development, for example, the first Intel-Only version of Logic Pro, 9.1 was released on 1/12/2010. The previous version, Logic Pro 9.0, announced on 7/23/2009, was a Universal Binary. The last version of iTunes to support PPC (and Intel) was 10.6.3 (released sometime in 2011, I think). I can't find an exact release date for the next version of iTunes (the first version to be Intel-Only), but it appears to be sometime in 2012. Et cetera.
Apple stopped providing automatic downloads for Updates through their Software Update service for MacOS 9 (Classic) and OS X versions 10.0 through 10.3 (and related Applications) on 7/31/2012, although they are still available through Apple's "Downloads" Page. I presume that Updates for OS X versions 10.4 and up, including the PPC versions (and related Applications) are still available automatically through Software Update.
So, we can legitimately call it from 2005 to 2012 (there was a Security Update to iTunes 10.6.3 on 6/12/2012, which appears to be the latest PPC-based Security Update to any Apple Software) before Apple actually dropped all development for, and support of, PPC Macs. SEVEN YEARS is pretty damned good, IMHO.
So, IOW, it seems like Apple "Expects" you to buy new Hardware about every SEVEN years. Yeah, that's really "pushy" in the Computer universe. Yeah, right.
My Nexus 4 is still getting the latest OS updates even though it is several years old, and the Nexus 5 is as well. The main reason the Galaxy Nexus isn't getting further support is likely because the chipset manufacturer has exited the market entirely.
Don't forget that Google does not make the hardware themselves, unlike Apple.
Interesting. I may stand corrected. I saw somewhere else in this thread that Google was dropping support for earlier Nexi models with the release of Android "M". But in typical Slashdot fashion, I can't find the comment again...
Not everybody can afford Apple's enormous price premium (yes just look at the huge profit margin).
IPhone 6 Plus 64 GB Unlocked, no SIM, direct from Apple: $US849. One Year Apple Warranty.
Samsung Galaxy S6 64 GB Unlocked, "International Version", listed on Amazon: US$815. And this nice disclaimer:"This cell phone may not include a US warranty as some manufacturers do not honor warranties for international version phones. Please contact the seller for specific warranty information."
So, I'm a bit baffled; where's all that "enormous price premium"?
But the devices won't last forever, so that's not what is being asked of vendors. Support as long as the hardware can reasonably be expected to last in significant numbers is a much shorter period of time and probably not so much of an ask.
If they don't want to commit for that long, perhaps they should advertise their product as disposable.
Your point being?
Apple has hands-down the best track record of supporting less-than-current-generation mobile hardware. Even Google is dropping support for most of the past generations of NEXUS hardware; something they basically stated they wouldn't do.
And as for all the rest of the Android OEMs: Well, they should simply be ashamed of themselves, period.
Google patched it back in April. The manufacturer's of the phone's are now responsible for providing it to you.
No, you mean the CARRIER'S are now "responsible" for providing it to you; since THEY are the final arbiters of what code runs in your phone.
iPhone isn't any faster. There were multiple exploits and problems that went for months until they made headlines.
1. There is no company called "iPhone". Just like there is no company called "Android".
2. Citation, please?
Plus with this information any user can root their phone and fix it.
No. With this information, some Slashdot readers can root their phone and fix it. For those who even HAVE a "rootable" Android phone, the vast majority wouldn't even know how to look up how to root their Android device, let alone be able to actually do it without bricking their phone, or something else equally entertaining (but unhelpful).
I'm sure the attention this will be receiving from the media will force the vendors to patch this. They wouldn't want a massive turnover to iPhone because they were too lazy to provide a simple patch,
Don't visit websites, don't play any games that display ads, don't ever download multimedia texts (they download via wifi as well) Essentially your smartphone cannot be a smartphone safely until this is patched.
Having worked for a phone manufacturer, the biggest red tape of all is the complete lack of budget to pay for maintaining software on a device that has been sold and is generating no revenue after that point. The only companies that make $'s are the carriers, the app sellers and Google. The carriers can and do twist the arm of OEM's to keep SW updated, but I've never heard of a carrier willing to pay a maintenance fee to OEM's for this. Anyone else know if this happens?
