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If I'm reading this right, Gruber's effectively saying, "Metro, and Metro alone (i.e., no desktop), is a good competitor to the iPad." That's wonderful; a real
by eykanal 15y ago
If I'm reading this right, Gruber's effectively saying, "Metro, and Metro alone (i.e., no desktop), is a good competitor to the iPad." That's wonderful; a real iPad competitor.
But what about all the rest of the computers? You know, those big things on your desktop? We all know just how smart most users are when it comes to figuring out how to use stuff on a computer. Its taken years to get to the point where your typical "user" can use a computer without too much difficulty. Part of this is due to the consistency of the Windows UI; folder windows, mouse motions, menubars, etc. Suddenly, we're going to throw something completely new at them, something which:
1) Has been shown to be difficult to do well for everyday use (touchscreen desktops)
2) Has a moderately non-intuitive interface (hidden UI elements until I swipe from a particular side, or maybe tap over here and here and here)
3) Has questionable benefits in a desktop computing environment where a keyboard is a perfectly appropriate device
And, once they learn all that, our user realizes that he still has to use the original UI for many programs! That's right, photoshop isn't going to be going Metro anytime soon, and neither is Matlab, or Autocad, or Excel, or video editing software, or any "Pro" program (for lack of a better word). Metro may be wonderful for tablets and other mobile devices, but it sure looks like it's going to be a drag in being forcibly married to the traditional Windows UI.
- alex_c 15y agoI suspect we'll be seeing a more and more pronounced split in computing and, therefore, interfaces. On one side (the majority) will be "consumers": web, email, Facebook, maybe some light photo editing. On the other side will be the "producers": people who use Photoshop, or Matlab, or AutoCAD. Office falls somewhere in the middle... Office itself may eventually be divided along those lines, with a lightweight, tablet-friendly spinoff. So in many cases I think you're actually talking about different users: the majority of people may eventually not need anything beyond a tablet. I also suspect the rest of us will be annoyed and inconvenienced by this trend, since it won't be aimed at us.
- joshuamerrill 15y agoThat seems to be in line with Steve Jobs' vision of the future, in which PCs become "trucks" while average people drive "cars." I do see early but pronounced signs of that split.
- 0x0x0x 15y agoAnd Windows 8 is trying to be the SUV here.
- calebmpeterson 15y agoOr a member of the more en vogue crossover family?
- 0x0x0x 15y agoI own a crossover. And with the newness that is Metro, yours is a better analogy.
- calebmpeterson 15y agoThanks. Does a crossover give (most of) the benefits of an SUV without the bad gas mileage and environmentally unfriendly vibe?
- redthrowaway 15y ago>Office itself may eventually be divided along those lines, with a lightweight, tablet-friendly spinoff It'd be interesting to see how such a thing would differ from Google Docs, and if it would justify the kind of prices MS likes to charge for Office. An Office app for lightly-spec'd computers makes sense, but you'd have to charge app prices for it and I don't see MS sacrificing their second biggest cash cow any time soon.
- pyre 15y agoHow about an offline version? That's something that Google doesn't really offer.
- redthrowaway 15y agoMore and more these days I find a computer without Internet to be increasingly useless. Google Docs' value proposition is irrevocably tied to its online status. It offers features that a strictly offline office suite does not. For Microsoft to be able to sell an offline Office, on a mobile, 3g-integrated computer, for Office prices, would require some functionality that they haven't come close to implementing. You would have to make some argument as to why your offline Office Light (lite for you colonials who insist upon spelling that corresponds to pronunciation) is better than the free, connected office suite Google offers. At the moment, Google Docs is Office Light. It offers a limited subset of Office's features, and doesn't do it particularly well. What it does do, extremely well, is make it easy to get the documents you create to your friends and co-workers. I can't see a limited-functionality, offline version of Office competing with that.
- technoslut 15y agoI'm not power productivity suite user but I would have to believe close to all of Office's features can be implemented with the proper UI with the advanced features of the apps hidden away from the eyes of the average user. If it's a question of specs or software maturity then it really is just a matter of time.
- evinfinite 15y agoIt is at this point that I feel obliged to point out that Apple already ships an office suite for the iPad and, bizarrely enough, even the iPhone: http://www.apple.com/apps/keynote/ http://www.apple.com/apps/keynote/ - http://www.apple.com/apps/pages/ http://www.apple.com/apps/pages/ - http://www.apple.com/apps/numbers/ http://www.apple.com/apps/numbers/
- technoslut 15y agoI enjoy these apps but they're certainly not on the level of Office or even iWork for the Mac. I think it's a good start of where we should be going and they've done well in creating a consistent UI across the iPad and iPhone.
- eykanal 15y agoGood point. Still, this relies heavily on the use of palettes, which we haven't seen in Metro. Maybe they'll have some UI elements like that in Metro, I don't know.
- _djo_ 15y agoI recently had to write a one-page letter on my iPhone and email it to somebody to print out, sign and hand to a third-party. It wasn't by choice, it was just an urgent request and I had nothing else with me. Surprisingly, it wasn't nearly as painful as I expected. It didn't take me long to write the letter (the default templates helped a lot), making edits was fairly easy and I had no trouble being able to read over what I had written. So for small edits to existing files and quick docs it's usable, though clearly not as good an experience as using the same suite on an iPad.
