Not really. Launchpad was introduced in 10.7 as an additional way to browse and launch apps, making things more familiar to people who'd only used iOS. The prev

Not really. Launchpad was introduced in 10.7 as an additional way to browse and launch apps, making things more familiar to people who'd only used iOS. The previous methods, like apps in the dock (introduced with OS X) the applications folder (every Mac OS ever) still work fine. If, at Lion's launch, Apple had said 'we think launchpad is so good we're going to take away all the other ways of launching apps', there would have been a full-scale riot. The problem with the start menu is that millions of people, people who don't really know much about computers, or want to know much but have to use one anyway, grew up thinking a start menu is what a computer has. It's been there and worked in a similar way since 95 and it's disconcerting to find it's suddenly disappeared. It's not special hate, I love the design language and it's great to see Microsoft taking the lead in design values - it's just that it is not good enough yet.