Submitted by You can say what you will about Windows Phone and Windows 8’s Metro interface (I refuse to drop that name) – it’s inefficient, unpopular, cumbersome, beautiful, ugly, organised, clean, limiting – but there’s one thing we can all agree on: it’s unique and distinctive. CNet has published a profile of Microsoft’s Albert Shum, the man behind Metro, and he highlights what I think is at the very core of Microsoft’s problems in mobile right now.
There’s a lot of interesting stuff in the article, but one part stood out to me because it really touches upon the very core of Microsoft’s problems right now.
“This isn’t about skeuomorphism,” Shum said. “It’s about shifting the paradigm” away from those representations of physical objects to cleaner, crisper graphics.For Microsoft to have any success with Windows Phone, that’s key. Shum and his colleagues realize that to win over smartphone customers, they can’t simply produce an operating system that’s merely a better version of what rivals are already making.
“We have a very clear point of view,” Shum said. “We’re very clear about that.”
It’s easy to conclude that because of the (so far) failure of Windows Phone’s and Windows 8’s Metro to make any significant dent in the market, Metro as a whole, and thus, digital design, is not what consumers want. In less obtuse words, that Metro is the reason why Windows Phone and Windows 8 aren’t successful.
This reasoning has never held up to scrutiny very well. Quantity does not equate quality – if it were, Windows would be the best desktop operating system by a huge margin, and Mac OS X, Linux, and other systems are all piles of junk. Following this broken line of reasoning, those horrible Transformer films are better instances of cinematography than, say, Philadelphia (two random examples). You could go on for bloody hours with examples like this.
The supposed relationship between quantity and quality is often abused when arguing the merits of one computing platform over the other. This has gone through a bit of a resurgence these past few years when talking about application stores for mobile platforms, with Apple, Google, Microsoft, BlackBerry, and their respective supporters, touting the amount of applications in their store as some sort of measure of quality – even though for each and every one of those stores, 99.5% of the applications within it are crap, at best, or spam, at worst.
I’d love it if companies released figures about this, but I’d guess that about 80% of applications in the App Store and Play Store aren’t downloaded more than a few hundred times. Considering the installed base of both platforms, that’s pathetic. You could remove all of this superfluous stuff from the stores, and nobody would care. In fact, Google removed 60000 applications from the Play Store in February; I doubt anyone cared.
While it is possible that consumers really don’t like Metro and that thus, it is a contributing factor to Microsoft’s lack of success, there’s no way to confirm there’s a causal relationship between the two. This is where the second point raised by Shum in the quote above comes into play.
Shum states that in order for Windows Phone to succeed, it can’t just create a slightly better version of what the competition has to offer. Here, I think, is where Windows Phone’s problems lie (and to a lesser extent, Windows 8’s problems in mobile as well). As much as I personally like Windows Phone and prefer it over iOS and Android, I’m clear-minded enough to see that it simply isn’t significantly better than the competition. There’s nothing you can do on Windows Phone that you can’t do on iOS or Android; in fact, I would say that there’s a lot Windows Phone cannot do that especially Android can.
Even if you simply compare the base features iOS, Android, and Windows Phone have, there’s nothing Windows Phone really does better. I personally think the interface is a bit more pleasant for the way I use my smartphone, but it’s not like moving back to iOS or Android (or even Symbian Belle) leaves me craving for my preferred platform.
Sure, Windows Phone is distinctly different from its competitors in how it looks, but just as quantity does not equate to quality, nor does being different. Microsoft’s advertising for Windows Phone and Windows 8 focuses heavily on this particular aspect – being different – but if users don’t see any benefits they won’t care about it at all.
In order for Microsoft to convince users to switch to Windows Phone, the company has to offer significant advantages over the competition, and so far, they have simply failed to do so. I have no idea what Microsoft needs to do in order to overcome this problem, but it looks like what they’ve been doing so far has not made much of a difference. While carriers may play a role in the US and other restricted smartphone markets, many of us Europeans are free to choose whatever we want – so no, I don’t think carriers are the solution to Microsoft’s problems either.
BlackBerry is in the same boat as Microsoft, and Ubuntu, Mozilla, and Jolla are all in danger of joining them. These newcomers to the market need to take a long and hard look at what Microsoft has been doing wrong with Windows Phone, and hopefully, learn from it. I don’t want the current horror scenario of an 80-20 split between Android and iOS respectively to be maintained for much longer.
You may like metro, but the vast majority of the people that I have observed with a Windows tablet or phone find it cumbersome and less intuitive than Apple´s iOS or Android.
I have seen this in retail stores and at major channel distributors where retail outlets get their stuff and test it beforehand. The subjective experience of millions is what is condemning the Windows mobile platform, despite the huge amount of marketing money that a company as huge as Microsoft has put into it.
All in all, I think the cat´s out of the bag and people have finally seen that there is a world of computing to be had away from Microsoft´s wares and they are not looking back.
Interestingly, this is making many users more willing to try new things in the desktop as well. Once fear is gone and people begin to realize that other operating systems do exist and can get the job done, people begin to get curious.
We opened a small line of business transitioning people to floss operating systems and applications three years ago and have moved over 3000 business and home customers to linux without doing much advertising at all. Word of mouth is enough to get people in the door.