Funny; Apple seems to do it just fine (yes, yes: only to a point, of course). But that's because they were smart enough to retain control of their product; rather than allowing every downstream "partner" to stick their grimy little hands (and grimy code) into the codebase.
Wow! An OEM actually having a say about what code runs in their products... What a concept!!!
Even Apple is not immune to this. Their very expensive disposable shit is not supported forever, and god forbid should an exploit be found then.
NOTHING is supported "Forever". It is simply impractical to do so.
However, if you think the "Support" (or rather, complete lack thereof) that is given to nearly EVERY Android Device has even the SLIGHTEST resemblance to the Support given to iOS devices even several years old (my iPad 2 and iPhone 4s STILL receive OS Updates), you are simply delusional.
If, now, there's some other fundamental impediment to distributing a correction to the bug that does not have to do with Google, but rather with the heaploads of cell phone manufacturers who use Google's code and who may or may not have the ability to distribute the fix, why should the vulnerability be made public? I don't see any apparent upside to the public good.
Now, if the shoe was on the other foot, and the vulnerability was in iOS instead, would you be of the same opinion?
And I'm sorry, if you have the resources of a cellphone manufacturer, then you DO have the resources to distribute a fix, sorry.
It's a mix of two factors:
1) Fixes are available for 4.1 and up, *but*
2) Virtually no phones have *received* the patch, because it has to flow through the manufacturer, and they simply don't *care* about updating any phone which isn't currently their flagship model.
How's that iPhone sounding about now? At least THEY patch vulnerabilities several models back, and overall, pretty fast, too.
If you wish to maintain a secure Android device, you must root it yourself. No one else can or will help you until you root.
So, IOW, for the 99.999999997% of Android Users that don't even know what "rooting" is, let alone how to do it, they are simply SOL until they purchase an iPhone.
Root your phone, and await a new set of/system/lib/libstagefright* files - Cyanogenmod will likely provide KitKat copies if they ever shirk their laziness long enough to deliver the final promised KitKat milestone.
So, what do you suggest for the 99.99999997% of the Android Users that wouldn't know how to "root your phone" or even what that means?
Oh, I know: They're just stupid LUsers that deserve to be pwned, right?
OS X and iOS constantly nag users to update system software and user apps. Sometimes an app is really improved, but far more often the update includes adware and other crap.
LOLWUT?!?
Neither OS X nor iOS EVER have "Adware and other crap". Never.
If you are referring to iAds in iOS Apps, those aren't placed there by Apple, per se, and if you'd get your wallet out and spend $2.00 to upgrade that "Free" Hello Kitty App, that "Adware and other crap" would magically disappear (in that App).
You have the choice: Run the Free version of the App and ignore some ads at the bottom of the screen (no Popovers, etc.), OR decide you are sick of the Ads in that App. and spend the (usually a pittance) to get the ads in that App to go away.
TANSTAAFL. But at least you have a choice to ignore the ads, stop using that App, or upgrade to the Ad-Free version of the App.
Yes it is. I have to work with Windows Server2012, which has that Gawdawful UI; somI know you're lying; or at least rationalizing.
And BTW, when you say something "...isn't that bad", that's known as "Damning with faint praise".
The start screen is good for more than just tablets. It's definitely aimed at children and old people who may not have the clicking dexterity to navigate smaller icons, much like how OS X's dock with magnification does.
I'm old (59), and I'm here to tell you that NO ONE with a visual acuity (corrected) of under 20:200 needs icons the size of the standard Tile size on "Metro". And if you are aiming for a UI for poor visual acuity, then why REDUCE visual cues? Hell, on the Screen that show all the Apps in an endless, flat, horizontal list, I was almost in tears before I figured out that the little, almost ignorable, grey bar wa supposed to be a horizontal scroll bar.Afterall, nothing else about the UI seemed to be designed to " scroll"!!!
