Why Windows 8 Scares Me -- and Should Scare You Too | Hacker News Reader

Why Windows 8 Scares Me -- and Should Scare You Too

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TL;DR:

--Windows 8 is not Windows, it's a new operating system with Windows 7 compatibility tacked onto it.

--Although Windows 8 looks pretty and is great for tablet-style content consumption, I question its benefits for traditional PC productivity tasks.

--Big OS transitions like this one traditionally cause users to reconsider their OS decision and potentially switch to something else.

--Microsoft has worsened the risk that people will migrate away from Windows 8, by disabling some key features of Windows 7, and mishandling the consumer "preview" program.

--However, people won't necessarily abandon Windows because it's not clear if they have a good alternative to it.

--Apple could provide the best alternative if it chooses to. This might be Apple's best chance ever to stick a fork in Windows.

--If Windows 8 is even moderately successful, it could weaken Google and the big web services companies. The trend toward bundling web services into the OS is potentially very disruptive to the web community, and they should be quite worried about it.

--If you're a PC app developer, you should probably hold off on Metro because it's not clear how quickly its user base will grow.

Is it bad that none of these things really scare me?

Coming up next in this article series:

Why I am avoiding articles with headlines that end in "and you should, too" and why you should, too.

Or, "Why I Am Avoiding Articles That Start With 'Why'".

It seems these are the new "10 Ways/Reasons/Thoughts/etc. on...".

For almost every release of Windows it seems Microsoft has arbitrarily moved important and commonly used features around. Windows 8 is a larger visual overhaul but really not a huge departure from the typical musical chair sort of changes you always get with Windows releases. People will probably just be confused for a while, get used to the new system, and Windows 9 will change it again somehow. That's how it's always been so it doesn't concern me. My guess is most people will just randomly click on things until they get back to a semi-familar Windows desktop. They will remember the steps required to get back there. Metro and all these other things will just be another annoying thing that pops up when the computer starts.

Windows' general look and feel disn't change much since Win 95, actually - one exception being the "settings" (preferences? Control panel?) menu, which changed every time. Win8 kinda changes the entire look and feel (although, just like the control panel, there is a fallback)

(fun fact: I ALWAYS click "switch back to the classic view" whenever I get to a windows machine)

If only Adobe and Autodesk supported linux I would make the full transition to Ubuntu. Ubuntu doesn't have the learning curve that Linux is known for anymore but still manages to let you have full control of your system when you need it.

There are so many open source options that I don't think it's worth jumping through the hoops microsoft lays out anymore. Office tools aren't windows specific anymore because of software like Google docs and libreOffice. Gimp has all of the features of photoshop although a little less intuitive. Qt creator is an excellent replacement for visual studio for c++ developers. Unix command lines make life so much easier. For the average user that only browses the internet and uses microsoft office I really don't think there is a reason to stick to windows other than for autodesk and adobe applications. Thousands of dollars can be saved by people if they just switched to linux.

This is true so long as you don't count the latest version of Ubuntu. Unity is a train wreck because it makes the same set of false assumptions that Win 8 makes in terms there being one interface that will work for tablets, phones and PCs.

A year ago I would have agreed that Ubuntu was poised to take up the slack that a lackluster Windows 8 launch would create. Now they just come off as another vendor trying to copy the success of the iPad. As a person who used Ubuntu as his primary desktop for development, I've had to move to another distro (Lubuntu) because Unity/Gnome 3 actively enrages me. I'm not saying that to be dramatic, either. Every time I've tried to use that thing I feel like I have to wash it off my hands. I realize that this might not be as big of a deal to a completely new computer user, but how many of those are really left?

As an aside (and I don't mean this to start a flamewar) Gimp is not a suitable replacement for Photoshop. Gimp has all the same functions as photoshop (and some more, in fact) but that user interface is so bad that it's not really a viable replacement. Sure, there are plenty of people who disagree with me, but I think you'll find most of them are engineers and not people who work with images for a living.

If you don't believe me, look at what happens when Adobe itself makes the slightest change to any of its products. Its user base is immediately infuriated and threatens to revolt.

EDIT: Fixed typo.

As a ~long time Linux user (2004), I love Unity. Gnome 2 was horrid as a default. On a fresh install, the first thing I had to do was to change their ridiculous taskbar settings to condense it down to one. Then I had to spend an hour changing settings to keep it from wasting taskbar space. Icons for programs makes sense, searching for apps makes sense. The only thing I'm not terribly keen on is the behavior of the global menu bar, but it does make sense in a way.

I've never seen the point in making things overly complicated. Changing things from release to release is complicated, but it's better than sticking with tired metaphors that made sense in 1995 but not today. Might I suggest this rage Unity/Gnome3 makes you feel might be because it's radically different, rather than because it's radically worse?

When I first read that you were a "long time linux user" that started with it in 2004, I chuckled, then I realized that 2004 was actually six years ago (a totally legit "long time") and that I am really old. :)

I'll give you that the way Gnome 2 was set up by default in Ubuntu was pretty annoying. I also spent some time "moving in" after a fresh install. I did, however, find that I could get it just the way I wanted it before too long, something I've been unable to do with Unity.

