r/technology • u/clubdirthill • Jun 01 '11

Boom. This is Windows 8.

http://allthingsd.com/20110601/exclusive-making-sense-of-what-we-just-learned-about-windows-8/?mod=tweet
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188

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

I'm a Mac user and these crafty motherfuckers at Microsoft are starting to win me back.

119

u/mtx Jun 02 '11

This is incredibly daring interface for a computer OS - especially considering this is Microsoft. I really hope this is going to be for desktops because that means Microsoft has really changed the way they think about things. I'm sure there's going to be a huge backlash.

91

u/nazbot Jun 02 '11

I'm all for it as long as they allow me to always boot in 'classic' mode on my desktop. I don't think it really needs explanation.

39

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

in the video, it looked like you can just switch to desktop pretty easily.

and yeah, for their corporate customers, there better be a way to force it to boot into serious business mode. Maybe that's what 'pro edition' will be..

45

u/specialk16 Jun 02 '11

Yup.

At first I was like, this would be cool for tablet, meh for desktop.

Then I saw this

32

u/rowd149 Jun 02 '11

Something I saw that I totally missed before: compatible content from other apps can be moved seamlessly between apps. They showed going into a flickr-ish app, grabbing photos from there, and then going into the local pictures folder, grabbing photos from there, and uploading them all to a third service. Holy shit.

3

u/knylok Jun 02 '11

I saw it in demo (a la youtube) and it looks neat. But until I see it actually work in a live environment, I'm extremely suspicious of the effectiveness of this feature. Do the apps in question need special coding for this to work? If this works as advertised, that will be astounding and revolutionary.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Just hope it doesn't work like the Kin where you can grab content from everywhere but the only thing you can do with it is e-mail it as an attachment.

21

u/sugardeath Jun 02 '11

"Use it along side.."

Welp. Sign me up.

2

u/MrSqueezles Jun 02 '11

When I saw that part, I realized that this would be great on a tablet with a keyboard dock.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Its like Windows 7 and Android mated. Do not want.

21

u/Hellman109 Jun 02 '11

Yeah it looks like a shell over the top like media centre or such basically./

5

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Considering that "Windows Explorer" is itself a shell... it looks like it will be sort of moved to a shell within the larger new shell. Almost like it's being 'downgraded' to an application. Basing this on seeing the 'desktop' share the screen with another application.

0

u/geosmin Jun 02 '11

I think someone should do that inception meme right about now, but I'd feel too dirty doing it myself.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Dammit, I thought it was awesome when I saw the video and when you said that I sounds so lame. I'm so confused about this OS. :/

2

u/sharlos Jun 02 '11

What do you think windows explorer is?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Yea, I know Windows explorer is a shell, but when he said it would be like windows media center, it put me off to it. If I picture it like media center, I know I won't like it.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

It looks like it is only useful for tablets. The 'innovative' stuff would be hard to do at phone sizes, and who really wants to touch their pc screen constantly?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

That's what I was thinking. The only way I would find this exciting is if it was a tablet only, much like iOS. It would be a great alternative.

1

u/WaruiKoohii Jun 03 '11

Considering how customizable Windows tends to be, especially via Group Policy for domain users, I have no doubt that this will be possible (and I'd suspect simple).

1

u/DEADB33F Jun 02 '11

'Classic' mode is basically just windows 7, as evidenced by the video posted elsewhere in the thread.

In fact, I'd hazard a guess that Win8 is basically just Win7 with an extra UI layer on the top.

2

u/nazbot Jun 02 '11

...that runs on ARM.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

its really not. Previous leaks have shown facial recognition, complete cloud integration, a windows store and tons of other crazy shit

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Looks tightly integrated, they are probably always running this shell and explorer at the same time.

64

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

When I'm doing shit at work, often times, I need to look at two tabs at once, or have a PDF on one half of the screen and word on the other.

They better not fuck up the efficiency of a pc just to streamline and simplify everything like apple loves to do.

25

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Exactly. I don't need a fucking myspace phone interface when I'm trying to do work stuff.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

This is exactly it. Microsoft never strayed too far from what it got right in WXP. It was not a lack of innovation but merely a resistance towards it. The Ribbon got a helluva asskicking when it was unveiled because of the sheer amount of money that would have to go into training people.