And as far as OS X's Dock Magnification goes, it is in NO way comparable. It is a "focus-finding" technique (much like El Capitan's "Shake the mouse makes cursor get big for a second" feature), is temporary, adjustable, and optional. "Metro" is BARELY any of those things.
The big problem with Windows 8 was not making the UI discoverable (unless you are using touch) such as the badly named charms bar or the menu options in full-screen apps.
No, you're dead wrong. The problem with Windows 8 is that Microsoft ignored a lesson that Apple was trying to teach them: That there are fundamental differences between a touch UI and a Keyboard/Mouse UI, and you Ignore that at your own peril.
If they would have simply ASKED or DETECTED on install which type of device, they could have made Windows 8 the best of all worlds they wished it was. Desktops would boot to Desktop UI, Tablets to "Metro" UI, and "convertibles" would offer both. But instead, they were actually TRYING to KILL-OFF the Desktop UI by burying it to death.
And, if not, what else explains defaulting to "Metro" on SERVER installs!?! Nothing, that's what!
Power users get by just fine by pressing the start key or clicking start and then typing right away - exactly how it worked in Windows 7, but with a bit of a context loss due to it being full screen.
Again, damning with faint praise, LOL!
I am a Mac guy at heart. That means, in a GUI OS, I tend to use GUI features to navigate and control the OS. I am also a Power User of both OS X and Windows for several DECADES. And let me tell you, I almost EXECUTED my monitor the first time I accidently launched the "Metro" version of IE, and found myself TRAPPED with NO visible means of escape!!! Honestly, if I hadn't jammed my mouse cursor into the upper left corner by mistake, out of sheer frustration, thus causing some sort of "menu" to appear, I likely would have committed Hare Kiri on the spot!!! You admitted that Windows 8 was "undiscoverable" But that, my friend, is a whole new level of "undiscoverable", bordering on downright "user-hostile"!!!
Windows 8's tablet convergence was only a clone of what OS X had already started (but abandoned more quickly). OS X's "start screen", Launchpad, is a direct clone of their iOS home screen and they launched their own Mac app store around the same time. OS X was definitely headed there.
Wrong!
Apple has, for DECADES, clear back to "Classic" MacOS had a feature called "Simple Finder". It was designed for schools and for kids (and sometimes computer-challenged adults), to provide a "push the button, launch the program" "Tiled" UI, rather than letting them loose on the entire Filesystem and OS. And like its Springboard-like descendent, LaunchPad, it is an out-of-your-face OPTION (most people never even knew "Simple Finder" was there
Oh I bet they focus-grouped Metro. On a touch-screen handheld. They somehow forgot to reconcile that with traditional desktop users that still exist even after the launch of Windows 8.
No, that isn't it at all.
The truth is, they were so TERRIFIED of Apple and the overwhelming success if the iPad, and in an industry (tablets) where MS had a DECADES-long "lead", that they just threw together anything that would COMPILE, and didn't even BOTHER to run it by ANYONE but "Yes Men" at Microsoft.
You can consider The-Interface-Formerly-Known-As-Metro as nothing more, and nothing less, than Ballmer's last "gift" to Microsoft. The last desperate act of a desperate man heading a desperate company.
Not a corporate climate conducive to level-headed decision-making. Too bad that every single MS customer for the next "N" Windows versions has to suffer the consequences of that absolute turd of a UI.
Or they could just get a Mac. [ducks]
And what is SO weird is that, while they were busy trying to figure out how to at least be competitive in what they realized had become Apple's game, they COMPLETELY ignored the fact that one of the best decisions at Apple was the decision to develop iOS as a SEPARATE UI and a (mostly) SEPARATE OS. Think about it. If the Metro UI had been confined to traditional "touch" devices, with NO hint of it on the Desktop (where they had, and still somehow have, clear market dominance), there would have been nothing but praise for the boys of Redmond. And it wasn't like MS was incapable of understanding the need for having completely separate OSes for different devices: See WinMo, WinCE, etc.