Here's the thing: Ubuntu's primary user base (to this point) is PC users. I'm all for a bright future where Ubuntu runs on phones and tablets and toasters, but seriously, where are they? What problem does Unity solve for PC users that a more "traditional" desktop metaphor doesn't? I can't get past the fact that it's obtuse and annoying solely for the sake of novelty.

To each their own, though. The magic of Linux is that there are plenty of options. Windows users, sadly, don't have that luxury, which is what the original article was pointing out.

Yeah, 2004 was still kind of the "dark ages" of Linux: where the other OSes had moved on but Linux was still mainly sticking with the text-based install and "network drivers need to be downloaded" phase (in my experience).

I will give you that Unity suffers from a lack of customization (I'm willing to give Canonical the benefit of the doubt that it's still a WIP). Unity/Gnome3 is exactly what I've been trying to customize Gnome2 to be like for the past 6 years.

Oh, dear $DEITY, I remember that. Getting the wireless to work meant spending the whole weekend recompiling the kernel and crossing your fingers.

I'm fairly certain this has been said before, but... What if Apple officially supported installing Mac OS X on a regular PC? I mean, it's already possible to do this ("hackintosh" or "OSx86"), but it requires some mucking around... if Apple added support for popular non-mac hardware and just let people buy and install it on any machine, wouldn't that become serious competition to Windows?

Because let's face it, a lot of people that stay away from Macintosh do so because of the price of the hardware...

Edit: Well that settles it for me, then. Thanks for the replies :)

I don't think there is any reason for Apple to do this. They make their money from hardware, not software. In years/decades past, people could make the argument that growing their market share by supporting PCs might somehow make them more profitable in the long run... but these days I think it's quite obvious they are doing just fine on the profitability front.

They used to license the OS and there were "clones" available. We has some at school, they were fairly ugly looking desktop cases. That was one of the first things Steve Jobs cancelled when he returned to the company.

Things have changes quite a lot with iTunes and the app store, but Apple did make their money as a hardware vendor, allowing them to practically give away the OS. Obviously it worked because they have so much money they don't know what to do with it!

Apple's boutique image would evaporate and its fabulously high profit margins would plummet precipitously, and the share price would be dragged down with them.

We could argue endlessly about whether it would work or not, and how it might affect the industry. But it's not really realistic speculation. Regardless of whether it might work or not, it just wouldn't serve the interests of the company's owners or operators.

It would ruin their business, and reduce Macintosh to a much inferior operating system. Their software is subsidized by their (seemingly more expensive) hardware.

Sheesh. How many times will this analysis be proposed. Anyone with the slightest interest in following Apple knows that Apple will never do this for the simple reason that they don't care a crap about the low end market.

The Apple experience is only possible when Apple controls the hardware and software and can provide the strongest linkage between them.

It doesn't care a crap about the low-end consumer market. But what about offices? Macs are currently limited to 'creative' industries - where people use MacBooks to browse the web from their desk, but often have to use windows for office work and the servers are windows.

Mac might be interested in snatching Windows from the corporate desktop. As the corporate desktop moves to the web and mobile devices it might be in Apple's interest to have them on Mac rather than people having to use Win8 tablets because that's all that works with the Windows corporate stuff.

A deal with a single HW maker to have a single Mac corporate desktop (possibly thin client iOS) only for bulk corporate customers isn't going to dilute their boutique image too much

Apple is a hardware company. They make money selling computers and other gadgets. Those computers and gadgets happen to run software, but that isn't what they make their money from (it's akin to a loss leader, even if it might not actually lose money).

Those customers you speak of, who stay away from the Macintosh because of the price; how much more money do you think Apple would make from them if they chose to buy a clone sold by another manufacturer? And how much money would they cost Apple in effect by taking advantage of software development subsidised elsewhere?

Killing the clones was (from a business point of view) one of the smartest things Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple, and I can't see that decision ever being reversed.

Right. Compare the price Apple charges for a full version of OS X Lion ($29) to what Microsoft charges for a full version of Windows 7 (~$300 MSRP for the full monty, though you can get it for $250 at Amazon and other places), or the price Apple charges for Xcode ($5.00 or free, depending on the phase of the moon) compared to what Microsoft charges for Visual Studio Professional ($590 MSRP).

Within the realms of legalities and liabilities, Apple does "let" you buy and install OS X on any machine. Supporting a broad range of hardware is a whole other rat's nest. And nothing's stopping you from installing third-party hardware and its accompanying driver on your Hackintosh, this does work.

That said, my Hackintosh days ended with the realization that the hardware was as important to me as the software.

Hackintoshes are not allowed by the license agreement:

"2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions. A. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time."

I think you're quoting a rather old EULA. Here's the one I have for Lion:

  2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.  
  A. Standard and Preinstalled Apple Software License. 
  Subject to the terms and conditions of this 
  License, *unless you obtained the Apple Software from the 
  Mac App Store*, on Apple-branded 
  physical media (e.g., on an Apple-branded USB memory stick)  
  or under a volume license, 
  maintenance or other written agreement from Apple, you are
  granted a limited, non-exclusive license 
  to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software 
  on a single Apple-branded computer at any one time. For 
  example, these standard single-copy license terms apply to
  you if you obtained the Apple Software preinstalled on 
  Apple-branded hardware.

A long winded article that basically calls at issue Microsoft risk taking changes with Windows 8. I think OP would be happy if Windows 8, was just Windows 7.5 - change is scary.

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