So, yeah, the cat´s out of the bag.
Edited 2013-04-14 18:45 UTC
It’s hit and miss for me desktop/mouse wise, but I like it on my surface. I haven’t used a Windows Phone (or any smartphone for that matter. To hell with phones haha).
Not sure what “cat out of the bag” means. Although Metro is hit and miss, the only cat out of the bag to me is that Microsoft released something into the mainstream that eschews the older desktop icon paradigm. While we can argue it may not be executed greatly (I don’t mind it), it does change the playing field a bit. Who knows what other interfaces will come into favor because of this? That’s the only cat out of the bag. I’m willing to bet even Apple is considering some new ideas. And even improve upon the direction Microsoft is going.
BTW, this is my first post, but I’m a longtime lurker, and have owned Macs and PCs since my childhood in the early 90s. I’m just fan of computers in general. Just saying.. I’m not a shill. Seems like anyone who likes Windows is accused of being a shill these days
Edited 2013-04-14 19:05 UTC
Just to add to my previous comment, this conversation about platforms ultimately is neither here or there, for me. I think my attention has shifted to ecosystems. I like dabbling with different platforms, but what really wins me over and ties me down is an ecosystem. One reason I’ve been sticking with Microsoft strongly is their entire product line. I’m an Xbox fan, I use Office, I use Windows, and now even like Outlook.com more than Gmail. Hell, I even use a Nook, which is slightly aligned to MS. I would prefer a very neutral ecosystem where I can shift on dozens of devices and not feel out of place, but there isn’t one (I used to think it was Google, but they become a huge platform in and of themselves).
“childhood in the 90s” Well that puts you in a recent tech generation. My parents had their childhood in the 90s, they had to replace a laptop that recently broke and all I hear from them is bad bad bad about metro.
sorry typo, 1950s for my parents.
It’s always the vast majority isn’t it? It’s never just the majority.
And exactly how many people have you observed? 1? 2? 5?
Irresepective of your answer, the point is that you have observed an extremely small sample set of the people using the product, and it therefore doesn’t matter.
People are definitely not buying Windows phones. That’s true enough. But that fact alone doesn’t support any of your assertions.
There’s no evidence to suggest that the handful of people that actually do buy MS phones don’t like them.
It is my personal opinion (based on my own equally limited viewpoint) that people simply are not aware of Microsoft’s offering. The people I know simply buy another iPhone or Android, and are surprised when they see the phone I’m using.
I regularly have to explain the difference between an S3, and my AtivS.
I’ve seen a few MS ads for the Surface, and one or two for the Lumia, but I think MS just needs to spend a bit of cash on advertising.
You obviously have not seen the amount of advertising that MS has done in the UK for their latest OS. Lots on TV. Full page spreads in newspapers and magazines etc etc.
Just go into the main High St retailer (Currys/PC World) and all you will see is Windows 8 on show. It is very rare to find anyone using it.
KB shortcuts are all right is you are right handed.
METRO is a complete waste of time as far as I’m concerned (on the desktop). This move towards full screen everything is a real PITA (IMHO).
No one I know has a good word to say for it.
I will continue to use Windows 7. When I can’t do so any longer than it will be time for me to say ‘bye-bye’ to MS and I’ve been in Computing longer than MS has been a company. I will not use TIFKAM/METRO and there is not way anyone from MS can make me change my mind.
Hard numbers are difficult to find because Microsoft does not disclose them. But it seems generally agreed upon that one metric (return rates) is not favorable towards Windows Phone.
Generally agreed upon by whom? People on this website? That’s hardly indicative of the general public. And if, as you say, we have no hard numbers, on what are we basing our agreement? Intuition?
I have no problem with speculation. Speculation is fine. But lets be honest; nobody here really knows for sure why WP8 is not selling.
I would guess though, that Metro has very little, if anything, to do with WP8’s poor sales. I’d also guess that Metro has quite a lot to do with why Windows 8 isn’t selling on the desktop.
Not by people on this website or the general public, but by industry observers and people in the know. In the absence of hard data this is the closest that you get.
But I tend to consider this plausible, as one of the effects of high return rates is reluctance of sales staff to sell the device (which has been directly observed), and Surface RT is shares many of the same problems as Windows Phone and also sees high return rates.
Source?
Both topics have been extensively covered by the mainstream tech press already. I think from all articles, the seekingalpha one is the most damning.
Surface RT return rates:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57566759-75/microsoft-surface-sal…
Salespeople don’t recommend Lumias:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/att-lumia-retail/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-57412215-266/is-at-ts-sales-force…
Stores hiding Lumia phones and advertisements from customers
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-05/nokia-fighting-for-at-t-sh…
http://m.seekingalpha.com/article/1241121 (disable JavaScript in your browser to read the full article without registering)
A single article with a passing mention of return rates with no sources, detail, or substantiation is â€extensively covered?†Talk about weasel words. Do you believe everything you read on the internet?
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/26/androids-dirty-secret-shipping-num…
Busted. Your 2 years old unrelated techcrunch link is for what?
I have only given you an example. I did not list all articles. Searching the web for “Surface RT return rates” will give you dozens of results including ones from reputable online publications.