But they didn't think that through, and so now, MS is CLEARLY trying to backtrack, lest they circle the drain any faster than they already are.
And BTW, before some MS shill starts crowing about how "Apple has turned OS X into iOS", let me tell you the truth: Apple has carefully and thoughtfully migrated about 10% of iOS UI paradigms to OS X, rather than simply bolting iOS' UI onto OS X, as MS has done with The-Interface-Formerly-Known-As-Metro. BIG Difference!
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, it's right here. Check out XDA devs, there are tons of ROMs built off of AOSP.
Any other uninformed comments you want to make, Crapple shill?
So why isn't this whole StageFright vulnerability a non-issue? (Which it isn't).
Because pretty much most of the whole Android Userbase DOESN'T even know what ROOTING is, let alone how to do it, or how to install a custom ROM without borking their device.
So, even if there ARE custom ROMs available (that you can trust!!!) for a given device, only a vanishingly small percentage of the Android Userbase knows how to take advantage of them.
No, manufacturers are responsible. Why the fuck would a carrier have anything to do with the OS on *my* phone which another company manufactured?
Because, dimwit, if you have an Android phone, it is the CARRIER that gets the last word on the OS software running in your phone; not Google; and not the phone's manufacturer.
So I'm not sure why you are baffled. Except perhaps your inability to understand that a statement about Apple does not mean that it applies exclusively to Apple and no other company.
Nice backtracking.
While I understand it could be about other companies besides Apple, it was obvious to the most casual observer that it was not intended to be about anyone but Apple.
If you think Apple's safer you're deluded.
Citation, please.
Where is the support for Apple PPC products? Nonexistent? oh yeah, they really keep things up to date! No worries!
The simple fact is, Apple expects every single one of their plebs to buy the latest hardware every few years. Fucking hell, their whole business model depends on it.
Um, Apple made the switch to Intel in 2006, NINE YEARS AGO. The switch was announced on June 6, 2005.
I happen to have a G5 1.8 Dualie that I purchased new in April 2005, about 2 mos. before the announcement of the Intel Switch (Grrr!). When they switched, the current version of OS X (which was available for both PPC and Intel in separate versions) was 10.4 (Tiger). My G5 still works fine on 10.5 Leopard (which was released on 10/26/2007 as a Universal Binary). They issued periodic Updates for the Applications and OS 10.5 up through the launch of 10.7 Lion on 7/20/2011, and even issued a few critical Security Updates after that.
As far as Application Development, for example, the first Intel-Only version of Logic Pro, 9.1 was released on 1/12/2010. The previous version, Logic Pro 9.0, announced on 7/23/2009, was a Universal Binary. The last version of iTunes to support PPC (and Intel) was 10.6.3 (released sometime in 2011, I think). I can't find an exact release date for the next version of iTunes (the first version to be Intel-Only), but it appears to be sometime in 2012. Et cetera.
Apple stopped providing automatic downloads for Updates through their Software Update service for MacOS 9 (Classic) and OS X versions 10.0 through 10.3 (and related Applications) on 7/31/2012, although they are still available through Apple's "Downloads" Page. I presume that Updates for OS X versions 10.4 and up, including the PPC versions (and related Applications) are still available automatically through Software Update.
So, we can legitimately call it from 2005 to 2012 (there was a Security Update to iTunes 10.6.3 on 6/12/2012, which appears to be the latest PPC-based Security Update to any Apple Software) before Apple actually dropped all development for, and support of, PPC Macs. SEVEN YEARS is pretty damned good, IMHO.
So, IOW, it seems like Apple "Expects" you to buy new Hardware about every SEVEN years. Yeah, that's really "pushy" in the Computer universe. Yeah, right.
My Nexus 4 is still getting the latest OS updates even though it is several years old, and the Nexus 5 is as well. The main reason the Galaxy Nexus isn't getting further support is likely because the chipset manufacturer has exited the market entirely. Don't forget that Google does not make the hardware themselves, unlike Apple.
