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The new laptops have touch because Microsoft decreed that it should be so. Macs don't have it. ChromeOS devices don't have it. If any manufacturer wants to clai

The new laptops have touch because Microsoft decreed that it should be so. Macs don't have it. ChromeOS devices don't have it. If any manufacturer wants to claim that they take full "advantage" of Windows 8, they have to have touch screens, and having watched people use them, they look like an ergonomic nightmare. Granted, people are actually using them, but my suspicion is that it's because the trackpads on Windows laptops are horrifically bad, and they forgot to bring their mouse to the meeting. I am extremely skeptical of your "impossible to maintain" argument against separate OSes. Again, Apple seems to do it just fine. I realize I must sound like a total Apple fanboy, but while I'll concede that their innovation has worn thin, the overall usability and design of their core products has remained inoffensive at the very least. The same could not be said for Microsoft's current offerings.

gtirloni 13y ago
Wasn't it Intel that mandated anything called "ultrabook" should have touch? Of course they could be doing that to work with Microsoft.. buy anyways. Apple doesn't have touch on its laptops and desktops and a their products can be counted with the fingers we have. Microsoft has always worked with OEMs and has a much more chaotic environment... these partners/OEMs/etc will use, and are using touch,... imagine telling your dad, who owns a laptop with touch, that he should install Windows "Touch" and your grandma with a new ultrabook w/o touch has to use Windows "Original".... it would be a nightmare. Microsoft has, and is trying to, devise a bridge in a single OS. They screwed up the Start button thing. Have they left it there in the desktop and provided the option to boot directly to it, they would have received much less criticism. They got greedy with the Metro stuff... it should have been a nice "add-on" for traditional desktops/laptops.. not major shell. They will never drop the Metro interface now. My bet is that they will slowly add things back to the traditional desktop, hoping by this time nobody but the hardcore users will notice... while the masses will swallow the Metro interface.
- sirmarksalot 13y ago
  If the reality of the situation is that consumer devices all have touchscreens because of overzealous OEMs, then affordances should be made for touchscreen interfaces wherever possible. That said, if it's not clear that touch makes sense as the primary input device, more so than the mouse, then the UI should not be designed around it, regardless how many people own a touchscreen that they keep two feet away at eye level. If, on the other hand, you have a device where touch is the only input that makes sense, then your shell needs to be designed around it. Every aspect of user interaction needs to be reconsidered, because you can't expect your users to run regedit with a touchscreen. I think you're right that Microsoft won't drop Metro now, but I don't think it's a given that customers will ever adopt it. Windows 7 works fine for everything I use it for, and without architecture-imposed RAM limits, I honestly can't see a time within the next decade that it will stop doing that. I still know people who use Windows XP, 11 years after it was released. The fact is, they all run Firefox and Chrome equally well. Your desktop OS has never mattered less than it does right now. Three years ago I bought a Macbook Pro, ostensibly for iPhone development. I went in with the assumption that I would still primarily use my Windows desktop, what with the power and the keyboard and the mouse. Within thirty minutes I was signed into my GMail account, browsing my RSS feed, and realized that I had completely migrated my life over to the new machine. In this environment, where switching to Ubuntu requires less of a lifestyle change than Windows 8, why would anyone ever upgrade Windows?

gtirloni 13y ago

Wasn't it Intel that mandated anything called "ultrabook" should have touch? Of course they could be doing that to work with Microsoft.. buy anyways. Apple doesn't have touch on its laptops and desktops and a their products can be counted with the fingers we have. Microsoft has always worked with OEMs and has a much more chaotic environment... these partners/OEMs/etc will use, and are using touch,... imagine telling your dad, who owns a laptop with touch, that he should install Windows "Touch" and your grandma with a new ultrabook w/o touch has to use Windows "Original".... it would be a nightmare. Microsoft has, and is trying to, devise a bridge in a single OS. They screwed up the Start button thing. Have they left it there in the desktop and provided the option to boot directly to it, they would have received much less criticism. They got greedy with the Metro stuff... it should have been a nice "add-on" for traditional desktops/laptops.. not major shell. They will never drop the Metro interface now. My bet is that they will slowly add things back to the traditional desktop, hoping by this time nobody but the hardcore users will notice... while the masses will swallow the Metro interface.

sirmarksalot 13y ago
If the reality of the situation is that consumer devices all have touchscreens because of overzealous OEMs, then affordances should be made for touchscreen interfaces wherever possible. That said, if it's not clear that touch makes sense as the primary input device, more so than the mouse, then the UI should not be designed around it, regardless how many people own a touchscreen that they keep two feet away at eye level. If, on the other hand, you have a device where touch is the only input that makes sense, then your shell needs to be designed around it. Every aspect of user interaction needs to be reconsidered, because you can't expect your users to run regedit with a touchscreen. I think you're right that Microsoft won't drop Metro now, but I don't think it's a given that customers will ever adopt it. Windows 7 works fine for everything I use it for, and without architecture-imposed RAM limits, I honestly can't see a time within the next decade that it will stop doing that. I still know people who use Windows XP, 11 years after it was released. The fact is, they all run Firefox and Chrome equally well. Your desktop OS has never mattered less than it does right now. Three years ago I bought a Macbook Pro, ostensibly for iPhone development. I went in with the assumption that I would still primarily use my Windows desktop, what with the power and the keyboard and the mouse. Within thirty minutes I was signed into my GMail account, browsing my RSS feed, and realized that I had completely migrated my life over to the new machine. In this environment, where switching to Ubuntu requires less of a lifestyle change than Windows 8, why would anyone ever upgrade Windows?