And if you had bothered to read the article, you would have noticed that the high return rates were quoted from IHS iSupply.
Actually people are buying Windows phones. But not to the numbers of an Apple or Android device. This is what gets people confused about platforms. Windows Phone has its own community thriving on several websites including Nokia’s own.
Also what I see confusing people are sales numbers for the USA only. Nokia sells globally. Their Windows Phone sales has actually been pretty good for what they set out to accomplish.
Its actually REALLY simple, while it may or may not work on a phone on a desktop? Its putting handlebars on a pickup truck and saying “You are a luddite if you don’t embrace the innovation”…uhh, your “innovation” is not as good as what we had before and in many ways its very much worse and THAT is why people aren’t buying it.
I mean the last conversation I had here over Metro pretty much nailed it when i pointed out how stupid it was to have shutdown under the icon that stands for options and people popped up saying “So THAT is how you shut it down” because before that they were going the long way around by logging out and getting to it from there.
If a bunch of geeks that spend their time playing with weird OSes (hence why we come to OSNews) can’t even figure out how to shut the stupid thing down without just randomly pushing buttons, what chance does Joe Average have? Its NOT intuitive, its NOT discoverable, I have picked up even the more offbeat Linux DEs fairly quickly yet this OS had me beating my head against the wall. I could go on but i think this video says it better than I could..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo
And even looking for the shutdown option is wrong. You’re supposed to use the power button. The button that is DESIGNED to Power On and Power Off the device.
Like much of Windows 8 that’s inefficient if my hand is already on the mouse.
Oh BTW the market has already voted and thinks this OS is shit. Scream “you’re doing it wrong” all you want but the market has voted just as we Windows 8 critics said they would before this POS was released.
I don’t run Windows 8 either.
But still press the power button. Otherwise you’re doing it wrong.
That is the dumbest thing I have heard all day.
Even if it takes me less effort to use a software button that achieves the exact same goal I’m doing it wrong if I’m not using the hardware button.
That is what you believe, right?
Jerkface its even better than that if you think about it, the irony is moist and most delicious as he is doin it wrong since the power button doesn’t shut down most PCs anymore. The default on my netbook is S3 sleep, on my friend’s its hybroid sleep, and I have seen others that hibernate, so just by following his “advice” you would fail to accomplish the task on the majority of laptops out there.
If that isn’t the perfect metaphor for Win 8, where even the defenders don’t know how to get basic tasks done with the thing? Then i don’t know what is…classic.
That’s logical thinking that is not in service of the empire.
You’re doing it wrong.
I do so hate the “You are doing it wrong” comments. I know how to use it and can mod it. I can find a way to work around all the irritations.
But overall I don’t like it at all. Metro is a horrible mess. It’s like Microsoft threw out everything about interface design and just gave developers a full screen to put whatever they wanted in it with no guidance.
There is no standard way to letting the user know what is even clickable.
WRONG SIR, You are WRONG, someone call a press conference because you are horribly horribly WRONG. I kid but I will show you why that isn’t anywhere close to correct..
Why are you wrong? Simple because on Windows computers the power button can do one of several things based on manufacturer and model so you have taken what should be one of the most simple operations and you sir have made it COMPLETELY RANDOM. It can 1.- SHUT DOWN, 2.-SLEEP, 3.-HIBERNATE, 4.-HYBRID SLEEP…now do you see the problem?
So the fact that you and several other believe you should have to use a hardware fix for what is plainly a software problem just shows how badly thought out TIFKAM is, its NOT intuitive, NOT discoverable, and as your post just demonstrated takes even simple tasks and makes them worse than what came before.
I have my power button set to suspend in Win7 laptop, and if I want to shut down (or restart) I explicitly tell my machine to do so through Start/Shut down/Restart buttons.
Setting Win7 to act like this is a matter of seconds, even for less experienced users. If Win8 is making it hard to setup the same functionality than I wonder who is “doing it wrong”, me or usability expert at Microsoft.
The key sentence for me was:
“There’s plenty of white space, reducing graphical clutter that often confuses users.”
That’s primarily lazy writing, but I find it emblematic of the current zeitgeist on OS design generally and do think Microsoft tries to convince themselves and others that it is true.
That other OSes are inherently “cluttered” or that this clutter “often” confuses them. Or that there is nothing confusing about white space or a myriad other choices made in their own designs. There are always “confused” users, true confusions, inconsistency, and any number of choices that have pros/cons in design.
Arguing that iOS is “cluttered”, “confusing”, less usable, or any other number of things is not a wise choice. Treating it as common knowledge or accepted truth is suicide.
Edited 2013-04-14 19:34 UTC
But iOS *is* confusing. Just like every other platform.
All platforms are obtuse, complicated, and confusing. You just have to pick which one pisses you off the least.
Which is what I said. And I also happen to believe, argue, and think it is more readily arguable that iOS is one of the least confusing/frustrating/difficult to use OSes.
Only if you’re a Teletubby,Dude, only if you’re a Teletubby.
I only partly agree to the statement, For me iOS is akin to visual basic:
Great for simple tasks, beginner can learn to use it quite fast. But for advanced task it soon begin to be a pain.
Indeed it is. The trick is to not do anything too advanced with it. For consuming data and staying within the confines of an application, the experience is excellent.