Interesting. I may stand corrected. I saw somewhere else in this thread that Google was dropping support for earlier Nexi models with the release of Android "M". But in typical Slashdot fashion, I can't find the comment again...
Not everybody can afford Apple's enormous price premium (yes just look at the huge profit margin).
IPhone 6 Plus 64 GB Unlocked, no SIM, direct from Apple: $US849. One Year Apple Warranty.
Samsung Galaxy S6 64 GB Unlocked, "International Version", listed on Amazon: US$815. And this nice disclaimer:"This cell phone may not include a US warranty as some manufacturers do not honor warranties for international version phones. Please contact the seller for specific warranty information."
So, I'm a bit baffled; where's all that "enormous price premium"?
But the devices won't last forever, so that's not what is being asked of vendors. Support as long as the hardware can reasonably be expected to last in significant numbers is a much shorter period of time and probably not so much of an ask.
If they don't want to commit for that long, perhaps they should advertise their product as disposable.
Your point being?
Apple has hands-down the best track record of supporting less-than-current-generation mobile hardware. Even Google is dropping support for most of the past generations of NEXUS hardware; something they basically stated they wouldn't do.
And as for all the rest of the Android OEMs: Well, they should simply be ashamed of themselves, period.
Google patched it back in April. The manufacturer's of the phone's are now responsible for providing it to you.
No, you mean the CARRIER'S are now "responsible" for providing it to you; since THEY are the final arbiters of what code runs in your phone.
iPhone isn't any faster. There were multiple exploits and problems that went for months until they made headlines.
1. There is no company called "iPhone". Just like there is no company called "Android".
2. Citation, please?
Plus with this information any user can root their phone and fix it.
No. With this information, some Slashdot readers can root their phone and fix it. For those who even HAVE a "rootable" Android phone, the vast majority wouldn't even know how to look up how to root their Android device, let alone be able to actually do it without bricking their phone, or something else equally entertaining (but unhelpful).
I'm sure the attention this will be receiving from the media will force the vendors to patch this. They wouldn't want a massive turnover to iPhone because they were too lazy to provide a simple patch,
How much would you like to lose on that bet?
"There are some mitigations, for example, in Google Hangout settings, a user is able to request that MMS messages are not automatically downloaded."
Source: https://threatpost.com/android...
What about the setting that keeps MMS messages from being accidently downloaded? Where's that setting?
Oh, wait...
I will never get anything other than a NEXUS !!!!
Hopefully not a NEXUS 5; because the Googles aren't fixing that, either.
Don't visit websites, don't play any games that display ads, don't ever download multimedia texts (they download via wifi as well) Essentially your smartphone cannot be a smartphone safely until this is patched.
My iPhone can.
The main option is to buy a new phone, one that will be updated with security updates from a carrier/manufacturer that cares.
IOW, an iPhone, period.
Having worked for a phone manufacturer, the biggest red tape of all is the complete lack of budget to pay for maintaining software on a device that has been sold and is generating no revenue after that point. The only companies that make $'s are the carriers, the app sellers and Google. The carriers can and do twist the arm of OEM's to keep SW updated, but I've never heard of a carrier willing to pay a maintenance fee to OEM's for this. Anyone else know if this happens?
Funny; Apple seems to do it just fine (yes, yes: only to a point, of course). But that's because they were smart enough to retain control of their product; rather than allowing every downstream "partner" to stick their grimy little hands (and grimy code) into the codebase.
Wow! An OEM actually having a say about what code runs in their products... What a concept!!!
Thats not how open source works though. You cannot force downstream projects to pull upstream fixes.
Like Android is Open Source, anyway. Just TRY to get ALL the Source for your nice Galaxy 6.
Even Apple is not immune to this. Their very expensive disposable shit is not supported forever, and god forbid should an exploit be found then.
NOTHING is supported "Forever". It is simply impractical to do so.
