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News Apple's Cook heaps scorn on Microsoft's Metro UI

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by brumgrunt, 25 Apr 2012.

  1. brumgrunt

    brumgrunt What's a Dremel?

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  2. steveo_mcg

    steveo_mcg What's a Dremel?

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    Cue apple haters in 3...2...1

    In defence of this Cook chap, IOS maybe be at heart Tiger or Snowleopard or what ever OS X is called this week but when you sit at a macbook you get a desktop OS when you use your iPad you get a touchscreen environment. They may have made a refrigetoaster but the toasting device is superficially separate from the fridge. MS seems to be trying to fit the heating element of the toaster into the vegetable drawer to push the image to extremes.
     
  3. Tangster

    Tangster Butt-kicking for goodness!

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    Does anyone else think that picture of Cook makes him look like this:
    [​IMG]

    Also, Metro UI=good on tablets and phones, bad on desktops and laptops.
     
  4. bigc90210

    bigc90210 Teh C

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    I want a refridgetoaster for my bedroom!
     
  5. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    I'm certainly not an Apple hater, but I do wonder if Cook protests too much. Metro is a genuinely innovative GUI and superb for mobile touch devices. It makes iOS look dated. I agree that Microsoft has tried to converge Windows Mobile with Windows desktop too early; better to follow Apple's approach and develop two seperate product lines and carry over to the other some features that have been proven by experience to work on one. But I would not sound so cocky, unless iOS 6 is going to be an absolutely spectacular innovation, like Windows Mobile 7 was compared to Windows Mobile 6.
     
  6. Dewi

    Dewi What's a Dremel?

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    If I could be bothered to sacrifice my lunch break looking for the reference, then I'd suspect that the Steve Jobs quote was about the fact that iOS is a modified version of Mac OSX; rather then being about a plan for a grand unified Operating System.

    I can't help but be sympathetic though to Cook's comments. The Metro desktop is designed for a touch screen tablet, and from what I understand the 'classic' desktop in Windows 8 isn't anywhere near as good as it is on Windows 7: hardly my idea of a universal OS. Also, I question the practicality of laptops where the primary means of manipulating the OS is though the touch screen. I use a tablet as my main web browser and media player, and a large part of the user experence is the way I hold the tablet and the gestures I use. I can't think of a way of handling a laptop that would allow me to swipe, and scrunch, and tap in anywhere near as fluid a way as I can on a tablet, simply because the tablet lies flat and you look down on it; whilst the laptop screen you look across from.
     
  7. Bede

    Bede Minimodder

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    Metro makes everything look dated. I have a Lumia 800 and WP7 makes Android and even iOS look amateur. I don't like the idea of Metro for the desktop, but it is an incredibly innovative design - if they hadn't forced it onto desktops I think Metro would have made the perfect phone environment, and a serious competition to the iOS and Android. As it is, it will be tarnished by association with the desktop fudge that is W8. Few will want to buy a phone using apparently the same software as Microsoft's latest unpopularity.
     
  8. faugusztin

    faugusztin I *am* the guy with two left hands

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    So, when i click this Launchpad icon, it absolutely doesn't bring up iOS-like UI, right ?

     
  9. lysaer

    lysaer Suck my unit! Kirk lazarus (2008)

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    I quite like the metro ui on desktop to be honest, once you get used to it is pretty flash

    Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 2
     
  10. thogil

    thogil What's a Dremel?

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    Your understanding would be wrong then. It has a few minor improvements.
     
  11. Dewi

    Dewi What's a Dremel?

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    I'd certainly agree that a lot of the issues raised on the web come down to personal preference. Things like the move to the ribbon interface in windows are a welcome development. But the legacy desktop still attempts to combine the metro elements designed for tablet computers with a working environment intended for PC's using mice and keyboards.

    An example would be the start menu, which has a redesigned all programmes (all apps???) submenu. This involves showing an array of apps across the screen. It's an interesting interface, but it's also shoehorning a tablet view onto a desktop screen. I've personally chossen a large monitor for my computer because I want to be able to fit more information onto my screen; not to release Microsoft to produce an interface that's larger and prettier but only ends up displaying the amount of information I could get on a 17 inch screen five years ago.

    Windows 8 preview (to me anyway) ends up giving me the impression that Microsoft expect to abandon the traditional desktop interface when Windows 9 comes along. It's a bit like when you tried to set up the old style desktop in Windows Vista. It was there, and clearly had been put there to give users a choice. But the effort wasn't put in, because Microsoft wanted you to move over to the aero basic interface.

    I think the point is that it's a different OS platform. There is a difference between making two OS's look similar and getting Mac OSX Lion to run on an iPad
     
    Last edited: 25 Apr 2012
  12. asmo

    asmo What's a Dremel?

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    I can't really comment on windows 8/metro or the new OSX. I think that things are moving towards a convergence between the desktop environment and the phone environment, its kind of inevitable.

    I can only comment on a similar thing that has already happened with linux. Ubuntu already did what microsoft have done. Their users weren't happy making linuxmint more popular. In fact ubuntus move to unity and Gnome 3s moving in the same direction forced the creation of MATE and Cinnamon. Personally I like XFCE/LXDE so no problems for me.

    Thing is though Microsoft have moved to where apple will be in the future. Maybe Mr Cook is a little annoyed at being pre-empted. I wont be moving to Win8 though.

    Both seem to be playing catch up with GNU/Linux though:D
     
    Last edited: 25 Apr 2012
  13. rogerrabbits

    rogerrabbits What's a Dremel?

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    Hrrm how the hell is making an OS work with both mice and touch screens mixing the unmixable? If you are going to take shots at Microsoft, at least pick your battles... This one just made the Apple guy sound stupid and also makes me wonder about their future if the visionary Jobs' replacement is someone who can't even see something so simple like this.
     
  14. Kovoet

    Kovoet What's a Dremel?

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    This is a case of "get over it apple" .

    sent from HTC Sensation
     
  15. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

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    Pfft, Apple. Rip-off, PoS, snobby, elitist tossers!

    I won't have anything to do with them.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    ;)
     
  16. rogerrabbits

    rogerrabbits What's a Dremel?

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  17. Brooxy

    Brooxy Loser of the Game

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    As much as I'm loving metro (on a laptop, not tablet) after about 6 hours of using it, I think it's going to cause Microsoft some issues when it gets released to the people that don't like change.

    Once setup correctly, it seems makes everything a lot faster getting to the applications you want. Between now and release I reckon that they'll make more improvements to it as well.

    As for Apple, if there ever was an ideal time for them to release OS X as a standalone OS for PCs and price the hell out of it, this would be it IMHO - as people will have to change UI at some point, they could use it to they're advantage saying that if you're changing, you may as well change to something that is designed for all your iProducts...

    Note I'm not a fan of OSX - merely stating that this would be an ideal time for Apple to gain marketshare by piggy-backing off the inevitable haters of Win8
     
    Last edited: 25 Apr 2012
  18. Tangster

    Tangster Butt-kicking for goodness!

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    Apple won't do that. They'd have to actually develop more than 5 drivers.
     
  19. Nanu

    Nanu What's a Dremel?

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    Lol.
     
  20. Paradigm Shifter

    Paradigm Shifter de nihilo nihil fit

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    And now the wait begins to see when Apple release a unified tablet/laptop/desktop OS, and associated patents so they can sue everyone else into oblivion...
     
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