back to article Windows 10 is an antique (and you might be too) says Google man

Google's design guru Matias Duarte has taken to Twitter to damn Windows 10 – and you – with faint praise. Duarte is Google's veep for material design and led user experience chores on Android from version 3.0, did likewise for PalmOS and the Danger Hiptop. In other words, here's a chap who's had a lot to do with the user …

  1. elDog

    Please don't damn me! I do have a Windows base for my Linux VMs

    And I wouldn't even have it running underneath except I had already paid for the license.

    Perhaps exiting back to the "bare metal" Window (7) OS is what the old-timers used to say was like getting one of those consolating windows, you know 24x80 with pretty black and white?

    No, not seriously. I do have a Win 10 VM and can't stand the flat bits and the much worse Start menu. Yes everything can be adjusted, but WTF should I have to do this on my 1920x1200 screen - it ain't a tablet or touch screen.

    Stoopid!

    1. Fitz_

      Re: Please don't damn me! I do have a Windows base for my Linux VMs

      "And I wouldn't even have it running underneath except I had already paid for the license."

      ...you know Hyper-V is free, right? Or are you running Windows Server OS with the Hyper-V role installed? In which case I tut in your general direction.

      1. BillG
        IT Angle

        7 and XP

        I take care of my family's computers. Thanks to Microsoft bullying Windows 10 onto everyone it's been a royal Pain In The Arse to take care of the Windows 10 popups, remove updates, etc. on the Windows 7 machines.

        Meanwhile, the Windows XP machines simply work - with Outpost Firewall protection and Internet Explorer disabled.

    2. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

      Hewlitt Packard?

      What happens when you get rid of Orphaned Files with Linux updates?

  2. Chairo
    Devil

    Dear Matias,

    it *works* just like XP. I understand that's a feature for many. Not for me!

    In my experience many customers see their IT as something to do their job with and wouldn't give a rat's ass about what you think is fancy or cool.

    As a customer once told me: Thank you for your understanding!

    1. a_yank_lurker

      Re: Dear Matias,

      Most users are comfortable with the WIMP interface (windows, icons, mouse, pointer) on desktop or laptop. Successful implementations feature a well organized menu with an access panel to open programs and various utilities. The basic design was worked by the late 70s and is still successful because human anatomy has not changed.

      Touch screens work well on hand-held devices like phones where the user only has one had free to access the device.Again there only so many workable solutions because of human anatomy.

      I do suspect though Matias may be more tongue-in-creek about W8 and W10.

    2. dogged

      Re: Dear Matias,

      It could always "work" just like Android - i am currently using an Android phone - ie, be an absolute and total mess based on Windows 3.1 Program Manager.

      "Android Designer". Yeah, and my 2 year old son is classical artist.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dear Matias,

      I don't think it's case of being fancy or cool, there are some genuine questions as to whether we can create a better interface between us and machine, hands up who wants Tony Stark's Lab ?

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Dear Matias,

        >"there are some genuine questions as to whether we can create a better interface between us and machine"

        These are questions in the first instance for the R&D lab's not for general release of an established major product; I find it noteworthy that none of the major OS vendors have spoken about human interaction research in recent years, something that was to the fore in the 80's and 90's. Instead we've witnessed the discarding of real research and it's replacement with design school idea's and fad's and the blind arrogance of the zealots that comes with it.

        Aside: I do like visiting the homes of architectural design school zealots before and after they have children... in all cases so far it has been the design school principles that were found to be unimportant...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Dear Matias,

          Roland, with that kind of thinking we would still be living in caves trying to rub two sticks together. Ideas must be tried and subjected to acceptance or rejection, it's called innovation.

          Engineers don't always come up with the best ideas as they often design something from an engineer's point of view which is not immediately obvious to the user with lab equipment interfaces being a prime example. Touch interface innovation was a godsend in those situations as they are intuitive and alleviated the need for knowing obscure key press combinations to get to sub menus, additionally it allowed a much easier check of overall system parameters. It can still essentially be the same product but with a new human/machine interface.

          1. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: Dear Matias,

            readinthereg, I'm not sure what exactly you are objecting to in the viewpoint I described.

            The issues are how you introduce innovation into a well-established market and the rate at which you move it from niche to primetime. I suggest that with Win8, Microsoft (probably in trying to catch up with the market) skipped several steps, ignored real-world feedback and took immature ideas and innovation that really needed several more years of R&D work and put them straight into primetime, giving users little choice, namely either use our new product or get lost.