However, if you think the "Support" (or rather, complete lack thereof) that is given to nearly EVERY Android Device has even the SLIGHTEST resemblance to the Support given to iOS devices even several years old (my iPad 2 and iPhone 4s STILL receive OS Updates), you are simply delusional.
If, now, there's some other fundamental impediment to distributing a correction to the bug that does not have to do with Google, but rather with the heaploads of cell phone manufacturers who use Google's code and who may or may not have the ability to distribute the fix, why should the vulnerability be made public? I don't see any apparent upside to the public good.
Now, if the shoe was on the other foot, and the vulnerability was in iOS instead, would you be of the same opinion?
And I'm sorry, if you have the resources of a cellphone manufacturer, then you DO have the resources to distribute a fix, sorry.
It's a mix of two factors: 1) Fixes are available for 4.1 and up, *but* 2) Virtually no phones have *received* the patch, because it has to flow through the manufacturer, and they simply don't *care* about updating any phone which isn't currently their flagship model.
How's that iPhone sounding about now? At least THEY patch vulnerabilities several models back, and overall, pretty fast, too.
Please follow this guide to disable it:
1. Stand up
2. Take phone in hand
3. Take a few steps to the trash bin
4. Throw phone in trash bin
That was modded "Funny"; but it's actually True for the vast majority of Android Users.
If you wish to maintain a secure Android device, you must root it yourself. No one else can or will help you until you root.
So, IOW, for the 99.999999997% of Android Users that don't even know what "rooting" is, let alone how to do it, they are simply SOL until they purchase an iPhone.
Root your phone, and await a new set of /system/lib/libstagefright* files - Cyanogenmod will likely provide KitKat copies if they ever shirk their laziness long enough to deliver the final promised KitKat milestone.
So, what do you suggest for the 99.99999997% of the Android Users that wouldn't know how to "root your phone" or even what that means?
Oh, I know: They're just stupid LUsers that deserve to be pwned, right?
OS X and iOS constantly nag users to update system software and user apps. Sometimes an app is really improved, but far more often the update includes adware and other crap.
LOLWUT?!?
Neither OS X nor iOS EVER have "Adware and other crap". Never.
If you are referring to iAds in iOS Apps, those aren't placed there by Apple, per se, and if you'd get your wallet out and spend $2.00 to upgrade that "Free" Hello Kitty App, that "Adware and other crap" would magically disappear (in that App).
You have the choice: Run the Free version of the App and ignore some ads at the bottom of the screen (no Popovers, etc.), OR decide you are sick of the Ads in that App. and spend the (usually a pittance) to get the ads in that App to go away.
TANSTAAFL. But at least you have a choice to ignore the ads, stop using that App, or upgrade to the Ad-Free version of the App.
Windows 8 honestly isn't that bad.
Yes it is. I have to work with Windows Server2012, which has that Gawdawful UI; somI know you're lying; or at least rationalizing.
And BTW, when you say something "...isn't that bad", that's known as "Damning with faint praise".
The start screen is good for more than just tablets. It's definitely aimed at children and old people who may not have the clicking dexterity to navigate smaller icons, much like how OS X's dock with magnification does.
I'm old (59), and I'm here to tell you that NO ONE with a visual acuity (corrected) of under 20:200 needs icons the size of the standard Tile size on "Metro". And if you are aiming for a UI for poor visual acuity, then why REDUCE visual cues? Hell, on the Screen that show all the Apps in an endless, flat, horizontal list, I was almost in tears before I figured out that the little, almost ignorable, grey bar wa supposed to be a horizontal scroll bar.Afterall, nothing else about the UI seemed to be designed to " scroll"!!!
And as far as OS X's Dock Magnification goes, it is in NO way comparable. It is a "focus-finding" technique (much like El Capitan's "Shake the mouse makes cursor get big for a second" feature), is temporary, adjustable, and optional. "Metro" is BARELY any of those things.
The big problem with Windows 8 was not making the UI discoverable (unless you are using touch) such as the badly named charms bar or the menu options in full-screen apps.