It’s when people try to use their iOS device as a computing device that the limitations become evident. iOS is application focused, so data is walled off in a binary blob for each application. This is nice for backup purposes and space, but it makes sharing data between application extremely hard.
Android allows application access to the filesystem which allows different apps to share data readily, which makes is easier to use it as a computing device.
Indeed.
However, the platform that is pissing me of the least is always the one I’m currently not using (for obvious reasons). The choice is not an easy one.
Nope. Part of my job is teaching people with brain injuries how to use our apps (iOS). The huge difference between iOS/Android and Win8 is that on iOS/Android, all available actions are afforded by the UI. On Win8 you need to know and remember several non-obvious gestures to find functionality in the UI that you otherwise would never stumble across.
There is a HUGE difference between an interface that you can use by exploration, and one that requires memory. Yes most people can _learn_ to use Windows 8, but essentially no one can figure it out without instruction.
Nevermind the distinction between desktop and metro mode on Win8 tablets, trying to explain that to a non-technical user is hopeless.
As for Metro itself, the reason it is beautiful is humans appreciate simplicity. This is the trick that is used on every mockup for any new UI. The designers leave out the necessary complexity and it looks great. The problem with Metro is that they tried to actually take their beautiful mockups to market as a product, and so we ended up with the beautiful but completely unusable apps like the Windows App store, Windows Photo app, Windows Mail app, etc that are universally hated.
Edited 2013-04-14 23:54 UTC
You can replace “use” with another verb and “Windows 8” with another noun, and it’s still true.
Is it?
Yes most people can learn to resurrect Abraham Lincoln, but essentially no one can figure it out without instruction
I agree with that. I don’t think just any actor could play Ab Lincoln, and we don’t have the instructions necessary to resurrect the dead.
I saw great potential for silliness in that statement.
Yes, most people can conciliate ducks, but essentially no one can figure it out without instruction.
It also takes for granted the knowledge we’ve acquired over out lifespans. Of course people living in 2013 know what an icon is or how to send an email, these are just things that we’ve come to accept as normal, general knowledge.
The key is “come to accept as normal”. We’ve forgotten that at some point someone explained what an icon is and what is necessary to send an email. Everything we know is from instructions passed down from someone else beginning with the person who originated the concept or idea.
The only things we can do without instruction are excrete waste, breath, and feed, maybe. Everything else, we’ve learned.
That is true but it doesn’t negate the fact that some interfaces are just plain awful.
What amazes me is this…how can you get it so wrong when you have obvious examples of what work? I mean sure you don’t want to put out a copy, but just because you don’t want to copy a Chevy doesn’t mean you put handlebars on your new pickup truck, that is just dumb. They did the same stupidity with GFWL, which should be a lesson in “how NOT to sell games” as the whole UI is so badly made you often can’t even find what you are seriously TRYING to give them money for!
The real stupid part is you had all these beta testers, people that cared enough to actually 1.-Download the OS, 2.-Install it on actual hardware, 3.-Run the OS day to day and 4.- Be willing to report the findings in the hopes of making the OS better. These are guys that frankly are ALREADY in your corner so just ignoring them when they tell you “This is just terrible” is just asking for it. I mean what did the beta testers say about the last two? That Vista was terrible and Win 7 was great, and what do ya know but Vista flopped and Win 7 sold well. Just goes to show that if a company is determined to do something REALLY dumb all the warnings in the world just ain’t gonna help.
So Vista was terrible, and VistaSE (aka Windows “let’s use a marketing trick of lucky 7“) great and adored… that does put some perspective on the potential of Win 8.1
I’m sorry but you are wrong. The other OSes generally have some sort of context to give you hints and clues about where to go and what to do. Gnome had the menu in the top corner that says “Menu” and you click that and voila! Programs loaded by category, or at least that is the way it was last I tried it. Windows had a start button labeled…well start. You want to do something? Start there. since XP it remembered most used and put those in the start for easy access, your grandma could use it.
Win 8 TIFKAM is VERY obviously designed by some art major who is into minimalism because it doesn’t tell you squat, what few things that are labeled are frankly labeled wrong (for example the “start” in win 8 is more like a task panel than a traditional start, Charms is where gadgets were with no explanation) and they don’t even make sense in context, like how one has to aim for a corner to get the charms which clearly come from the middle and autohide to the middle…wha?
Any way you slice it TIFKAM is just a badly designed desktop OS. Now it may work great on a phone, don’t have nor desire a WinPhone, but if anything that would tell me they are just shoehorning a mobile UI onto a desktop to cynically force people to “get used to it” and try to get some mobile share which the numbers show just ain’t happening.
Its just not a nice UI on a non touch desktop and the OEMs have made it clear touch is a big DO NOT WANT from the consumers as they just don’t sell. It reminds me of how MSFT and Intel raised prices to kill the netbook, thinking that ultrabooks at 4 times the price would take those customers…who instead just bought an iPad or Android tablet. Its as old as retail, give folks what they want or they go somewhere else.
I’ve never heard a single person in the real world describe iOS as confusing. It has its issues but I certainly don’t hear it described as “fucking stupid” like I have with Windows 8.
Heh, you weren’t at my house for the few months I had a 2nd Generation iPod Touch. Had iOS 3.something, upgraded a few times, had iOS 4.something when I finally gave up on it.