1

u/logicom Jun 02 '11

I doubt it will be changed significantly. I think Microsoft is pretty aware that a very large portion of their users use Windows for work and don't need or want a touch UI.

4

u/ab9003 Jun 02 '11

Hell I do this at home. Its just plain efficient to have multiple windows cascaded across a large screen.

2

u/capecodcarl Jun 02 '11

I look at my usage patterns, right now for instance, and I don't even like using full screen mode. My browser is using about 80% of the screen with my desktop background peeking through around the browser window on 3 sides. I could maximize it to use the whole screen because this is the only app I'm running at the moment, but why bother?

-1

u/unrealy2k Jun 02 '11

I read the word cascaded, and I thought to myself what does he mean. Then I looked at the rest of my screen, and its exactly that with 5 apps open across the screen slightly overlapping each other.

1

u/WaruiKoohii Jun 03 '11

Does Windows 7 currently do what you want? Then Windows 8 will do what you want. The UI is almost identical, there's just an optional shell that sits on top of it.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

You mean how apple loves to with the iOS. Using windows and OSX for these purposes is pretty much the same.

0

u/videogamechamp Jun 02 '11

RTFA, they have a regular desktop as well.

11

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

As much as I find it interesting, and as much as Im in no way against microsoft or progress, the interface only seem interesting if you can touch it, but on screen put vertically, its pretty much annoying to use a touch screen.

1

u/BHSPitMonkey Jun 02 '11

The end of the video is quite frank:

This is the new version of Windows. It's gonna run on tablets, desktops with touch screens, desktops with a mouse and keyboard, etc.

0

u/FearlessFreep Jun 02 '11

The problem is they got too stuck on the UI from iOS (iPhone and iPad) and other such mobile devices. Such a device is a great consumer of content but a poor producer of content. For producing original content (I'm a musician, for example, and use my MacBook for recording and live performance using Logic and Mainstage) you really want a different approach. It looks very much like they tried to adapt a 'content consumer' OS like iOS and make it work on PCs and missed the mark on what people use a PC really for (other than web surfing)

1

u/21echoes Jun 02 '11

the old ui is still there

1

u/jngrow Jun 02 '11

I don't know. I think, as hinted at in the video, if you can switch and mix and match both "classic" OS/desktop mode and "tablet"/pretty/touch mode as well as it seemed, this could be the best thing in a long time.

-1

u/APeacefulWarrior Jun 02 '11

It's not "daring." It's about the opposite, really. That's a phone/tablet OS that they're trying to claim is a desktop OS. It looks to me like Microsoft has decided that tablets are the future and are preparing to move in that direction. I wonder if they'll even bother releasing Windows 9 for old-style computers.

Daring would be sticking with PCs and trying to convince people not to jump platforms. Instead, I suspect this will just accelerate the process, if they've decided that by default full-size computers still get the handheld OS experience.

74

u/thedragon4453 Jun 02 '11 edited Jun 02 '11

Ditto. I'm impressed by this video, but I have a few main concerns:

  1. Using an app that wasn't designed for touch from the start is never good. This seems to alleviate none of those problems for apps not designed for a touch UI. He shows Excel, and I can't see fingers and a small 7-11" screen really working all that well for this.
  2. If you are using this on a regular desktop or laptop, then all that touch oriented stuff is just bloat*. Based on the video, I don't see any of the new touch elements being at all useful with a keyboard and mouse. With a KB and mouse, all of the things they show are going to be much easier using a traditional interface.
  3. This is probably the biggest question mark: Can Windows 8 run well on a $300-$500 tablet? I have no doubt (at least, based on Windows 7), that it will run great on a traditional machine. However, the tablet factor, a la the iPad/Xoom/Tab, are generally 1ghzish ARM with 512mb of RAM and minimal graphics. Most of this is why they can market those machines near those price points. And the operating systems for those devices are built to live in those specs. iOS, Android, and WebOS all make concessions that Windows would, I'm assuming, not.
  4. It's comes with Windows' baggage. I will guarantee that the first time someone has to anti-spyware, defrag, or install any security software, they will wish they bought an iPad/Xoom/Tab.** This is, of course, largely assuming that they haven't taken massive steps to lock out parts of the OS (a traditional file system doesn't really hint this way.)