No, you're dead wrong. The problem with Windows 8 is that Microsoft ignored a lesson that Apple was trying to teach them: That there are fundamental differences between a touch UI and a Keyboard/Mouse UI, and you Ignore that at your own peril.
If they would have simply ASKED or DETECTED on install which type of device, they could have made Windows 8 the best of all worlds they wished it was. Desktops would boot to Desktop UI, Tablets to "Metro" UI, and "convertibles" would offer both. But instead, they were actually TRYING to KILL-OFF the Desktop UI by burying it to death.
And, if not, what else explains defaulting to "Metro" on SERVER installs!?! Nothing, that's what!
Power users get by just fine by pressing the start key or clicking start and then typing right away - exactly how it worked in Windows 7, but with a bit of a context loss due to it being full screen.
Again, damning with faint praise, LOL!
I am a Mac guy at heart. That means, in a GUI OS, I tend to use GUI features to navigate and control the OS. I am also a Power User of both OS X and Windows for several DECADES. And let me tell you, I almost EXECUTED my monitor the first time I accidently launched the "Metro" version of IE, and found myself TRAPPED with NO visible means of escape!!! Honestly, if I hadn't jammed my mouse cursor into the upper left corner by mistake, out of sheer frustration, thus causing some sort of "menu" to appear, I likely would have committed Hare Kiri on the spot!!! You admitted that Windows 8 was "undiscoverable" But that, my friend, is a whole new level of "undiscoverable", bordering on downright "user-hostile"!!!
Windows 8's tablet convergence was only a clone of what OS X had already started (but abandoned more quickly). OS X's "start screen", Launchpad, is a direct clone of their iOS home screen and they launched their own Mac app store around the same time. OS X was definitely headed there.
Wrong!
Apple has, for DECADES, clear back to "Classic" MacOS had a feature called "Simple Finder". It was designed for schools and for kids (and sometimes computer-challenged adults), to provide a "push the button, launch the program" "Tiled" UI, rather than letting them loose on the entire Filesystem and OS. And like its Springboard-like descendent, LaunchPad, it is an out-of-your-face OPTION (most people never even knew "Simple Finder" was there
Oh I bet they focus-grouped Metro. On a touch-screen handheld. They somehow forgot to reconcile that with traditional desktop users that still exist even after the launch of Windows 8.
No, that isn't it at all.
The truth is, they were so TERRIFIED of Apple and the overwhelming success if the iPad, and in an industry (tablets) where MS had a DECADES-long "lead", that they just threw together anything that would COMPILE, and didn't even BOTHER to run it by ANYONE but "Yes Men" at Microsoft.
You can consider The-Interface-Formerly-Known-As-Metro as nothing more, and nothing less, than Ballmer's last "gift" to Microsoft. The last desperate act of a desperate man heading a desperate company.
Not a corporate climate conducive to level-headed decision-making. Too bad that every single MS customer for the next "N" Windows versions has to suffer the consequences of that absolute turd of a UI.
Or they could just get a Mac. [ducks]
And what is SO weird is that, while they were busy trying to figure out how to at least be competitive in what they realized had become Apple's game, they COMPLETELY ignored the fact that one of the best decisions at Apple was the decision to develop iOS as a SEPARATE UI and a (mostly) SEPARATE OS. Think about it. If the Metro UI had been confined to traditional "touch" devices, with NO hint of it on the Desktop (where they had, and still somehow have, clear market dominance), there would have been nothing but praise for the boys of Redmond. And it wasn't like MS was incapable of understanding the need for having completely separate OSes for different devices: See WinMo, WinCE, etc.
But they didn't think that through, and so now, MS is CLEARLY trying to backtrack, lest they circle the drain any faster than they already are.
And BTW, before some MS shill starts crowing about how "Apple has turned OS X into iOS", let me tell you the truth: Apple has carefully and thoughtfully migrated about 10% of iOS UI paradigms to OS X, rather than simply bolting iOS' UI onto OS X, as MS has done with The-Interface-Formerly-Known-As-Metro. BIG Difference!