Funny. Just got through this is another thread.

Windows 8 is WILDLY different from anything Microsoft has put out so far. It not only runs on desktop, but it also runs on tablet. It'll run on BOTH the arm processor and Intel. The PC world (meaning the non apple world) hasn't gone too far with tablets mostly because people aren't in love with Android, but a tablet with Windows 8 in conjunction with your windows 8 desktop, all with the capability of Microsoft Office is sure to give Apple a run for its money.

As for desktops being replaced with tablet devices.... forget it... not going to happen. This "post pc" era stuff is nothing but the Apple advertizing machine at work trying to sell more tablets. Heck... the slogan isn't even correct since a tablet is simply another form of personal computer.

The old fashioned keyboard/mouse and 19 inch monitor have been with us for years because they happen to be the most effective and efficient devices we have for inputting/outputting data.... and sorry.... the tablet doesn't change that fact. Now the tablet is going to put a dent in the laptop industry. They're cheaper (mostly) and many who carry laptops simply don't need the power they present and would be better served with a tablet anyway..... But desktop computers and keyboards..... nah.... sorry Apple... you don't have me fooled with your cool little slogan..... desktops aren't going anywhere anytime soon. I mean really.... can you see a secretary in front of a touch screen all day..... already been tried.... the touch screen has been around for years and take notice at how many secretaries you see in front of touch screens today..... too inefficient..... too much unnecessary body movement as compared to mouse/keyboard

Don't get me wrong here.... the tablet is a nice little device and will work great as an EXTENSION to the desktop

Sure the whole tablet / thin client concept is quite old. Yes it fails largely because such devices are inefficient. I wouldn't be in such a hurry to write them off though without first pondering why they are inefficient and why is so much work at a keyboard is required anyway.

In my other life I work in medical records and the amount of data re-entry and shuffling around is staggering and quite redundant and error prone. Implant us with RFID tags and store our medical records in the cloud and a massive amount of work goes away.

Bob.

"Implant us with RFID tags and store our medical records in the cloud and a massive amount of work goes away."

Well THAT.... is when the REAL "post pc" era will begin. Speech recognition has never been that reliable, and we are DECADES away from any serious kind of thought recognition (if possible at all), But those along with implants I believe are about the only things which have the capacity to compete with the keyboard/mouse.

Apple's "post pc" ideas, at present anyway are just a bunch of cock and bull rubbish better known as 'marketing hype'

IMO the tablets will impact the the laptop market and perhaps one day people will look at the desktop as a "professional's" preference.

Windows 8 does have a feature that can be activated to "act" like Windows 7. I think its a smart move of MS to create a OS that is appliable on multiple platforms.

Anyone tried writing on a Bamboo tablet in MS OneNote? It's the most unintuitive mess possible. The notion that anyone is going to use their PC like a tablet is absurd. Unless we have 24" touch screens on our laps there isn't a hope in h£ll (did you know that Sony **** this word?) of making a 7" input device on a 24" screen feel natural. I have yet to use Win 8 on a PC but unless it's mouse friendly then forget it.

Years ago I got the hang of using a mouse very quickly. I've been trying to use the Bamboo to input things for months and it still feels awkward and takes three times as long. I think that sums up how hopeless a tablet interface will be on a non touch screen PC.

"Windows 8 does have a feature that can be activated to "act" like Windows 7"

I have made my Windows 7 look as much like XP as I can. Help, I'm getting left behind!

-----------------------

Another analogy about progress. I got a Wacom graphic tablet bundled with an image editor once. I struggled with it for a while but eventually went back to using a mouse. Although holding the pen or stylus was good by itself, the need to press the button meant that I had to hold the pen with two rather than three fingers. I am also no good using chop sticks.

I've been playing with W8 for a few weeks and what I at first found somewhat jarring now seems fantastic. I want it on my main desktop. I'm an old guy too but I tried to give my initial displeasure a few days to acclimate. Now I'm in love. The familiar desktop is still there but some of those Metro style apps are actually better than anything comparable on a desktop (that I've found), something that I had grave doubts about at first. And the potential for one OS to rule rule tablets/desktops AND phones... what I would have dismissed as impossible last week now seems not only feasable, but here... now. Crazy.

8 is an abomination IMO.
The ribbon concept works in applications. But Windows 8 is an OS and the interface seemed designed to work with a touch screen, not a mouse.
If you look around at various forums it seems that at least 80% of people share my opinion. Well I should validate that. I'm talking about PC enthusiast forums.

This is going to be a horrible fail for MS and I have doubts this interface will even make it to RC. Either way I'll be skipping 8 at there is really nothing gained since I'm running 7 x64. Just a hassle of reloading and more money. I never upgrade but always start with a clean disk.

