In other words, 90%+ of customers are going to hate Windows all over again. Microsoft has to learn to not f*** with features that aren't broke. If they don't learn, they will perish.
Not really. The business users are what built the empire, I will give you that. In any other decade you would be right regarding your assumptions. However the civilian consumers control the purchasing power now. But there are a few problems with this new consumer base, which I will outline:
People are stupid.
People are very stupid.
People do not know how to use computers.
People do not understand user interfaces.
People are stupid.
By making the system as simple as possible for 1 billion customers who only use their PC for facebook, digital cameras, and youtube they will take the content control steering wheel from Apple. Most of these frigging people don't even create their own content, they just consume it (as has been outlined earlier).
The touch screen + media capable interfaces are not Microsoft's way of fucking with everybody. It is a industry trend. Industry...trend. Everybody is doing it. It works. It has worked since Zune. It is simple, it does not require explanation.
My grandfather can swipe his finger and see the weather. Done. I assume the PC can wake from a swipe, seems reasonable.
Right now, he has to turn the PC on, wait, log in, wait, double click firefox 12 times, wait, search for google in the google adress bar on his homepage, type in accuweather, wait, type in his zip code, wait, etc etc. I tried putting apps in his sidebar, but as soon as they pop up with a notification or "please update adobe" he considers it broken, and walks away. He can't use computers. People can't use computers.
PEOPLE NEED THIS UI.
there are tons of eye-candy and stuff
You are correct. Obviously any moving & scalable interface elements that present real data from files and software, harmoniously, is going to be power hungry. I don't see any eye candy though. The content windows were square, they had no bounding box, they were not transparent. It looks like it was stripped down to be faster.
Going back to the new customer base, I will say that Facebook's load time has little to do with the PC's overall performance. It can, if it is slow, but usually doesn't. If that is the only performance metric that the new user base has, then they won't even notice. Given that, what incentive does Microsoft have to fix your problems? No one else would even understand you if you tried to talk to them about it. "Pagefile? What is that? Have you seen that tweet from so-and-so?"
we all have to wait and see but if windows 8 wants to be more like Apple and i wanted a more apple like interface id just fucking buy apple herp derp lol
Ha ha, yeah. Realistically, this is a industry trend. If anything, the Metro UI was for the Zune, and technically predates the touch iPods. Microsoft released metro on November 14th, 2006. The ipod touch came out on September 13th, 2007. Microsoft Surface also predates the trend, which I believe was the labs child that led to this development.
Give MS all the shit you want, but they are king of the hill whether your head is in the sand or not. [not insinuating that your eyes are closed crazyeyesreaper
]
It's a lot like that pervasive rumor from yesteryear regarding Mac having been the originator for window-based user interfaces. The second part of the rumor was that Microsoft stole it, and we should all be ashamed! (I kid). When, if I recall correctly, Microsoft stole the interface from
EDIT: Xerox (TY Red Machine). Who should be the leader in design here, patents be damned.
Most
real industry leaders realize that Microsoft was first on the scene with stream lined interfaces that deliver content quickly and easily. You aren't going to see the power players (business customers) suddenly filling offices with Apple computers that can't run Solidworks or Costpoint just because the boss' 16 year old daughter hails the iPad as the pinnacle of Interface Design.