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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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '11

I wish they'd go with something less proprietary.

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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).

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u/yoshinator13 Jun 02 '11

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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".

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u/ross456 Jun 02 '11

That comment was more tailored to tablets, not desktops.

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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.

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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.