I'm one of the skeptics here as well. Generally speaking I tend to be an early adopter and usually look forward to new stuff but from what I've seen I'm not impressed. It almost seems like a step back with the 2 dimensional interface, I like my desktop the way it is. Personally have never heard "I hate the desktop/interface" making it to the top of anyone I know's list of complaints with Windows.

As others have pointed out I have also heard that you can make it function like Windows 7 so the bottom line for me is that if you can use the W7 interface and there are performance and/or stability gains I may yet still be swayed. Otherwise this may go the way of Windows ME and end up getting skipped all together.

- Ray
Underground Planet

I've yet to even see the win8 interface in action but my understanding is that you can opt out quite a bit. I should download the candidate today since I'll have to deal with it in the course of work.

I've seen quite a few touch-enabled All-in-One PCs over the last couple of years and actually had to get intimate with one this spring while documenting a touch application. By the end of about 6 weeks I found myself reaching for the screen as often as I reached for the mouse, but usually I was reaching for the wrong thing.

I think users will adapt to touch but this might impact the way mice work. If you're lifting your hands to the screen then maybe you should also be holding some sort of aerial mouse that operates on accelerometers.

As for the desktop emulating pads and phones...the last Windows version for smart phones was a horrible kludge. It was designed to compete with the old Palm OS, required a stylus, and borrowed too much from the Windows 98 experience. Moving from that to Android was like night and day.

The new interface goes the other direction, with the desktop imitating the phone and tablet. I don't know how that'll play out but it puts me in mind of what Johnny Roy was saying about his Mac experience (he likes the continuity between the Iphone, Ipad, and Desktop).

On the topic of devices and market share...I find that I use my DroidX phone all of the time - at work, on the bus, in the livingroom, lying in bed... and I don't use the desktop PC much for casual activities. This sort of usage is exactly what's cutting into desktop and laptop PC sales and I think the takeaway is that people don't need a full PC for a lot of what they're doing. So for now consumers are putting their dollars into phones, tablets, and TV add-ons. Eventually user'll get around to upgrading their laptops and desktops but they just don't need as many of them and maybe they won't upgrade as often.

So, is it a good thing for MS to try to unify the experience across devices? For vendors the answer is Yes. The desktop experience sells phones and tablets which in turn drive people back to touch enabled monitors and desktops and laptops.

For Vegas users? probably irrelevant. Lifting my arms to the screen to edit is probably going to give me some sort of RSI problem in my shoulders, and using a tablet in my lap will transfer the RSI injury to my neck.

Rob

I find that I use my DroidX phone all of the time - at work, on the bus, in the livingroom, lying in bed... and I don't use the desktop PC much for casual activities.
-->

I am having the exact same experience. I just got a Motorola Razr 10 days ago, and I am doing all my personal email and surfing on it. I think that I use something that is just enough to get the job done. Naturally, my desktop remains my Vegas workstation; and I write longer documents on a laptop or desktop.

I don't write much on the droid but I use the Kindle reader on it, and that led me to buy a kindle, which may someday lead me to buy an Android tablet. So these things drive other purchases.

And I can watch "Peep Show" via NetFlix on the phone while I do the dishes.

Rob

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't see anyway to get a Windows 7 look in 8. Nor can I find anything regarding doing that in this very comprehensive review.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5630/indepth-with-the-windows-8-consumer-preview/1

"Charms" "Metro Snap" come on, give me a break. What this designed for my 3 year old? Dumb it down more and more and more to the point where we have no control over what the OS is doing because we're not smart enough.

This is like the Star Trek episode(s) where the technology from a hundred generations ago breaks and the adult "children" using it have no idea how to fix it and a Star Fleet engineer or two has to rush in and save the day before their world ends.

Like I said if this GUI makes RC I'd be surprised. And if it makes it to Windows 9 I"ll be shocked.

"I think users will adapt to touch but this might impact the way mice work."

Touch screen has been around since at least 1965. It's now 2012. People have had PLENTY of time to adapt and trash the mouse/keyboard... and they have CHOSEN not to. What makes you think this will change all of a sudden??

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't see anyway to get a Windows 7 look in 8

one of the 'blocks' bottom left iirc opens up to your 'original' desktop, MINUS the start button, and so all your apps that aren't already on the desktop.

absolute mess. certainly not worth my time even bothering to learn it's ins and outs as i can guarantee that there's no way i want m$ telling me how to run my pc.

and why on earth do i need an app shop on my pc!?

Touch screen has been around since at least 1965. It's now 2012. People have had PLENTY of time to adapt and trash the mouse/keyboard... and they have CHOSEN not to. What makes you think this will change all of a sudden??

