10 ms·

IPad iOS 5 vs Windows 8 Slate [video]

40 points by sytelus 15y ago

latch 15y ago
It seems like touch is more natural on Apple devices...maybe people are just trained for it by now, but he seemed to have less difficulty with getting the iPad to do what he wants it to do. Many times he had to try his gesture a 2nd or 3rd time on the Windows 8 tablet.
- acous 15y ago
  I think familiarity has a lot to do with it. He was trying various gestures to get the Win8 tiles to move and select. He mentioned that you should hold down and drag to move a tile, but what I gather from other demos is that a swipe down on the tile selects it and a long swipe down moves it.
- pohl 15y ago
  A lot of development time has gone into the gesture recognizers in iOS. My understanding is that they we're not easy to get right, having a lot of subtlety and edge cases, especially when a given view employs several if them and they need to disambiguate between multiple possible gestures. Win8 will get there in time, and already has at least one that I would like to see iOS shamelessly copy: the ability, when drag-moving an icon, to employ a finger from another hand to swipe from page to page. Awesome!
  - Terretta 15y ago
    > the ability, when drag-moving an icon, to employ a finger from another hand to swipe from page to page. Awesome! OS X does this on laptops and magic trackpad, you can drag and drop icons that way. iOS supports the drag with one finger/nav with another as well--try it with a text selection handle with your left index and scrolling the page with your right. But to your point, home screen icon moving doesn't use that gesture.
shinratdr 15y ago
Wow, that comment thread is like a black hole. I ventured way too close.
- cubicle67 15y ago
  I read your comment, then went back to have a look. One day I'll learn... The video, however, I thought was one of the most level and unbiased comparisons I've ever seen. Didn't go into a lot of depth (probably hard because Win8 is still largely incomplete), but what it did cover it did well.
- hexagonc 15y ago
  Yeah, I read a few comments on that thread and was immediately reminded why I prefer Hacker News to most other tech news sites.
tintin 15y ago
After seeing this video it appeared to me both interfaces are quite bad for first time users. Most HN readers won't have a problem with it, but concepts like multiple desktop-pages are very hard to understand for first time users. Overall I think iOS is much better for first time users. Take the unlock screen for example. On iOS you see you need to unlock it. On W8 you don't have a clue. After pushing around you might notice you can slide the screen up. It's a strange concept. But I have to admit W8 is looking very clean, very customizable. I think this will be good competition for the iOS.
- dorian-graph 15y ago
  The Win8 lockscreen being confusing depends on the context. For example, a first time user buys a Win8 slate there's probably a basic 'This is how to unlock' tip somewhere, I imagine. Also, seeing average users pick up wild Android unlock schemes I think they'd be okay. :P Though, if they suddenly started playing with a friend's slate the exploring of the interface would be interesting to watch.
  - kevingadd 15y ago
    Android is an interesting point of comparison because the lock screen on the Galaxy S2 is exactly like the Windows 8 lock screen. When I first got the phone, it took me minutes to figure out how to unlock it. I handed it to a couple friends and asked them to figure out how to unlock the phone and they struggled as well. On the other hand, I feel like somehow the feedback for the Windows 8 version of unlock is a little bit better - it responds to the swipe a little bit quicker. I do fear that it creates a bad starting point for your first experience with the device though - going into it confused isn't a good thing. A lot of the gestural input in Win8 feels like it relies on blind exploration to discover how to use the device, unless someone teaches you. In a way, that could be a good idea - encouraging the device's owner to explore and play with gestures - but I think the risk of features remaining hidden and undiscovered is pretty significant.
    - saturdaysaint 15y ago
      Good points. The chromeless IE interface looks like another example where users will chafe. I can go completely "chromeless" in Chrome for OSX but I never do because seeing open tabs and having immediate access to extension buttons at all times is too important. I imagine less seasoned users will feel the same way about the URL bar and their favorites.
rix0r 15y ago
I kind of like the "picture password" option. It shows innovation in an area that badly needs some (authentication) and should be easier to remember for many people than a PIN code, I think. Picture passwords would be harder to write down, but I'm not yet sure whether that's a negative or a positive.
- davidedicillo 15y ago
  "should be easier to remember for many people than a PIN code" Until that day you forgot your tablet home and you had to explain your wife where to tap in order to retrieve that document you need. :)
  - thenduks 15y ago
    This problem is solved by simply keeping documents on a server somewhere (I hesitate to say 'the cloud', but that's the marketing term for it) instead of only on the device.
  - barista 15y ago
    IMO You can switch the auth mode if you want to.
exit 15y ago
i'm really surprised to find myself more impressed with microsoft's metro style than ios. i wish android had gone with something extremely minimalistic like this.
- acous 15y ago
  I'm with you there. I'm normally an Apple fanboy, but iOS is looking cluttered and dated beside Metro.
  - technoslut 15y ago
    I'm of a mixed opinion about this. I agree with you somewhat that iOS initially does look cluttered compared to Metro but Metro is also lacking obviousness as others have mentioned in this thread. It's a difficult balance that one deals with in design. I'd like to see if the average user, in particular kids, have any trouble navigating the UI. There is something to be said when even a two year-old can use the iPad. That said, I could not be more impressed with Metro when it comes to search functionality, contracts and being able to view two apps at once.
    - chime 15y ago
      > Metro is also lacking obviousness Many things in iOS are pretty unobvious too. E.g. I didn't know the iPad keyboard could be split like that before I saw this video. It took me a while to figure out how to delete items in a tablecell (swipe horizontally). Most of my friends don't know you can double-tap home, press & hold running app icons to close them. I see no difference in per-app settings in Metro being a swipe right feature than iOS Settings > AppName. And remember, all of these features are for managing the OS. The app themselves can implement any features they want. 3-year-olds don't change brightness, they play Angry Birds.
      - pohl 15y ago
        E.g. I didn't know the iPad keyboard could be split like that before I saw this video. You'll have to find another example of non-obviousness in iOS. The split keyboard isn't even in the iOS you've been using, unless you're running a beta release of iOS 5.
tekacs 15y ago
What bothers me is that it looks distinctly like Win8 wouldn't run very effectively on tablets of smaller screen sizes - even with the size it's at, for those of us who are heavy users I don't think it's even beginning to match iOS's information density - the iOS 5 homescreen should hold a lot more data than, say, the alert icons or the data 'streaming' into the panels - how often does one sit at that screen staring at it anyway?
- pohl 15y ago
  Wasn't metro started as Windows Phone 7, though? What did they change that would keep it from scaling back down to a smaller screen?
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    In Windows 8 you can two apps running concurrently, but only at screen size of width of something like 1366. So many tablets won't get his functionality at all. And multitasking on Win8 seems much worse than WP7, although that's not a scale issue. The WP7 multitasking seems better almost regardless of size.

