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Originally Posted by
tima94930 
I see Metro and its apps on non-touch devices as a throwback to the distant past. Metro is a full-screen, modal, DOS-era program launcher, that launches "apps", which are full screen programs, and it would have been right at home in DOS or Windows 1.0 or the crippled version of GEM. The whole Metro experience actually reminds me strongly of running Hotwire on my Atari ST circa 1988, absent stupid Metro things like "The 4 Corners". I never would have imagined they had it all just right back in the 80s. Maybe hair bands are the future or even present, too. I for one can easily imagine Poison being hired to launch Windows 8 with "Nothin' but a Good Time".
The whole tablet platform idea is much as you describe, whether its Apple, Google, or MS. Your issue is that you hate the fact that MS is even trying to cater to that group. I agree that it takes alot of ideas from the past and is more confining, but that is how tablet interfaces are going to be. iOS is so successful because it tries to make complicated functions simple. In the process, it takes away options that power users would like to have. Android aims for the same simplicity although it is a bit more power user friendly. MS saw this trend and aimed for the same thing with Metro. You get a clean interface that tries to make things simpler. Unfortunately, simple also means you lose some functionality that power users would want.
So I get why you aren't into it and I agree with the issues when applied to a desktop. The difference is that I don't feel hampered once Im in the desktop on Win 8. Its the same experience from Win 7, with what amounts to menu changes by removing the old start menu.
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To use a Metro app is to abandon my taskbar with its many pinned programs and folders, jump lists, progress indicators for running programs, icons that help me switch between windows, and so forth. On non-touch devices, Metro relies on ridiculous things like "The 4 Corners", 1 pixel hidden hotspots, the contents of which you have to remember in order to select the correct one, that are essential to operating the thing. Though they are easy to hit by accident when using a single monitor, I actually didn't discover "The 4 Corners" when I had Windows 8 in a VM, because they're so difficult to hit when Windows 8 is running in a window that doesn't trap the mouse. I've also read complaints they're impossible to hit when the desktop is extended to multiple monitors, and I run two monitors. Hotspots are a bad design choice to begin with, but making them hidden and 1 pixel in size? It's just a big pile of crap.
MS should have found a way to allow you to pin Metro apps to the taskbar on the desktop, I agree. At least you know you can avoid Metro apps and stick to what your use to. Maybe that forces MS to realize how important a feature like that could be.
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There's a very good reason Microsoft made the Metro start screen mandatory in the preview. Most people would simply turn it off because it serves no purpose and sucks so bad. But Microsoft thought of that and pre-emptively punished them by removing the Start button. That wouldn't bother me, and I explained why several messages ago. (Apparently I'm very unusual this way; most people seem to think Windows is the Start button.)
Another good reason to make it mandatory is due to people simply ignoring it without trying it once. Love or hate the interface, if you don't at least try it out, you wont know either way. Plus, how do you encourage app development to an option feature that users must seek out in order to use vs an interface that every user is guaranteed to see at least once.
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It would just give me more room to pin stuff to the taskbar, which was the great new UI feature of Windows 7. Those rare times I need to access the Start menu, I'd be fine pressing the Windows key, which is what I often do anyway. That's not like remembering what each of "The 4 Corners" does.
I don't know about this one, I felt like you did at first, but now the 4 corners thing doesn't bother me. It just feels like a different form of clicking. Besides, its not that complicated to remember the start screen is in the lower left corner and charms are on the right side. In fact, I have found that searching is a bit more robust/organized using the charm search option vs the old search box in the start menu.
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As for going all-in on stuff from Microsoft, I was all-in for a very long time on things like Internet Explorer, multimedia programs, Zune, and so forth. I've been much more satisfied since abandoning Microsoft for these things, because there were much, much better alternatives. I see nothing compelling in what they're doing with Windows and touch devices; it's just a hail mary from a company that has found itself irrelevant in the phone and tablet markets. I think their so-called "convergence" is going to be a mediocre compromise at best.
Well certainly if you don't like MS products in general, I wouldn't spend any money on them. Maybe Apple or Google offer you a more compelling ecosystem in that case.