:-)

I too have been around since at least 1965. Within that time, my first touch screens were on Palm Pilots and Windows CE PDAs in the mid 90s. I'd view that as the beginning of mass market touch devices. However, if you are looking for a point in time when touch devices started being purchased instead of desktops and laptops, it's really only been in the last few years, and then initially as an alternative to netbooks. And I'd say the change has been sudden.

Personally, I don't want to talk to my electronics, and I don't want to operate my desktop PC by touching it's screen. But I don't represent the growth end of the market, and neither do you. With a desktop pc, there's not much you could do by touching the screen that you couldn't do with a mouse, and reaching from the keyboard while typing up to the screen to move things seems like wasted effort.

I don't see the touch market as being for stationary computers. It's well suited for mobile use where you want to carry just one thing that has all the parts you need built in. That means no keyboards, no mice, and no styluses. You can carry the device on the train, stick it to the fridge, give 'em to hospital staff and waiters, etc.

Back to the desktop, though. I see quite a few touch enabled All-in-Ones. They're good in apartments and dorm rooms, good as entertainment centers, good in business lobbies and good in museum exhibits where you have a customer facing interface. Also perfectly fine as cash registers. But what I find after using one off and on for weeks is that I hesitate between grabbing the mouse and touching the screen. There's opportunity in that to change the way a mouse works, like building it into a finger ring (in fact I've seen an ergonomic mouse that works this way, but it's more like a very small trackball that clips to your finger. Anyway, this discord between grabbing a mouse and touching a screen is going to disrupt the way interfaces work. It doesn't have to be one or the other, but things will change. In ten years you'll still be using a mouse but you'll also gesture from across the livingroom. Maybe we'll all learn some rudimentary sign language :-)

Oh, and app stores? The main thing I hope this brings is lots of support and tools for creating small applications. I think Apple has made it very clear that small applications can drive sales.

Rob

"it's really only been in the last few years, and then initially as an alternative to netbooks. And I'd say the change has been sudden."

But that's touch screen on PORTABLE devices... and that makes sense. Ever tried to use one of those stupid mouse pads on your average laptop? What a pain in the A$$. I always end up plugging in a normal mouse.... but then you need a smooth surface to work with. Touch screen in the field makes life much nicer for this reason.

What I'm talking about are desktop systems where the screen is quite a bit bigger and located 24 to 36 inches away from you. Try lifting your arm and touching the far upper corner of your screen, say.... 150 times. After you're finished, ask yourself the question.... Can (or will) your average person really "adapt" to this?

like it or not tabs and smart phones are what i simportant for software to run on,, more so than our ancient pc technology,, just the future hitting us wher it hurts, I have 2 machines running vista , never even updated to 7 once I bought a machine installed with 7 , realized its basically vista without the bad press... so who knows, one thing for sure updates will run on pads.

I've found W8 to work perfectly with a mouse only. A scroll wheel is pretty essential, though.

Have you considered that every other M$ build turns out to be a pig? e.g., Win ME, Vista, and now ...?

> [rmack350] said: "The new interface goes the other direction, with the desktop imitating the phone and tablet. I don't know how that'll play out but it puts me in mind of what Johnny Roy was saying about his Mac experience (he likes the continuity between the Iphone, Ipad, and Desktop)."

Yea, I think the difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Apple optimizes OS X for desktop and iOS for mobile devices and Microsoft is using this "one size fits all" approach which, IMHO, isn't going to work. One size does not fit all. I use my desktop because I need the speed of a physical keyboard and accuracy of a mouse. I use my mobile device because I'm holding it with one hand while operating it with the other; two completely different workflows. Apple has kept enough similarity to make the experience fluid from one to the other. Microsoft apparently thinks that giving both devices the same exact interface is somehow the answer. I believe this thread, and the resistence to Windows 8 Metro that professionals are expressing, is proof that it isn't the right approach.

> [dxdy] said: "I am having the exact same experience. I just got a Motorola Razr 10 days ago, and I am doing all my personal email and surfing on it. I think that I use something that is just enough to get the job done. Naturally, my desktop remains my Vegas workstation; and I write longer documents on a laptop or desktop."

This has been my experience as well. I believe what people might be missing about the "dawn of the post pc era" comment is that (#1) it is the "dawn". The day looks like it might be pretty much the same as any other day, but it turns out not to be, and (#2) with the exception of professionals who spend a fair amount of time typing and mousing around (secretaries, graphics designers, cad, video editors, writers, programmers, etc.) most people use their computer for email and web surfing (especially home computers). There is now a better device for that (i.e., tablets) which will initially impact laptop sales as Rob Franks pointed out, but eventually impact desktop sales as these people replace their old pc's that they were just using for email and web with something new. I also agree with Rob Franks that the desktop will never go away. There will always be a need for a heavy duty computing device for some professions.