40 points by sytelus 15y ago

latch 15y ago

It seems like touch is more natural on Apple devices...maybe people are just trained for it by now, but he seemed to have less difficulty with getting the iPad to do what he wants it to do. Many times he had to try his gesture a 2nd or 3rd time on the Windows 8 tablet.

acous 15y ago
I think familiarity has a lot to do with it. He was trying various gestures to get the Win8 tiles to move and select. He mentioned that you should hold down and drag to move a tile, but what I gather from other demos is that a swipe down on the tile selects it and a long swipe down moves it.
pohl 15y ago
A lot of development time has gone into the gesture recognizers in iOS. My understanding is that they we're not easy to get right, having a lot of subtlety and edge cases, especially when a given view employs several if them and they need to disambiguate between multiple possible gestures. Win8 will get there in time, and already has at least one that I would like to see iOS shamelessly copy: the ability, when drag-moving an icon, to employ a finger from another hand to swipe from page to page. Awesome!
- Terretta 15y ago
  > the ability, when drag-moving an icon, to employ a finger from another hand to swipe from page to page. Awesome! OS X does this on laptops and magic trackpad, you can drag and drop icons that way. iOS supports the drag with one finger/nav with another as well--try it with a text selection handle with your left index and scrolling the page with your right. But to your point, home screen icon moving doesn't use that gesture.

shinratdr 15y ago

Wow, that comment thread is like a black hole. I ventured way too close.

cubicle67 15y ago
I read your comment, then went back to have a look. One day I'll learn... The video, however, I thought was one of the most level and unbiased comparisons I've ever seen. Didn't go into a lot of depth (probably hard because Win8 is still largely incomplete), but what it did cover it did well.
hexagonc 15y ago
Yeah, I read a few comments on that thread and was immediately reminded why I prefer Hacker News to most other tech news sites.

tintin 15y ago

After seeing this video it appeared to me both interfaces are quite bad for first time users. Most HN readers won't have a problem with it, but concepts like multiple desktop-pages are very hard to understand for first time users. Overall I think iOS is much better for first time users. Take the unlock screen for example. On iOS you see you need to unlock it. On W8 you don't have a clue. After pushing around you might notice you can slide the screen up. It's a strange concept. But I have to admit W8 is looking very clean, very customizable. I think this will be good competition for the iOS.