- gbog 15y agoI don't like these ideas Gruber and friends are repeating and repeating again. In the article, it is carved in marble: "the advantages that come from NOT allowing you to do so many [things]". The reasoning behind is that Steve Jobs or other said genius should be choosing for you what you are "allowed" to do. It feels awfully 1984 for me. I live in China and I can tell you it is painfull, sometime, when someone else chooses for you what you are allowed to do. I'm reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", and heck, this guy is right, you have those losers who fear and get used by technology, and the other guys who don't fear and use technology. The cynic (borderline totalitarian) approach is to say that people should be divided between those clever hacker who have control and the rest, which should not be given "too much" control, because their are not clever enough, or don't need it, or what. The humanist (democratic, cf "Enlightment") is the opposite: human being are clever, and should be given control on their life, on their tools, should be given choices, etc. It seems to me that too many people have forgotten the we gather here, on HN, on the free, interesting and open parts of the Internet, because we like to control our shit, and ALSO we prefer the common people to be educated and control their shit. Especially when it come to so personal matters as their own files. Sorry for the rant. I hope I'm mistaking, but from my recent reading of HN I feel there is a progressive shift toward more "Gruberness" which is questionable in its hypothesis and conclusions.
- alex_c 15y agoI don't like it either (hell, most of us here on HN won't like it... we love to tinker and break things and get under the hood), but that doesn't mean it's not the most likely direction. You describe it as a struggle between totalitarian and democratic ideologies, with all the moral and ethical implications. I think it's really about a third, much more powerful force: giving people what they want. This is tangential, but I think explains what I mean better than I could: http://www.prosebeforehos.com/image-of-the-day/08/24/huxley-vs-orwell-infinite-distraction-or-government-oppression/ http://www.prosebeforehos.com/image-of-the-day/08/24/huxley-...
- mcantelon 15y ago>I think it's really about a third, much more powerful force: giving people what they want. What people want depends, to a large degree, on their level of education, what they're exposed to, and what leaders and the media tell them they should want. It will be interesting seeing how pop computing and lock-down devices do globally in the long-term.
- crenshaw 15y agoThat's right, photoshop isn't going to be going Metro anytime soon, and neither is Matlab, or Autocad, or Excel, or video editing software, or any "Pro" program (for lack of a better word). I'd actually be surprised if there isn't a fully staffed team working on a Metro version of the Office suite.
- eykanal 15y agoBut what would it look like? Consider Powerpoint. There needs to be a way to switch slide layout, add elements to the slide, work with animations & transitions, reorder slides, etc. And that's just some of the things that users will want to do all the time, on almost every slide. There's just no way to have that sort of rich interface in Metro. Heck, there's not even a menubar. Remember, we're talking about regular users, here... these people (broadly speaking) never use keyboard shortcuts. Everything needs to be clickable (touchable) with the mouse (finger).
- mtthwdrt 15y agoOh, it's definitely possible - Keynote for iPad (http://www.apple.com/ipad/from-the-app-store/keynote.html http://www.apple.com/ipad/from-the-app-store/keynote.html). No a menu bar in sight (at least, not in the traditional sense).
- runjake 15y agoThere's just no way to have that sort of rich interface in Metro. You must've missed the "charm", sliding & docking side-windows part of the Metro demos at BUILD.
- masklinn 15y ago> But what would it look like? Consider Powerpoint. http://itunes.apple.com/app/keynote/id361285480 http://itunes.apple.com/app/keynote/id361285480 > There needs to be a way to switch slide layout, add elements to the slide, work with animations & transitions, reorder slides, etc. And that's just some of the things that users will want to do all the time, on almost every slide. There's just no way to have that sort of rich interface in Metro. See link. It's perfectly possible to do all that without a classical menu bar. Does it do everything the desktop version does? No. Can it do pretty much everything useful of it? Sure.
- ericdschmidt 15y agoIt won't be long before most people have only one computing device: a very powerful smartphone. When used as a mobile device, the interface looks like iPhone/Metro. When you are at your desk, you dock it and the interface that pops up on your 30 inch monitor is like Windows 7 (WIMP). And you can also dock it in a range of shells (for lack of a better word) from a 7-inch tablet (touchscreen UI) to a 17-inch laptop (WIMP UI). All these devices you are docking to are just relatively cheap shells. All your data and processing power is on the smartphone. In fact, even the smartphone will be just a shell, and the computer will be like a large SD card.
- r00fus 15y agoI actually prefer the more logical conclusion to this thread: Sun's SunRay concept... everything is in the network (cloud), you use key(s) to access/control them. However, I'd extend that and say that along with the "key" is a smartphone that can also (in a limited fashion) view/manipulate your cloud data and send/receive messages. The important thing to recognize is that there will always be need for "more and faster" than a smartphone will be capable of providing.
- ericdschmidt 15y agore: your last sentence -- agree, but I suspect most people will not need that much power
- cellis 15y ago2 things will decide when/whether this is possible: 1) The rate at which cooling tech increases; How can you keep a miniature multicore cpu cool enough to process gigantic displays? 2) Power efficiency of the miniature multicore cpus.
- mahrain 15y agoI'd hate to use this on a 24" display, have icons the size of my hand and using a mouse (or "Magic Touchpad" like device) to swipe somehow.