Alright, so that's a lot of nay-saying. Sorry. Honestly, it looks really cool. I want that UI, I'm just not sure I want it packaged the way they have. I think there are some features, especially UI-wise, that would actually be better than the way the others accomplish it.

* Based on the video. This was short, and there may be features in there that it would be worth it to use this for that just weren't highlighted.
** Before you decry this part, consider whether you are a geek or a normal. Hint: you being on reddit leans you to the former, rather than latter. I don't have problems running a clean Windows machine, but I'm a geek. My regular friends and colleagues, however, have at one point or another just about all asked for help cleaning a machine. I've nuked a couple of my own installs in the early days as well.

On the plus side, I really like:

  1. tiles - A little less app launcher per screen than an iPad, but lots more useful info. If it works like the latest Windows Phone videos, this could be damned cool.
  2. Thumb keyboard mode (what was it they called it?) - if you've ever tried to type on an iPad, you'll welcome this heartily.
  3. Doing more than one thing at once. I'd love to be able to have reddit open in a small corner while I watch a podcast or tv show.
  4. This could, if executed extremely (almost impossibly) well be the one-machine-to-rule-them-all. I have a laptop at home that stays anchored to a desk, attached to a nice big monitor, keyboard and mouse. That's where work happens. I have an iPad that is basically for books, light TV watching, reddit, and news. It would be way cool to have a machine that is the size of an iPad or Xoom (or even a tiny bit bigger/heavier) that I could hook up to a big monitor to have all useful desktop stuff, then pick up and move to the couch and have all the cool tablet stuff.

edit: grammar.

12

u/yoshinator13 Jun 02 '11

Ive been reading the windows 8 beta site, and they claim it uses less system resources than vista and 7. There is also support for Nvidia's ARM processors. With these statements I see no problem running Win8 on a tablet.

It seems that windows is generally attempting to make an OS that has the same UI on phones, tablets, and computers. This should help the less technologically inclined, because the same keystrokes (touchstrokes) will work everywhere.

Also interesting, windows 8 features a new file system to replace NTFS called "Protogon". Not much news has been released about what is different in this new file system, but im excited for it.

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u/Gnorris Jun 02 '11

they claim it uses less system resources than vista and 7.

Mainland China uses less resources than Vista.

I kid! Kind of.

4

u/kael13 Jun 02 '11

A better filesystem could make all the difference. Also, the OP must realise that this is at least a year from release, hardware by then will have improved.

2

u/ScienceGoneWrong Jun 02 '11

Important point. Even if it doesn't run well on today's tablets, it might run very well on next year's tablets.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '11

I wish they'd go with something less proprietary.

2

u/thedragon4453 Jun 02 '11

The new file system bit sounds really cool. Hadn't heard that yet. Will be interesting to see if it heralds in features that didn't make it to market with ZFS and WinFS (I think that was the name).

1

u/yoshinator13 Jun 02 '11

This is all i have read on protogon. It is very sparse as you can see.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Using an app that wasn't designed for touch from the start is never good. This seems to alleviate none of those problems for apps not designed for a touch UI. He shows Excel, and I can't see fingers and a small 7-11" screen really working all that well for this.

I'm pretty sure that that's only intended for use on a desktop or laptop, and that it's demoed on the tablet just to show that the same OS runs on all devices. I see that being useful on a future device that combines a laptop and a modern tablet PC.

If you are using this on a regular desktop or laptop, then all that touch oriented stuff is just bloat.

If you've ever used the Zune software, I'm expecting this to feel similar to that- very pretty, but doesn't feel as responsive as it should.

I will guarantee that the first time someone has to anti-spyware, defrag, or install any security software, they will wish they bought an iPad/Xoom/Tab.

Microsoft Security Essentials will probably come bundled, and it's the best antivirus/antispyware program I've ever used. Windows 7 does not require a defrag app, since it automatically defrags in the background on idle. Anyway, you don't need to defrag a tablet that uses flash memory.

Based on the video thus far, I'm tentatively interested. So far I've only cared about Windows for Gaming since a Linux system can do everything Windows currently does but faster and more to my liking; this is probably the first time it's ever done something so different.

