Hacker News Reader

Comment by Metrop0218 | Hacker News Reader

"get a tablet with so many unknowns?"

There will be 0 unknowns a month after they get released. There are unknowns now because it is an unreleased product. Using that as a point against the success of the system is moronic.

View on HN

Are you sure? iOS has 5 years in the market and plenty of apps, Android 4 years and also plenty of apps. Both have matured and you probably know a geek or two who use them and can answer your questions. Windows 8 will be a newcomer with less apps at your disposal and probably no geek nearby to ask questions. Lots of unkowns for me.

Face it, they are really late in the game this time.

For business use, how many apps do you need? They're going to sell it to enterprise users by Microsoft Office, which is a safer bet for interoperability than Numbers/Pages/Keynote on an iPad. Apple beats them handily in number of 99¢ games and Instagram clones, but it's much more even in the areas that matter in enterprise.

And how often do you need to ask a geek a question about an iPad? There isn't much of a learning curve, and anybody who has owned one can probably answer most questions. Hopefully (I haven't used it myself) the Win8 tablets are similar in that regard. In my opinion, it'll mostly depend on whether they do the 8-levels-deep-control-panel and features with no visible interface (like the desktop's start menu and sidebar).

The future will tell, but I don't think tablets are very enterprisey. All the people I know use tablets casually, for work a larger screen and a good keyboard are golden.

I believe if there was a strong use case for tablets in the office, businesses would have bought iPads by now and many enterprise apps would have appeared, the compatibility in iWork is really good and it has all the hardware you could need. It's not like all managers are waiting for Windows 8 tablets as their savior, I think it's a fantasy that the world is waiting for Microsoft to enter the tablet market.

And it's not just a matter of solving OS problems, the geeks I know are usually in the position in which people go to ask if something is good before they buy it. If people come to ask me about a tablet with Windows 8 today I'll answer "I have no idea idea if it's good, but I have an iPad and it's great. Here, try it.". What do you think they'll do next?

If the rumors are true and Microsoft releases Office for iPad in November I think the biggest argument in favor of Win8 (which I agree with) will be no longer valid.

I don't think so, Windows is a well known brand. The average consumer won't be oblivious to them, I can understand it taking time for my grandmother to learn about it, but for people who actively use technology daily, they'll learn a lot about it quickly. There's a ridiculous number of Win8 touch screen devices coming to market this fall (something in the 30-40 devices range). Since every hardware manufacturer is going to be pushing it, it's going to become well known quickly. When the world's largest ecosystem pushes a new product, it tends to work.

I feel that people who keep comparing Win 8 to vista really have no idea what Win 8 even is. The quality bar is very high. I believe it'll do well.

Windows on the desktop is a known and reliable brand, nobody can deny that. However, Windows on the tablet is an unkown today, and people seem comfortable and used to using a non-Windows OS in their tablets and phones, it's a radically different situation.

I think it's a mistake to believe that people will choose Windows 8 in their tablets and phones just because it's Windows. Otherwise it would have worked wonders with Windows CE and Windows Phone, and it didn't. There are other factors in play, and as I said in another answer, the world is not waiting for Microsoft to catch up.

It has been way more than a month since Windows Phone 7 has been released and it's still an unknown as far as its app ecosystem is concerned. Who knows what will happen to this W8 tablet, because WP7 which has the same interface, Metro, hasn't been a great success.

The WP7 app ecosystem is pretty all encompassing. It has over 100k apps and you can find anything you want in there.

It is missing some big names like instagram, but the fact that many of the major app names have decided to adopt WP7 should also stand for something.

People are rightfully worried about the chicken-egg problem.

Will 3rd parties support it? Well, does it have users? Will it have users? Well, is there third party support?

Either the customers or the 3rd party developpers have to make the first gamble.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com