> [rmack350] said: "I don't write much on the droid but I use the Kindle reader on it, and that led me to buy a kindle, which may someday lead me to buy an Android tablet. So these things drive other purchases."

Yea, that's the "halo" effect that people are talking about. As I said in the other thread, this is what happened to me. I bought my father-in-law an iPad to replace his laptop because all he did was email and web surfing on it. Then I saw how useful it was and bought one for myself. Wanting to display photos on my TV I bought an Apple TV (heck it was only $99). Someone left at work who had a MacBook Pro so I swapped my Ubuntu Linux laptop for that. Then my 4 year old Motorola flip phone needed replacing so I got an iPhone, and finally I bought a Mac Mini ($599) for doing music. It was kind of a "give me more..." effect. AND it's not just about web surfing. I bought an audio interface for my iPad so I can record Guitar and Vocals and attach a MIDI keyboard because I found myself coming up with musical ideas and working them out with GarageBand for iPad because it was easily accessible and worked on my iPhone as well. I can finish them off on the Mac Mini later. So it's more than just hardware and OS, but applications that flow seamlessly across each device AND having iCloud to make all of my working files available on all of my devices without the need for me to sync or do anything special. As I said before, it's a "total customer experience" of an extremely productive working solution for musicians. I would love to have this for video editing too.

> [Hulk] said: "Like I said if this GUI makes RC I'd be surprised. And if it makes it to Windows 9 I"ll be shocked."

I'd be shocked if there even is a Windows 9 (ok, maybe that's an overstatement but...). Do you think any corporate customers are going to upgrade to Windows 8 for Metro? I would be surprised. Apple, on the other hand, is releasing utilities for Corporate IT shops to manage large volumes of iPad's remotely. People are bringing their own devices to work and none of those devices are running a Microsoft OS or run on Intel hardware. There is a disruptive force in the corporate IT industry called "Enterprise Mobility" and it will be interesting to see where it goes and who will be the main players. It might not be Microsoft but we'll see.

> [Rob Franks] said: "Touch screen has been around since at least 1965. It's now 2012. People have had PLENTY of time to adapt and trash the mouse/keyboard... and they have CHOSEN not to. What makes you think this will change all of a sudden??"

What makes me think this will change all of a sudden is that the touch technology has come a long, long way. The breakthrough was multi-touch. Previously all we had was one touch that represented the mouse click. That wasn't good enough for me. Once I could use two fingers to scroll, and three finders to swipe, and a pinch to zoom in and out, that changed the entire game. Touch has become very expressive and natural with the introduction of gestures. I use to hate the touch pad on my Windows laptop and almost always plugged in a mouse. I now love the multi-touch pad on my MacBook Pro and almost never use a mouse. If you haven't experienced multi-touch gestures, you can't imagine what has changed. It's not your father's touch device. ;-)

~jr

I doubt very much that touch will catch on with non handheld devices. Fingers are far too fat and inaccurate for precision editing. And think of the number of lawsuits there will be when millions of employees get RSI from constantly using a stylus on a vertical fixed screen. Like I said earlier if you have ever tried using a Bamboo or other graphic tablet with a 24" screen to do anything other than basic input and editing then it becomes obvious how much more difficult this is than using a keyboard and mouse. Trying to navigate a 24" screen using a 7" tab is a complete pig and takes 10 times longer than a mouse and keyboard. The reason handheld devices have gone touch is because of their size, portability and the ability to input with both hands. This suits the software simplicity and limited application of a tablet.

Using personal tablets for work must have all sorts of privacy concerns not least of all the risk of copyright infringement and trade secrets leaking all over the place. I would not like to type up the MD's meetings using a tablet. Alright a docking system could be used but how secure is all that information carried around on a handheld device especially if it's used for personal use as well. I barely trust myself to carry around my own projects I'm working on let alone those of a third party. Imagine loosing a whole database of extremely personal information about your clients together with years of your own personal information on a bus or at the airport for example. Horrifying!

Right now the quad core chips on tablets have just about got up to speed with playing HD video but for intensive audio/video editing and multi-tasking they're 5-10 years behind the latest desktop chips. I've seriously considered moving to a laptop but even top end laptops have got a way to go before I would feel confident about doing this.

Maybe ARM will come out with a uber x64 chip design in the future but until then tablets suit a particular role that they excel at but the interface they use is not suited to desktop use nor is portability in the workplace always a good thing. I hope MS realises this.