This was even before I had an Android device.
I cursed and swore at the thing almost non-stop trying to figure out how to manoeuvre around the interface. Every single app behaved differently, settings were strewn about in 2 or 3 different places (and in completely separate apps to boot!), switching apps was a pain, organising apps was a pain, and only having a single hardware button was frustrating beyond belief.
My wife spent even less time with it before giving up in frustration. She did call it stupid a few times, and many other choice words.
I couldn’t agree more. The only reason I’m using an Android phone right now instead of my HTC Arrive WP7 phone is because of little bugs unrelated to Metro or the WP7 interface itself. It seems that a lot of the third party apps I use are just poorly made, and fall victim to what may be bugs in the core of the OS. Last.fm for example, which would be amazing on the Arrive since you get unlimited internet radio on that platform (you have to pay for a subscription to get that on Android), instead falls on its face. The app sometimes takes up to five minutes to load, no matter how good the connection is, and often never loads at all. When it does manage to start, it will play about ten songs before locking up. Even on WiFi it craps out all the time.
That’s just one example of many, and I think it’s something deep in the bowels of the OS that is causing it. Perhaps these issues don’t exist on WP8, but I wouldn’t know since Sprint obviously has no desire to stick with the platform. I even managed to update the phone to the official 7.8 ROM ahead of the release schedule, and while it fixed a few bugs it introduced many more.
I also think Metro is fantastic on tablets, but I feel it has no place whatsoever on laptops and desktop PCs. Browsing around a computer store the other day, I came across a touch-enabled Sony laptop with Windows 8. The first time I lightly touched the screen to open an app, the laptop nearly fell over. I realize people want their laptops to be as thin and light as a tablet, but when you have to use one hand to steady the base so you don’t tip the entire machine over when touching the screen, you get the feeling a touch interface has no business on a traditional laptop.
Windows 8 “full version” should come with a way to turn Metro off completely for traditional machines, and only be on all the time for tablets and phones. But that’s an old, dead argument since it’s obvious which direction Microsoft is going.
To me, Metro has two big problems:
1) I don’t really see how it can develop. How will metro apps like in two years? Microsoft’s apps in Windows 8 should show the world all the cool stuff you can do with Metro. Instead, they show how limiting it is. I don’t see anyone creating really cool, unique apps. They all look the same – squares + text and one or two colours.
2) Yes, it is simple and clean, but I wonder if it is too simple, that it makes it really hard to make apps that do a little more than showing lists of photos with text. I don’t really see MS releasing a Metro version of Office without doing a lot of custom stuff with Metro. I used WP 7 for six months, and all the power apps, you know the apps with a lot of screens and a lot of features, felt messy. Even the Facebook app that is built by Microsoft was pretty bad. It felt like Metro just didn’t work for that kind of app.
I think Metro can look really nice, especially on AMOLED displays with black background. I just think it gets boring quickly because it is so simple, which in turn makes apps boring, because developers try to keep their apps as simple as Metro.
I think Google has done a good job with Holo. It doesn’t mimick real-life objects, but still almost everyone seems to like it. It allows developers to build powerful apps, with unique looks and features, but still make it consistent with the rest of the system.
Edited 2013-04-14 20:14 UTC
Fully agree. Microsoft took Apple’s limiting approach. Android is still the most extensible mobile platform, to which developer-geeks will tend.
Microsoft has a vision problem. Comparing the first or second version of iOS and Windows Phone 8 is fair, but Microsoft apparently either can’t move fast enough or can’t see far enough ahead to know parity isn’t sufficient. That’s probably the worst thing for a business too.
Microsoft really got a developer problem and a brand recognition.
Almost everyone expect to run the same application on windows x86 and windows RT. Almost every developer expected to develop RT application as easily.
Plus we end up on Windows 8/RT with this dichotomy of touch interface and desktop that neither is integrated with the other.
I would like to buy a Windows RT device because it’s a windows laptop with office that can last a day, but I perceive the Metro UI as counter productive.
Different doesn’t necessarily imply or mean that it’s good.
Metro however has some good qualities, clean and flat UI for example, I’m not a fan of live tiles especially on a small screen.
The importance is striking a balance. Too much empty space and being completely flat isn’t the answer. Occasionally you need textures to be able to emphasise certain key features.
Overall, Metro is a a plus but Microsoft’s biggest problem is that they themselves aren’t benefiting much from it. They’ve had an overall positive effect on the industry and we thank them for that but it’s been mostly good for their competitors.
I agree with you. Different does not always mean better.
Although I don’t really like the flat look of Metro. It looks too cheesy, and uses too much space. I am happy to be a FreeBSD user, though it has some rough edges, but I still like it on my desktop anyways.
The biggest quality of Metro is its advanced animating transitions. It’s in fact technical and not entirely related to its design choices.
Android for one could possibly adopt such transitions without affecting Holo design language. The technical restrictions keep it from doing that.
Blackberry isn’t having troubles, or so it seems. They have a QWERTY just released, and the full screen, they have plenty of apps, and IT WORKS AS A PHONE!!!.
