4 ms·

> We want to deliver an experience that flexes elegantly across a continuum of devices And there's the punch to the gut. Just like with Windows 8, if you want

> We want to deliver an experience that flexes elegantly across a continuum of devices And there's the punch to the gut. Just like with Windows 8, if you want to use Windows 10 on the desktop your experience is going to be degraded by sacrifices made for mobile. I was really hoping that Microsoft would learn their lesson, since DirectX 12 is going to be exclusive to Windows 10 and I'm going to have to upgrade. They're killing Windows on the desktop (where they have 91% market share) for the sake of Windows on mobile/tablet (where they have 2% market share). Again and again I think how much more attractive Microsoft would be if they decoupled their titanically-successful cloud/enterprise world from their depressing, clueless consumer arm. Microsoft shareholders shouldn't be paying for Nokia, the red ring of death, or the Windows Store.

jenscow 11y ago
Without a doubt. They're a "mobile first, cloud first" company, creating a "tablet that can replace your laptop".
pistle 11y ago
It sure would be nice if they could come up with something that provided developers an opportunity to develop best of breed experiences based on the type of device, screen, pixel resolution, etc. But, then they did. The Universal App template project provides for making separate UI layers for your applications. If your applications don't make use of screen space, blame developers. The OS and tooling support optimized experiences. There are fewer "opinions" than with 8. Decent Continuum experiences seem intended to make developers stretch, not users.
Aleman360 11y ago
The Windows 10 UI framework is resolution-independent and built-in controls are responsive. App devs have everything they need to provide a good UI for every device type. Or you can use HTML/JS. disclaimer: I work on Windows 10
- jenscow 11y ago
  Despite this, we still have a 2x19" mouse driven non-touch tablet. disclaimer: I use Windows 8 at work.
- realusername 11y ago
  I still did not have got enough time to test the new updates on windows but I sincerely hope they learned by now that what work for tablets does not necessary work on a desktop machines even if the screen size is roughly the same. Not everything is related to the screen size. I remember the full screen calculator on my laptop which was a clear example of the problem.
- brianpgordon 11y ago
  Resolution independence is nice. Has Microsoft figured out how to scale legacy apps on HiDPI displays for Windows 10? I found Windows 8.1 unusable on my Retina MacBook Pro because so many apps didn't use the new fonts/rendering framework (even many built-in Windows tools like the MMC) and text was therefore horribly disfigured. I don't have such problems with any applications anymore on OS X.
RaleyField 11y ago
> the desktop your experience is going to be degraded by sacrifices made for mobile Or you can view it as mobile being enhanced by commonality of OS with one found on the desktop. If the same UI works in both environments you can see it as harmful influence of mobile on the desktop or you can see it as Microsoft not forcing you to buy and carry around two devices where one would suffice. Disclaimer - I love my W8 transformer.
- yaeger 11y ago
  >Or you can view it as mobile being enhanced by commonality of OS with one found on the desktop. You could, if the mobile didn't have the minority share of the install base. Why would we be okay to enhance the minority at the expense of the majority? > If the same UI works in both environments... And that's precisely the thing. it doesn't work in both environments. Windows8 has already showed us what happens when you slap the touchy feely stuff on the desktop and let the user figure it out.
  - RaleyField 11y ago
    > at the expense of the majority? My point is that this is just a matter of perspective. Windows UX was never a paragon of design clarity so adding sparsity to accommodate for touch is nothing new in the world of Windows which has seen other transgressions far worse. Windows is still influenced by choices made in DOS age, in some places it still drags graphics from 9x age, the choice of ribbons, menus and sidebars seems random and seemingly non-systematic. If elements are farther apart then this is nothing new for Windows, what is new is that they are going against the view established by Apple which dictates that desktop and mobile OSes should be different for some undeclared a priori reason. Apple likely did it because they didn't want to obliterate their Mac line with its higher margins and Google concurred because it promoted their emergent Android instead of giving credibility to the established hegemon from Microsoft. > if the mobile didn't have the minority share of the install base. I'm of the opinion that choices should be made based on their intrinsic value, not something as arbitrary as the current market share. You can reuse exact same SoC to do both environments so why arbitrarily force one into media-consumption role with choices made in OS. > it doesn't work in both environments. This smells of echo-chamber of Vista days. People seem to have bought to the tick-tock theory, not realizing that it is likely something pundits with blogs created to sell them ads. Windows 8 worked very well to me - it never gave me as much gief as did my old iPad with its arbitrary restrictions. Use Dropbox or iTunes for file transfer - are you fracking kidding me?? I can install everything on Windows. I can run Eclipse. I can hook external monitor and it works. All for the price of learning a few new metaphors which would come to Windows regardless because UI on Windows has always been changing.
OniBait 11y ago
I tried Windows 10 on both my desktop and tablet. I went back to Windows 8 on the tablet because the UI was horrible for tablet. If anything, I think the pendulum swung back too much the other direction. There are a lot of UI decisions they made that make the experience with a tablet device painful. For example, the decision to get rid of the Charms Bar (in Tablet Mode) was a horrible one. A lot "Metro" apps don't really run full-screen anymore. Edge Browser isn't nearly as nice of an experience as full screen IE was (with the swipe gestures for page forward/back navigation). On the desktop though, it has been quite nice to use...
- kyriakos 11y ago
  Things are changing all the time I hear, you can't judge Windows 10 if you tried one release. Maybe you should wait and give the final version a go when it comes out. I don't run it on a tablet so I can't tell you for sure what changed but I read user comments saying that the latest releases fixed a lot of the tablet mode issues.
batiudrami 11y ago
Microsoft is sure that this is the future though - one operating system, one set of applications, multiple UI experiences depending on input and screen size. I think they're right, and would love to be able to dock my phone and have it operate seamlessly as a full desktop with a monitor and M+K. They just need to get the UX right, which they got way, way wrong with Windows 8. Luckily they have so much inertia in the desktop market that at this point it didn't cost them too much.