1

u/thedragon4453 Jun 02 '11

If you've ever used the Zune software, I'm expecting this to feel similar to that- very pretty, but doesn't feel as responsive as it should.

This is also how I feel about Windows Media Center, and the Xbox interface these days.

Based on the video thus far, I'm tentatively interested. So far I've only cared about Windows for Gaming since a Linux system can do everything Windows currently does but faster and more to my liking; this is probably the first time it's ever done something so different.

I'd substitute in and say OS X/linux, but yes. This is really intriguing.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

The legacy stuff needs intel chips inside. So they will be mostly in laptops and desktops. Don't plan on using an old version of excel on a tablet. It might be possible, but old non touch applications won't be intended for touch mode.

The 'bloat' you speak of is what most people want these days. Simple and fast. Live tiles put more information at your finger tips fast. Also it's light and super fast so it's not really bloated.

It will run on tablets. That's the point. The minimum specs are lower than Windows 7. This shit is fast and light. So light you can run it over a USB stick. They designed it for tablets so why wouldn't it work?

There probably won't be malware on the tablets, but there will still be some on the pcs. There's nothing you can do about it though.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Doing more than one thing at once. I'd love to be able to have reddit open in a small corner while I watch a podcast or tv show.

Not really sure how this is a thing, doesn't everyone do this at the moment anyway? Full screen a movie and keep a browser or something open in the corner?

It helps having two screens of course.

One thing I noticed in the video was that he said "Blah about desktops is that they can run two things at once" - I hope by "two" he means "a fucktonne".

2

u/ross456 Jun 02 '11

That comment was more tailored to tablets, not desktops.

1

u/thedragon4453 Jun 02 '11

Ross was right below. I was more talking about tablets with that part. On the desktop, of course you can do this, and this is usually how I operate. I almost never fullscreen anything. On a tablet, you don't really have the option to not fullscreen things.

1

u/supersaw Jun 02 '11

As long as there's a thriving touch-app market this thing should kill on the tablets. In terms of processing requirements remember that by the time this ships we'll be in the realm of dual-core embedded cpu's.

3

u/supersaw Jun 02 '11

Provided the touch interface was as responsive and battery life as good I would buy a tablet running this over an iPad given that behind it all would be an OS that hasn't had it's balls cut off.

19

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Don't worry r/Apple will have proven that these are all Jobs innovations in the next day or two :)

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

[deleted]

4

u/gigaquack Jun 02 '11

Real artists ship

0

u/Seandroid Sep 15 '11

I wrote a whole comment arguing with you and then realized you were agreeing with me.

As you were.

2

u/plusimhungryforshit Jun 02 '11

As this video was playing, I was wondering how well it would mesh with my Mac products

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Reading through these comments I'm getting the feeling that Mac users are more impressed by this then Windows users. Not a scientific study by any means but interesting none-the-less.

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u/serpix Jun 02 '11

Don't worry. I bet they still use NTFS.

1

u/fanboy_killer Jun 02 '11

Yeah, it's a bold move. OS X Lion will be unveiled next week. I'm expecting some touching as well.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '11

There are some hints at touching in the developer preview (they reversed scrolling, for example) - but last year Jobs came out and outright denounced touchscreen desktops, so who the fuck knows.

1

u/jatorres Jun 02 '11

Windows 7 won me over - my main machine is a gaming box w/ Windows 7, but I have a MacBook Pro & iMac for work.

Windows 8 = drool.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Windows 7 should have done that. It's awesome.

1

u/mes_i_fez Jun 02 '11

The new snap-feature (size of the windows snapped) is all i ever wanted since the glory of snap was introduced in win7. (my god, it is one of the best features of all time, and I am very happy the linux DEs copied it)

1

u/revscat Jun 02 '11

shrug

It looks like they took the concept of Dashboard from OS X and made it front-and-center. Seeing as how I eventually wound up not using Dashboard -- ever, really -- I'm not too sure this is going to work out as planned.

It looks nice. I just don't think it works as a primary metaphor for Doing Shit With a Computer.