This even Android and iOS miss – they are more computers, while the blackberries are phones. When a call or SMS comes in, they are easily accessed. The keyboard is easy even on the touch screen version. I’m considering giving up my dumb-phone (which is a very, very good phone as phone), and moving my hotspot to one of these.
Microsoft made several mistakes – first is the lockout even for developers, so they are as bad if not worse than iOS. Their interface is nice, but note carefully there is no WinPad, or Zune that has no phone component, only the “Surface”, and the desktop is almost disjoint from the ARM ecosystem (which is disjoint from Xbox). They don’t have an ecosystem, they have an archipelago – with lots of really interesting finches and giant tortoises.
They created a new blob called “Metro”, and then threw it at everything, not trying to insure it worked with everything else smoothly or even fit in (Win 8 is thus not even a Chimera, more like some kind of lycanthrope that changes between two different animals). “Metro-in-a-window”, or “Metro-as-the-desktop” would have been better for a first pass.
God, if you don’t think the last five years have been troubling for Blackberry, then you’ve disqualified yourself from the conversation.
Edited 2013-04-14 22:48 UTC
May I also add, another problem WP8 is facingis that Microsoft is hard to trust in mobiles anymore. First they ditched Windows Mobile for WP7 (ok, understandable), then they marketed heavily WP7 and promised “18 months of upgrades”, just to leave WP7 phones not upgradeable to WP8. At least some Android phones got upgrades to the next major (2.3 -> 4.0) like the Galaxy S2. But no WP7 phone can be upgraded to WP8, because MS doesn’t allow it.
Which brings me to my second point: Not only WP doesn’t do anything better that the big two, it does some things worse. It’s usuallu behind hardware innovations and upgrades proved to be worse than Android.
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Problem is, Windows Phone is not better than Android/iOS in many regards. Technologically it is lagging behind. How long did it take to implement Copy&Paste? Multitasking? NFC? Wi-Fi Tethering? VPN?
Microsoft must close the technological gap to become interesting. But instead it seems to widen. Trends are missed almost entirely, like this year’s 1080p screen craze. We are now promised 1080p screens towards the end of the year, when it’s almost time for CES and MWC again. Did you note how all mobile innovation at MWC was presented on Android phones this year?
And this is even before the Modern/Metro UI comes into play. Consumers hate it, and are turning away from Windows 8 in droves. Windows 8 is better than Windows 7 on a technical level (boots faster, uses less memory, etc.), yet is off to a worse start than Vista according to many observers
Did it take?
In reality, multitasking as implemented in WP is useless as such, therefore not implemented. Two cases: * Skype/Facebook chat messages sent to me don’t arrive for hours sometime. And when my chats from the PC version of Skype or the Fb webpage eventually sync then the message order is more often than not way off (first all of my messages from the unsynced period, then all of the replys)
* Sports Tracker can ONLY track your activities when on the foreground and the phone is not locked. USELESS. I’ve been spamming here and there lately about stuff that an E52 with the dreaded Symbian COULD do…well…that.
So, in general, I agree with your sentiment, furthermore, I think you’ve been a bit too kind on them – one of the biggest tech companies in the world with loads of developers and supporting staff…and THIS is what they’ve come up with after all this time??
Another `problems with metro` thread. Nothing new being offered anywhere. If this subject won’t die, may we please have something fresh to discuss and reply to?
Metro itself is the problem. At least on the normal desktop computers without multitouch screens.
The only thing I’m worried about is if the complaints get to such a level that Microsoft scraps the direction they’re going (and not merely updates it), thinking everyone and their mom really wants Windows 7 again. I happen to think my Surface is damn nifty. I’d hate to see the whole Metro thing go the way of other failed tablet OS’s.
The thing that would piss me off more is if half of the complaints are from *nix and Apple users, who wouldn’t care about Windows anyhow. You know, like people putting things in a suggestion box when they have no interest in the product anyways.
I mean, is this all about how much Microsoft sucks, period. Or is it about how Microsoft has something decent and can work with and improve? I can’t tell who is offering productive criticism anymore.
Edited 2013-04-15 01:56 UTC
You do realize that windows with metro is doing badly on market even after all the money spent on advertising and, what is more worrisome, even on recognized brands and even with microsoft own launch, don´t you?
I already lost the count of people that asked me how to do simple things on windows 8 and that ended using one of the classic shells available (yeah, my own annedotical small sample).
You can pretend as much as you want that there is nothing wrong with metro and, frankly, what we think at this point does not matter, it is already on the wall and I can not see how MS can avoid to take out what is weird with metro and put back what is good about Windows 7.
Smart compnanies use what they already have and is seen as good to leverage other products, MS did it for years. Now, somehow, a crazy management came with this stupid idea that innovate on every product is the best move? This is a risk bet MS did not have to take. Would they provide a finished and very well integrated product to their loved Windows 7 and servers they would gain instantly the love of corporative users. It would be the tip they need to gain market, but “Huh, we are the almight MS, we can take the heat!” arrogant attitude is not going to help.
Obs: I like Windows 7 and recommend it to everyone, despite spending most of my time on linux. It is simple and direct to the point with the only possible hassles associated with malware, what can be easily (almost) avoided.
