News Windows 8 launch date confirmed as 26th October

The mobile device market is huge. Apple went from struggling company to richer than most small countries just by exploiting that niche. And with technology getting smaller, lighter and more powerful it is only going to expand. In 10 years time the desktop PC as we know it is going to be dead. The only stationary devices will be screens too big to carry around --and they will basically be extensions of mobile devices. This is the future: people carrying smartphones or tablet/laptop hybrids which they simply place on their desk to work with a large screen and full keyboard, and then take with them again afterwards; that automatically connect with the car as they get in so they can continue to use it as they drive, using the dashboard as interface; coming home they place it on the coffee table to control the home theatre or function as game console. There will not be a desktop market, console market and mobile market; devices are converging. There will only be one market, for an OS that has to work in all sorts of different configurations, handling productivity, media/web, social networking and games, depending on how the mobile device is connected to peripherals such as your home theatre, desktop terminal, car, coffee table. Microsoft wants to create the one OS that will work on one device in all these different configurations.

Microsoft is basically doing what Apple is doing, and Apple is getting similar flak for iOS-ifying OSX as Microsoft gets for Metro-fying Windows. People just seem unable to see that both are creating an OS not for today's hardware, but next year's. The OS is driving hardware development now, which is how it should be, not the other way around.

 

If what you're alluding to is a single, portable device that streams or connects to extenders that are purchased separately, I can see this is a good idea, but it will never happen due to patent court cases and monopolistic practices. There will never be a single device that does everything, however nice it may sound.

 

Oh really?
Motorola Atrix

(It's a bit old phone) The main problem with the device at the time was the very high price tag.

ASUS PadPhone


This is the future, and it's out now, and slowly gaining popularity. I expect with Windows 8 late life or during Windows 9 life, this is be quite popular.

 

Of course there will be, as GoodBytes shows. They will just be divided into competing brands/ecosystems (with some third-party devices catering to several, perhaps). It is this competition that you see playing out now: Apple vs Microsoft vs Google.

 

Ha yeh it was a bit. I just like my traditional desktop always have, along with a healthy dose of command line it makes up my workspace and its really laziness that i cant be arsed learning a new UI.

 

I'm looking forward to using Metro on a daily basis. Anyone complaining about it is just scared of change. Even if it is better. The things I like about my Android phone are that I have all the information I need and all the app access I want from the home screen. It is going to be awesome to have that on my desktop and netbook. Sure there are solutions to add better support for features like that to the traditional desktop but they are nowhere near as good as native built in support. You just need to look at the rainmeter crowd to see how features like the ones Metro is adding can be beneficial. Only difference here though is instead of a retrofit of the desktop we get something designed from the ground up.

Moving from CLI to GUI Desktop was often called a backwards step but look how that turned out.

 

Device convergence is happening, aye. They're lovely but the examples given by Goodbytes, good and exciting though they are, have not exactly taken the market by storm. Given that the iPad and subsequent models sell so much that there must be warehouses full of grandmothers and kidneys, there is the money there to be spent on these devices but if they're no good, well.. Atrix case in point. I'm just being a bit critical, is all.