jenscow 11y ago

Without a doubt. They're a "mobile first, cloud first" company, creating a "tablet that can replace your laptop".

pistle 11y ago

It sure would be nice if they could come up with something that provided developers an opportunity to develop best of breed experiences based on the type of device, screen, pixel resolution, etc. But, then they did. The Universal App template project provides for making separate UI layers for your applications. If your applications don't make use of screen space, blame developers. The OS and tooling support optimized experiences. There are fewer "opinions" than with 8. Decent Continuum experiences seem intended to make developers stretch, not users.

Aleman360 11y ago

The Windows 10 UI framework is resolution-independent and built-in controls are responsive. App devs have everything they need to provide a good UI for every device type. Or you can use HTML/JS. disclaimer: I work on Windows 10

jenscow 11y ago
Despite this, we still have a 2x19" mouse driven non-touch tablet. disclaimer: I use Windows 8 at work.
realusername 11y ago
I still did not have got enough time to test the new updates on windows but I sincerely hope they learned by now that what work for tablets does not necessary work on a desktop machines even if the screen size is roughly the same. Not everything is related to the screen size. I remember the full screen calculator on my laptop which was a clear example of the problem.
brianpgordon 11y ago
Resolution independence is nice. Has Microsoft figured out how to scale legacy apps on HiDPI displays for Windows 10? I found Windows 8.1 unusable on my Retina MacBook Pro because so many apps didn't use the new fonts/rendering framework (even many built-in Windows tools like the MMC) and text was therefore horribly disfigured. I don't have such problems with any applications anymore on OS X.

RaleyField 11y ago

> the desktop your experience is going to be degraded by sacrifices made for mobile Or you can view it as mobile being enhanced by commonality of OS with one found on the desktop. If the same UI works in both environments you can see it as harmful influence of mobile on the desktop or you can see it as Microsoft not forcing you to buy and carry around two devices where one would suffice. Disclaimer - I love my W8 transformer.

yaeger 11y ago
>Or you can view it as mobile being enhanced by commonality of OS with one found on the desktop. You could, if the mobile didn't have the minority share of the install base. Why would we be okay to enhance the minority at the expense of the majority? > If the same UI works in both environments... And that's precisely the thing. it doesn't work in both environments. Windows8 has already showed us what happens when you slap the touchy feely stuff on the desktop and let the user figure it out.
- RaleyField 11y ago
  > at the expense of the majority? My point is that this is just a matter of perspective. Windows UX was never a paragon of design clarity so adding sparsity to accommodate for touch is nothing new in the world of Windows which has seen other transgressions far worse. Windows is still influenced by choices made in DOS age, in some places it still drags graphics from 9x age, the choice of ribbons, menus and sidebars seems random and seemingly non-systematic. If elements are farther apart then this is nothing new for Windows, what is new is that they are going against the view established by Apple which dictates that desktop and mobile OSes should be different for some undeclared a priori reason. Apple likely did it because they didn't want to obliterate their Mac line with its higher margins and Google concurred because it promoted their emergent Android instead of giving credibility to the established hegemon from Microsoft. > if the mobile didn't have the minority share of the install base. I'm of the opinion that choices should be made based on their intrinsic value, not something as arbitrary as the current market share. You can reuse exact same SoC to do both environments so why arbitrarily force one into media-consumption role with choices made in OS. > it doesn't work in both environments. This smells of echo-chamber of Vista days. People seem to have bought to the tick-tock theory, not realizing that it is likely something pundits with blogs created to sell them ads. Windows 8 worked very well to me - it never gave me as much gief as did my old iPad with its arbitrary restrictions. Use Dropbox or iTunes for file transfer - are you fracking kidding me?? I can install everything on Windows. I can run Eclipse. I can hook external monitor and it works. All for the price of learning a few new metaphors which would come to Windows regardless because UI on Windows has always been changing.

OniBait 11y ago

I tried Windows 10 on both my desktop and tablet. I went back to Windows 8 on the tablet because the UI was horrible for tablet. If anything, I think the pendulum swung back too much the other direction. There are a lot of UI decisions they made that make the experience with a tablet device painful. For example, the decision to get rid of the Charms Bar (in Tablet Mode) was a horrible one. A lot "Metro" apps don't really run full-screen anymore. Edge Browser isn't nearly as nice of an experience as full screen IE was (with the swipe gestures for page forward/back navigation). On the desktop though, it has been quite nice to use...

kyriakos 11y ago
Things are changing all the time I hear, you can't judge Windows 10 if you tried one release. Maybe you should wait and give the final version a go when it comes out. I don't run it on a tablet so I can't tell you for sure what changed but I read user comments saying that the latest releases fixed a lot of the tablet mode issues.

batiudrami 11y ago

Microsoft is sure that this is the future though - one operating system, one set of applications, multiple UI experiences depending on input and screen size. I think they're right, and would love to be able to dock my phone and have it operate seamlessly as a full desktop with a monitor and M+K. They just need to get the UX right, which they got way, way wrong with Windows 8. Luckily they have so much inertia in the desktop market that at this point it didn't cost them too much.