Edited 2013-04-15 15:55 UTC
While I quite agree, in this case – Microsoft needs to figure out how to keep the Win95-Win7 Desktop on the laptop/desktop form factors, while providing a new shell for the mobile form factors; and make them easily interchangeable. Not an easy job.
For years, Microsoft tried to embrace mobile as just another version of the Desktop. But mobile isn’t just another version of the Desktop. The Win95-Win7 desktop doesn’t work well for mobile.
So it was refreshing to see them trying something different for Win8 with Metro; but then they tried to go the other way – everything in Metro, and the desktop being just another form factor of mobile. Yet, that doesn’t work either.
The bigger problem being that to really do both desktop and mobile at its best, you have to embrace each as its own, apart from the other. And that means that software is going to have to be written (at least at the UI level) differently for each. Companies should generally like that as it means more sales; yet MS is trying to simply make them both the same, so you buy once and run every where.
In the end, MS is like a chicken running around with its head cut off, spurting blood on everything around it as it flails trying to determine what to do next.
You can visit Amazon to find out this is not the case.
Windows 8 has far more poor reviews than Windows 7. If it was just anti-MS hate then there wouldn’t be such a divergence.
I think Metro is nice for phones and tablets, but it just doesn’t work on desktops.
Enough of that is said already I guess.
But I do like to add something about live tiles. This is a feature most Metro fans bring up, often as their first point (and often only).
First off, they only work when you see them which is on the home screen. Thus when you are actually using your device… you don’t see them!
Second, remember when we all had BlackBerries and you tried to stare at your device and not blinking to see if there was a notification light? Live tiles aren’t that bad, but you do waste valuable seconds to see if anything is coming up. Live tiles work well displaying numbers, but if it’s more than that I don’t think they are very efficient communicating information.
One of my friends is a Boeing 737 Captain. I once asked him whether he preferred old style analogue gauges or modern computerised sytems. He told me that both systems were completely different but neither system was easier or more difficult to use overall.
Edited 2013-04-15 05:26 UTC
I have a Windows 7.8 Phone, Surface RT, and Win8 desktop.
I like Metro… but it has problems.
On the phone, it doesn’t behave like anything else. I can’t swipe between apps or to close an app. (Personally, I would like to try RT on a phone with desktop access completely removed and a dialler app installed.)
On the Surface RT I keep thinking that various classic desktop apps (calculator, for example) should have had bundled Metro versions from the outset. There’s still gaping holes in the app landscape too. It feels incomplete.
On the Desktop, it was far from intuitive to pick up, but once I got used to some new keyboard shortcuts I would rather stay in 8 than go back to 7. Also I keep finding myself wanting to touch the screen for certain functions now.
So it’s an unfinished environment that isn’t as consistent across devices as they’d like you to believe and the learning curve is steeper than it should be. That’s not a good combo, but for some reason I still like it.
I think the original idea of Metro on Windows was as a Trojan horse. Get people used to the interface and then they will demand it elsewhere.
The general reaction seem to have been the reverse. Either due to the interface itself or the state of the applications.
So in a way has it backfired and arrested WP8’s momentum?
Instead of learning to want or demand Metro, the average consumer is learning to reject it. Even where it makes sense.
There is little chance they are going to demand it anywhere but elsewhere.
Consider a parallel universe. In this parallel universe Microsoft faced the same challenges from iOS, Android and mobile devices that it did in this one. But in this parallel universe Microsoft did not opt to defend Windows above all else with the unappealing silliness that is Windows 8 on the desktop PC.
Instead in this parallel universe the first, and fast, response by Microsoft to the rise of iOS and Android was to produce a really good designed for touch inexpensive version of Office to run on those platforms. In this parallel universe Windows 8 was just an upgrade to the familiar Windows 7 interface but one which included absolutely first class tools for integrating and linking to the iOS and Android versions of Office, and Microsoft also produced a suite of tools for the Mac that made linking to the touch version of Office very easy.
The difference in the approach that Microsoft took in this parallel universe was that instead of focussing on defending Windows and it’s sales of an OS, it instead focussed on defending Office and on becoming the biggest productivity software supplier in the booming mobile device markets. This different approach in the parallel universe was based on Microsoft trying to actually solve problems and offer solutions for customers, by making an integrated and excellent touch version of Office. Instead what it did in this universe was to try to solve what it perceived to be it’s strategic mission, which was to defend Windows, by forcing customers to accept a disruptive and inappropriate new interface for the desktop which solved none of their problems.
In the parallel universe Microsoft did build the Metro interface for mobile devices and it failed to take off just as it did in this universe but in the parallel universe it didn’t matter because Microsoft had become a major software player in the new mobile markets with it’s productivity software.
What will probably actually happen in this universe is that Microsoft will eventually create a somewhat clunky and probably expensive version of Office for iOS and Android but it will be too late, by then nobody will care.
Microsoft defended Windows when it should have defended Office.
Normal people don’t use Office (the product name should tell you where it’s supposed to be used) in their phones. They use Facebook, chat applications and games. Period.
Wouldn’t work and here is why: Office is pretty much dead for anywhere except…well the office. Consumers simply buy a LOT more than businesses, especially since the downturn as many businesses have hunkered down and many see no gains in moving from the Office 2k3 or 2k7 they already have. The number of people actually wanting to run a full fledged office on a tablet? Not really a big enough niche to really care about, it really isn’t.