dorian-graph 15y ago
The Win8 lockscreen being confusing depends on the context. For example, a first time user buys a Win8 slate there's probably a basic 'This is how to unlock' tip somewhere, I imagine. Also, seeing average users pick up wild Android unlock schemes I think they'd be okay. :P Though, if they suddenly started playing with a friend's slate the exploring of the interface would be interesting to watch.
- kevingadd 15y ago
  Android is an interesting point of comparison because the lock screen on the Galaxy S2 is exactly like the Windows 8 lock screen. When I first got the phone, it took me minutes to figure out how to unlock it. I handed it to a couple friends and asked them to figure out how to unlock the phone and they struggled as well. On the other hand, I feel like somehow the feedback for the Windows 8 version of unlock is a little bit better - it responds to the swipe a little bit quicker. I do fear that it creates a bad starting point for your first experience with the device though - going into it confused isn't a good thing. A lot of the gestural input in Win8 feels like it relies on blind exploration to discover how to use the device, unless someone teaches you. In a way, that could be a good idea - encouraging the device's owner to explore and play with gestures - but I think the risk of features remaining hidden and undiscovered is pretty significant.
  - saturdaysaint 15y ago
    Good points. The chromeless IE interface looks like another example where users will chafe. I can go completely "chromeless" in Chrome for OSX but I never do because seeing open tabs and having immediate access to extension buttons at all times is too important. I imagine less seasoned users will feel the same way about the URL bar and their favorites.

rix0r 15y ago

I kind of like the "picture password" option. It shows innovation in an area that badly needs some (authentication) and should be easier to remember for many people than a PIN code, I think. Picture passwords would be harder to write down, but I'm not yet sure whether that's a negative or a positive.

davidedicillo 15y ago
"should be easier to remember for many people than a PIN code" Until that day you forgot your tablet home and you had to explain your wife where to tap in order to retrieve that document you need. :)
- thenduks 15y ago
  This problem is solved by simply keeping documents on a server somewhere (I hesitate to say 'the cloud', but that's the marketing term for it) instead of only on the device.
- barista 15y ago
  IMO You can switch the auth mode if you want to.

exit 15y ago

i'm really surprised to find myself more impressed with microsoft's metro style than ios. i wish android had gone with something extremely minimalistic like this.

acous 15y ago
I'm with you there. I'm normally an Apple fanboy, but iOS is looking cluttered and dated beside Metro.
- technoslut 15y ago
  I'm of a mixed opinion about this. I agree with you somewhat that iOS initially does look cluttered compared to Metro but Metro is also lacking obviousness as others have mentioned in this thread. It's a difficult balance that one deals with in design. I'd like to see if the average user, in particular kids, have any trouble navigating the UI. There is something to be said when even a two year-old can use the iPad. That said, I could not be more impressed with Metro when it comes to search functionality, contracts and being able to view two apps at once.
  - chime 15y ago
    > Metro is also lacking obviousness Many things in iOS are pretty unobvious too. E.g. I didn't know the iPad keyboard could be split like that before I saw this video. It took me a while to figure out how to delete items in a tablecell (swipe horizontally). Most of my friends don't know you can double-tap home, press & hold running app icons to close them. I see no difference in per-app settings in Metro being a swipe right feature than iOS Settings > AppName. And remember, all of these features are for managing the OS. The app themselves can implement any features they want. 3-year-olds don't change brightness, they play Angry Birds.
    - pohl 15y ago
      E.g. I didn't know the iPad keyboard could be split like that before I saw this video. You'll have to find another example of non-obviousness in iOS. The split keyboard isn't even in the iOS you've been using, unless you're running a beta release of iOS 5.

tekacs 15y ago

What bothers me is that it looks distinctly like Win8 wouldn't run very effectively on tablets of smaller screen sizes - even with the size it's at, for those of us who are heavy users I don't think it's even beginning to match iOS's information density - the iOS 5 homescreen should hold a lot more data than, say, the alert icons or the data 'streaming' into the panels - how often does one sit at that screen staring at it anyway?

pohl 15y ago
Wasn't metro started as Windows Phone 7, though? What did they change that would keep it from scaling back down to a smaller screen?
- kenjackson 15y ago
  In Windows 8 you can two apps running concurrently, but only at screen size of width of something like 1366. So many tablets won't get his functionality at all. And multitasking on Win8 seems much worse than WP7, although that's not a scale issue. The WP7 multitasking seems better almost regardless of size.