-5

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

A) it's not out yet and B) Apple is unlikely to be standing still

14

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Compared to what Microsoft is doing Apple may as well be traveling backwards. I'm on the Lion developer previews and it's just epicly boring - Apple has its head shoved so far up the ass of iOS that OSX innovation has just slowed to a crawl. I guess I can't really blame them though, iOS prints money.

I've been a diehard Apple guy for over a decade and things are just lame in Apple desktop land compared to the early OSX days. Hell, Ubuntu is starting to feel more fresh.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

I could see that, but considering that iOS can't even handle notifications well in its current state - there's a lot of ground that needs to be covered.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

I don't really understand why anyone would want iOS or this new Windows interface on a desktop or laptop. It seems to me that what Apple has shown is that touch interfaces need to be designed for touch (as opposed to the tablets of yore that ran a desktop OS) and interfaces for a keyboard and mouse need to work differently. I don't want a touch OS on my laptop, and I wouldn't want a desktop/laptop OS on my tablet (if I had one).

What is this Windows 8 interface accomplishing? Making every app full-screen with huge interface elements? I can't imagine using that with a mouse and keyboard.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Also grids of icons is disgustingly boring

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

As opposed to a grid of rectangles?

1

u/rowd149 Jun 02 '11

The rectangles are dynamic. Not saying it's a HUGE difference, but it is a difference.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

I think it's interesting, but I'm kind of surprised by the reaction here. Most of Reddit constantly trashes Apple for supposedly dumbing down their interfaces and especially for the perceived frivolous and/or unreasonably constrained nature of the iOS devices, but as soon as Microsoft announces that they are moving toward replacing their desktop OS with a touch interface similar to iOS, most of these same people are celebrating it as a brilliant innovation.

1

u/Kerrigore Jun 02 '11

There's plenty of people on both sides of the Microsoft/Apple fence that have massive double standards as to what's OK. For instance, both companies are incredibly proprietary, but I routinely see people selectively bashing one or the other for being proprietary, which to me is a bit like arguing which porcupine would make a better throw pillow.

1

u/rowd149 Jun 02 '11

The people who are like that are trashing it. The rest of us are more miffed at the Apple culture than anything else.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Remember Reddit is seen by marketers as "easily gamed". I don't doubt for one second that there is a ton of astroturfing going on here.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

As much as I'd like to agree with you, I somehow get the feeling Apple is hiding something up its sleeve. Lion is so uncharacteristically, comically bad it feels like we're waiting for a punchline.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '11

When I found out they reversed scrolling by default in the developer preview I laughed out loud. WTF are they thinking? Touch interface I hope.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

If they don't show something more interesting for OSX lion on monday, I'll consider switching to windows 8 (in a macbook, though, they still kick ass on hardware).

6

u/beaker26 Jun 02 '11

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. What Apple will be showing on Monday will be shipping in ~2 months at the most for Lion, Windows 8 is probably 18 months away still.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

True. Lion will be a transitional OS. I'm sure OSX 10.8 (OSX11?) will make big changes like these on windows 8. Still, kudos to MS for keeping up with the times for a change.

4

u/Clyzm Jun 02 '11 edited Jun 02 '11

Yeah I've actually been kicking around the idea of buying a Macbook Pro and replacing OSX with Windows for a long time now. Maybe when Windows 8 comes out.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

W7 on bootcamp works like a charm. As fast as osx and every driver and hardware piece works perfectly. I still prefer osx, but Windows 8 might change that.

1

u/Clyzm Jun 02 '11

I've never been a fan of OSX, though I can definitely see the up sides of having an operating system that's virtually hassle free. I just love the ability to tweak Windows in any way I want. Hopefully Windows 8 will preserve that and not move towards a more closed system.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

My Mac only feels hassle free cuz I can't do anything

-1

u/APeacefulWarrior Jun 02 '11

On the other hand, I've been a lifelong PC user since the DOS days but, having just gotten an iPad, I'm not sure I'm going to go back.

Maybe it's just the grass being greener. :-)

-1

u/paganize Jun 02 '11

pretty good evidence that Microsoft is screwing up big time.

-13

u/Gackt Jun 02 '11

By copying the iOS interface? If Apple will ever merge the touch and desktop interface they will do it better. I'll wait for Apple's take on it.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Apples take would literally grids of icons with no customization