This is something i actually know a little about as I sell tech to SMBs and consumers and honestly I haven’t seen MS Office in anything but a non activated time limited trial on a consumer device in ages. Consumers just don’t use Office, heck I don’t even hand out Libre Office anymore unless asked, they are too busy on FB and Twitter and Skype and a bazillion other sites to really care about Office. If MSFT were to have done your plan they’d still bleed out, maybe a hair slower but not by much.
Jolla doesn’t have to sell a shitload of devices in order to be a success. BlackBerry and Microsoft do.
Nor does Canonical or Mozilla.
In the end, they’re all happy to just sell devices however large/small the market may be.
It’s not about market share to them. It’s about doing cool things with technology that show their own corporate visions for what the technology world should be like.
And Firefox OS is really pretty cool…
I really like the interface, it’s nice to use and the apps are great for viewing sites like wikipedia and amazon. Even the bing newspaper isn’t bad, much nicer than using a normal website.
But my machine is a laptop that I use to replace a desktop so most of my computing is done on the desktop and not with metro apps… then I discovered you could view a metro app and the desktop at the same time – the only problem is, is that one pane is so tiny it is barely useable. If they fix that it would be great.
My only annoyance is the amount of adware crap apps… and there is no way to block them like on a website, also the live tiles are really annyoing, I turn those off… it’s like watching a webpage with loads of animated gifs…
My only other problem is that MS has teams of usabilitiy experts and designers working on their apps… most other app developers don’t… and it shows. That’s the really bad bit… that makes the whole metro interface suffer.
It’s like the ribbon interface… that was tested by MS for ages and the location of buttons and what they do… everyone else (all the other developers) just used it as a really high menu bar with icons and stuffed every old menu option there…
The same happens to metro apps
That is also the problem with the tile icons… they are not all icons… some are basically just adverts… MS can make usability guides and style guides, but they can’t make app devs use them
Edited 2013-04-15 11:25 UTC
I think perhaps the single most important reason for the market rejection of Windows Phone and Windows 8 is that Metro is so unique and distinctive.
I believe people like Thom when they say they think Metro is beautiful. Personally I consider it perhaps the ugliest UI I have every seen. It basically fails at *everything* for me: flat boring boxes with text, monochrome colored icons (wtf!), no visual cues whatsoever and no familiar UI guidelines followed. All alternatives seem to be offering me a better user experience, whether it being Linux, OS X, iOS or Android.
And those live tiles. I simply cannot express how much I hate looking at them. For me they are more of an anti-feature.
The end result is that for an apparently large segment of the population the Metro UX itself is such a deal breaker that it doesn’t really matter what else the platform has to offer. A successful UI cannot afford to divide the tides like this, and that is why I think their phones are so unpopular.
Not so long ago MS were saying that the market leader is better, small upstarts should be ignored.
They also said that different is bad and will confuse users.
Can’t have it both ways…
As for the 80/20 split with android/ios, sure that’s a bad thing and at least 2 or more new competitors are sorely needed… That said, it’s far better than the 95/5 stranglehold MS have over the desktop market, and because of that i (and many others) will always avoid MS wherever i can.
I don’t think Microsoft is necessarily against “upstarts”. Hell, half of their products are fueled by enabling upstarts across many industries (servers, office automation, etc.). They’re as much as services company as a software one.
Samsung will switch to Tizen soon. That should massively reduce the Android marketshare.
You make money by serving customers, not by trying to force what they don’t want.
Of course the Win8 defense team will resort to their “fear of change” argument but Apple and Android devices are selling like crazy despite having interfaces that are different than Windows 7.
Even if you like Metro you have to admit that Windows 8 is a dumb business plan. Well you don’t have to admit it now but in the future it will be like flat earth theory. Business professors in the future will talk about Microsoft’s “Coke 2” and be amazed that so many defended such a stupid plan.
what a sad quote that is. even thom, a perpetual windows 8 sympathizer, is baffled by the anti-logic.
“This isn’t about skeuomorphism,” Shum said. “It’s about shifting the paradigm” away from those representations of physical objects to cleaner, crisper graphics.
so: it’s about shifting from skeuomorphism to not-skeuomorphism. it’s not about skeuomorphism. I’m going to assume the author is partly to blame for this idiocy
they can’t simply produce an operating system that’s merely a better version of what rivals are already making.
there are so many ways to take this apart that I’ve stumped myself. I quit
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2013/04/09/bbry-nok-up-aga…
well… Microsoft work what they know best, and what they do all time: copying and stealing.
but main problem for Microsoft is that we have internet today.
today news and informations are spread like fire.
in old days (80s), you could get information about computers only from printed magazines and if you read there e.g. that MS-DOS is good and DR-DOS is bad, you will buy MS-DOS
today Microsoft can not sell crap (or mediocrite, at least) products like they use to do.
btw they never had very good products, I never figure out why somebody would use anything from Microsoft, they always had 3rd rated products. but printed magazines created reality back than…
Edited 2013-04-17 09:14 UTC
Stop living/dreaming in your own imaginary world. People generally like MS products (Win7 being quite rightfully their most adored OS ever). And other options were still simply worse than Windows “back then”, at the time it took over.