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Microsoft would disagree, and they have been astonishingly successful with the Surface Pro line. The iOS11 desktop features are a vindication of Microsoft's or

Microsoft would disagree, and they have been astonishingly successful with the Surface Pro line. The iOS11 desktop features are a vindication of Microsoft's original Windows 8 vision. Microsoft didn't /execute/ on that vision particularly well in either Win8 or Win10, but the convergence between handheld and desktop does offer some tangible advantages. It isn't all marketing BS.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
I have a Windows 10 tablet (well, a "2-in-1" since it came with a keyboard using a Surface-style connector), and it seems to behave reasonably as both a tablet and laptop. It's certainly more integrated than my experience has been with other OSs on tablets: Android doesn't do well as a laptop, nor does iOS; Windows 10 is a desktop operating system, and works reasonably as a tablet. (I don't like Windows 10 for other reasons that have nothing do with mode switching.) I'm curious why you think Windows 10 didn't execute well on the idea.
- hendersoon 9y ago
  My take is this. Win8 was actually an excellent tablet OS, but compromised, deliberately compromised in many cases, its desktop experience to get there. In sharp contrast Win10 took the opposite approach-- it is markedly less pleasant to use exclusively with touch, but a great desktop with mouse+keyboard. They didn't /try/ to compromise touch, but they didn't put much effort into it either.
  - canuckintime 9y ago
    I wouldn't say the desktop experience was 'compromised'. 'Depreciated' (i.e. made legacy) or 'encapsulated' would be the description I'd use. Consider how the transition from command-line interfaces to GUI was made. Even today you can open up the Command Prompt in Windows (or Terminal in OSX) and run legacy MS Dos apps. Well Balmer saw Jobs heralding the iPad as the future of computing, the launch lines, and the early spectacular growth and he freaked out. So, following the old interface transition playbook, Win8 was designed as a touch-first UI and then the desktop UI was squirreled away as an app (and the command prompt inside that desktop app ― inception). Win8 was an excellent tablet/touch designed OS and also purists could configure Win8 to bypass the touch stuff and skip straight to the desktop at launch... however Balmer had made a bad bet. In the broader picture, the future of computers hasn't turned out to be touch tablets. The iPad peaked and the traditional laptop formfactor is still going strong. So Balmer's bet on a touch first Windows wasn't worth it. Moreover the execution was lacking. While Win8 was an excellently designed touch/tablet OS, it was not fully implemented so there were many leaky abstractions back to the desktop interface. Most notably there were many settings that could not be configured in the touch/tablet interface ― the system would randomly throw the user into the desktop app ― and all the Microsoft Office apps (except One Note) could only be used in the desktop interface. There was no way to completely disable the desktop app and hand over a Win8 tablet that worked exactly as an iPad. Win10 went back to the drawing board and presents touch and desktop UI as complementary options side-by-side instead of a touch-first UI. That unfortunately meant removing some of the system wide Win8 touch designs that didn't quite work well with mouse+keyboard.
    - int_19h 9y ago
      It absolutely was compromised. The start screen was a horrible UI on desktops.
      - hendersoon 9y ago
        Agree. "Deprecated" implies that they ignored it, didn't improve it, that it remained essentially unchanged. That was not the case in Win8, which offered a markedly inferior desktop UX when compared to Win7.
cakedoggie 9y ago
> Microsoft would disagree, and they have been astonishingly successful with the Surface Pro line. No they haven't at all. Microsoft have never outsold the iPad. Last year they had a 26% drop. There sales topped out at a billion. They have been incredibly unsuccessful by every measurement possible, apart from creating a great device.
simonh 9y ago
Astonishingly successful? IPads out sell surface by 6 to 1 in revenue and 10 to 1 in units. And unlike surface, people actually use them primarily as tablets. Surface's success is almost entirely as a laptop with a secondary and relatively little used tablet mode. That's hardly been threatening to the iPad. Microsofts vision of that convergence, of how to provide desktop class features in a tablet, is literally to put the WIMP desktop into a tablet. That's a completely different and fundamentally incompatible vision of how to make an advanced tablet UI to what we see in iOS 11, which is a complete and utter refutation of Microsoft's approach.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago

