Windows 8 in its current form is very different; attractive in some ways, and disturbing in others. It combines an interesting new interface with baffling changes to Windows compatibility, and amateur mistakes in customer messaging. Add up all the changes, and I am very worried that Microsoft may be about to shoot itself in the foot spectacularly. Even the plain colorful graphics in Windows 8 that looked so cool when I first saw them are starting to look ominous to me, like the hotel decor in "The Shining".
...shutdown requires five actions: a hover, a sweep, and three clicks. Plus the command is hidden in a very non-intuitive place. People used to joke that only Microsoft could think it was intuitive to have the Shut Down command hidden under the Start button. I think it's sooooo much more intuitive to have it hidden under Settings
If you're not a Windows user, it is hard to describe how disorienting this is. It's roughly equivalent to giving someone a car in which the steering wheel has been replaced by a joystick. Not only do you need to learn how to steer with a joystick, but all of the controls formerly attached to the steering column are now scattered in various spots on the dashboard. The wiper control is a lever above the radio, the high beam lights are a switch on the rearview mirror, the turn signal is a set of buttons under the speedometer, and the cruise control is a dial hidden inside the ashtray. Oh, and you honk the horn by bouncing up and down in your seat.
Unfortunately, although Windows 8 may have a light hardware footprint, it has compatibility problems with some existing hardware, including some Windows 7 computers. Computers designed for Vista can have much more serious problems. This became very clear to me when I installed Windows 8 on my Vista-based mini tablet PC. Windows 8 is not compatible with the wireless network chips in my tablet PC, so it can no longer connect to the Internet.
If you're a productivity worker, Windows 8 does very little for you, and in fact probably makes your life harder.
"Something unusual happened Monday in New York: Microsoft launched a new smartphone platform and no one hated it. And no, I'm not joking"
"Windows Phone 7 is the slickest, most impressive version of Windows on a mobile phone that Microsoft has yet produced. But that’s not saying much – and even if the actual quality of the operating system has much to recommend it, it offers little that will revolutionise the very crowded smartphone market."
"Best I can tell, there's nothing you can do on Windows Phone 7 devices that you can't do on an iPhone, BlackBerry or Google Android device."
"No caveats now: Windows Phone 7 is a waste of time and money. It’s a platform that no carrier, device maker, developer, or user should bother with. Microsoft should kill it before it ships and admit that it’s out of the mobile game for good...anyone who gets one will prefer a lump of coal. I really mean that."
"Windows Phone 7 already has been declared a "disaster" and a "doomed" enterprise with a failed business model. It's a "step back" according to some number of developers and users of the older, and now incompatible, Windows Mobile OS."http://www.cio.com/article/623227/Microsoft_s_Mobile_Ambitions_Ride_on_New_Windows_Phone_7_Handsets
"But good is not enough. I'm not talking about a couple of missing feature like copy and paste, which the company promises will arrive shortly. Can Microsoft create a platform that stands out enough to compete with Android and Apple? Will it be different enough that consumers are hungry for it? Will it be pervasive enough that developers want to invest limited resources in making apps for it?
If there is a company that has the heft to launch a competitive offering, it's Microsoft. Ballmer has spent a reported $400 million to advertise its new operating system, and he has the necessary partnerships with carriers to be taken seriously. But if that's not enough, the company won't get another "do-over." It might be time for Ballmer to set his sights on an external acquisition like the engineering powerhouse Research in Motion."
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/11/microsoft-windows-phone-7-simply-not-that-different/
"There's no kind way to say it: Windows Phone 7 will be a failure. Windows Phone 7 is a pale imitation of the 2007-era iPhone. Microsoft has not only just made an imperfect copy of an old iPhone, it has not kept up with the current mobile OS crop nor moved ahead of any of them. I can't tell you how much Windows Phone 7 feels like the early 1990s' Windows 3.1, a clunky attempt to copy that era's Apple System 7.This beauty comes from "Tech Radar":
"Microsoft needs to kill Windows Phone 7 and avoid further embarrassing itself by shipping this throwback. It's not a question of whether Windows Phone 7 will fail -- it will -- but how long it will take Microsoft to admit the failure. For the company's sake, the earlier it fesses up, the better." - Galen Gruman, Infoworld
"The best way to describe Windows Phone 7 is as another dimension to the smartphone market - it doesn't offer anything new... playing catch-up."
"Overall, the mail experience is solid, but not best in class. There's a lot here that is laudable (like the sheer snappiness of it), but there's also a fair amount that's missing. We'd really like to see Microsoft strive for threaded messaging, joined inboxes, and an improved server-side search by the time this hits the market, but we're guessing that's asking a lot.
"We know this is still unfinished software, but this feels like something that should be already squared away.
"Zooming out to see as much of the page as possible isn't ... pretty; in its current incarnation, the browser seems to be using a pretty awful scaling algorithm, and small text looks like a jumble of jaggy, meaningless blocks without a hint of anti-aliasing. We'll admit, it makes browsing just a little less fun.
"If you've got a lot of Facebook friends, this renders your People app all but useless as a traditional phone contact list. Currently, Windows Phone 7 has no dedicated Facebook app, so that's part of the problem -- your Facebook friends simply have no place to live other than your primary contact list. What's strangest about all of this, though, is that as socially-aware as Windows Phone 7 seeks to be, there's not a lick of Twitter integration to be found.
"...putting out a product that's half-baked risks alienating early adopters at the worst possible time..." - Joshua Topolsky, Engadget
"...functionally retarded". -Paul Thurrott