I have a Windows 10 tablet (well, a "2-in-1" since it came with a keyboard using a Surface-style connector), and it seems to behave reasonably as both a tablet and laptop. It's certainly more integrated than my experience has been with other OSs on tablets: Android doesn't do well as a laptop, nor does iOS; Windows 10 is a desktop operating system, and works reasonably as a tablet. (I don't like Windows 10 for other reasons that have nothing do with mode switching.) I'm curious why you think Windows 10 didn't execute well on the idea.

hendersoon 9y ago
My take is this. Win8 was actually an excellent tablet OS, but compromised, deliberately compromised in many cases, its desktop experience to get there. In sharp contrast Win10 took the opposite approach-- it is markedly less pleasant to use exclusively with touch, but a great desktop with mouse+keyboard. They didn't /try/ to compromise touch, but they didn't put much effort into it either.
- canuckintime 9y ago
  I wouldn't say the desktop experience was 'compromised'. 'Depreciated' (i.e. made legacy) or 'encapsulated' would be the description I'd use. Consider how the transition from command-line interfaces to GUI was made. Even today you can open up the Command Prompt in Windows (or Terminal in OSX) and run legacy MS Dos apps. Well Balmer saw Jobs heralding the iPad as the future of computing, the launch lines, and the early spectacular growth and he freaked out. So, following the old interface transition playbook, Win8 was designed as a touch-first UI and then the desktop UI was squirreled away as an app (and the command prompt inside that desktop app ― inception). Win8 was an excellent tablet/touch designed OS and also purists could configure Win8 to bypass the touch stuff and skip straight to the desktop at launch... however Balmer had made a bad bet. In the broader picture, the future of computers hasn't turned out to be touch tablets. The iPad peaked and the traditional laptop formfactor is still going strong. So Balmer's bet on a touch first Windows wasn't worth it. Moreover the execution was lacking. While Win8 was an excellently designed touch/tablet OS, it was not fully implemented so there were many leaky abstractions back to the desktop interface. Most notably there were many settings that could not be configured in the touch/tablet interface ― the system would randomly throw the user into the desktop app ― and all the Microsoft Office apps (except One Note) could only be used in the desktop interface. There was no way to completely disable the desktop app and hand over a Win8 tablet that worked exactly as an iPad. Win10 went back to the drawing board and presents touch and desktop UI as complementary options side-by-side instead of a touch-first UI. That unfortunately meant removing some of the system wide Win8 touch designs that didn't quite work well with mouse+keyboard.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    It absolutely was compromised. The start screen was a horrible UI on desktops.
    - hendersoon 9y ago
      Agree. "Deprecated" implies that they ignored it, didn't improve it, that it remained essentially unchanged. That was not the case in Win8, which offered a markedly inferior desktop UX when compared to Win7.

cakedoggie 9y ago

> Microsoft would disagree, and they have been astonishingly successful with the Surface Pro line. No they haven't at all. Microsoft have never outsold the iPad. Last year they had a 26% drop. There sales topped out at a billion. They have been incredibly unsuccessful by every measurement possible, apart from creating a great device.

simonh 9y ago

Astonishingly successful? IPads out sell surface by 6 to 1 in revenue and 10 to 1 in units. And unlike surface, people actually use them primarily as tablets. Surface's success is almost entirely as a laptop with a secondary and relatively little used tablet mode. That's hardly been threatening to the iPad. Microsofts vision of that convergence, of how to provide desktop class features in a tablet, is literally to put the WIMP desktop into a tablet. That's a completely different and fundamentally incompatible vision of how to make an advanced tablet UI to what we see in iOS 11, which is a complete and utter refutation of Microsoft's approach.