            This problem isn't confined to Windows, I've seen it on: OSX, iOS, Android and Linux. I suspect at the root of the problem is that there are vested interests still trying to make the OS 'sexy' and 'important' rather than acknowledge the OS has been a commodity for some years; just like QWERTY keyboards and mice.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Dear Matias,

              Roland, I did you the courtesy of having a debate with you and not a down voting competition.

              What worked yesterday isn't necessarily appropriate for today. I grew up on the CLI but it's a thorough pain in the arse and completely inappropriate for modern day to day computing tasks and has been superseded by a GUI which was far from perfect in it's first iteration. Design is often a very Darwinistic approach where you will have several ideas competing however the strongest survive, you must get things wrong to get things right. If a product is crappily designed it will not continue to live.

              A design flaw in the DH comet's windows (sadly catastrophic) led to a greater understanding of fatigue cracking and much safer planes that we have today. It probably looked great in the R&D lab but was an unknown until it was actually used.

              I objected to to your one sided view to the process, cut designers (and design engineers) some slack and let them make (non fatal) mistakes to get things right.

              1. The First Dave

                Re: Dear Matias,

                @readinthereg

                What you appear to be missing is the suggestion that experimentation should be done in the lab, not with real lives. Hundreds of lives could have been saved if the DH engineers had put the prototype Comets in a water bath _before_ putting them in the air, but unfortunately they didn't know what to test for. With software it is common practice to make use of a focus group, rather than throwing a new paradigm directly at your paying customers...

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Dear Matias,

                  @ 1st dave

                  In an ideal world it would be great if you could think of every permutation when moving from the lab and into production but unfortunately life isn't like that and you don't have unlimited time and an unlimited research budget, all you can do is cover as much as you can. If it were the case then not a single pharmaceutical product would ever reach market as every single drug has a side effect, my field by the way.

                  As for focus groups, a big criticism of them is that they are not representative of a large sample set and are subject to statistical bias. A room full of adults won't get Minecraft like a room full of kids.

                  1. Roland6 Silver badge

                    Re: Dear Matias,

                    @readinthereg - I think you may be missing the point I picked up on, hence why the down votes.

                    Going right back to your original statement: "there are some genuine questions as to whether we can create a better interface between us and machine". I doubt anyone is actually questioning the validity of that statement, only how we go about answering those questions, in the context of an established major product like Windows, Android, OSX, iOS, Linux, z/OS etc.

                    So yes, let the designers play - just as we let pharmaceutical research scientists play. However, a big difference between pharmaceutical research scientists and software developers is that once the pharmaceutical research scientists identify an interesting compound, it then goes through an extensive, regulatory evaluation programme (well unless it is a possible treatment for Ebola) before it gets anywhere near the market. The release of Windows 8 (based on the stories of the key engineers) was a bit like a pharmaceutical company withdrawing an established product from the market and replacing it with a product that shares a common parentage, but hasn't gone through the full evaluation programme and in fact has gained negative results from what limited trials have been performed, just on the word of a research scientist. Win 10 is simply the pharmaceutical company trying to alter the new compound because it doesn't want to admit a mistake and resurrect the old product...

                    As for you point about focus groups, that is down to knowing your product and its potential customers. Apple with the iPad conducted extensive research using very a specific focus group, namely young children, additionally, they did much to include really good accessibility features. However, in later versions of iOS many of these features (and strengths) were diluted as design school purist idea's took over. Also, they did make some glaring mistakes, such as the weird 3-D floating icon effect, but you could simply turn if off and forget all about it.

                    Finally, we can forgive the DH engineers because they were working on the edge of the known and hence had no prior indication that their windows design was fatally flawed. However, there is plenty of evidence to show that UI/UX workers (specifically at Microsoft) weren't and in fact ignored feedback that was telling them their ideas were daft.

                    1. Anonymous Coward
                      Pint

                      Re: Dear Matias,

                      Some fair comments there Roland specific to Microsoft UI design cockups however don't overestimate what goes in Pharms R&D, it's my job. I wish I could tell you more however I can't but it suffices to say it's just as human as any other industry especially given the huge amount of money at stake for a phase III pipeline failure.

                      With respect to focus groups one must be very careful of the results, for all we know MS might have had internal focus groups but were either unwittingly selected with bias or possibly deliberately (a pharms trick). Are your test subjects representative of all abilities, trades, socio-economic groups etc ? A big criticism of clinical trials is that they only use a very narrow test gene pool before they reach market.

                      The point I was making was more general, human machine interfaces in 10-20 years time are going to be vastly different to those of today and mistakes will be made trying to do something differently.

                      For years wheel barrows had a classic wheel and tyre then James Dyson comes along and sticks a ball on it.

                      Anyway have a beer.

          2. chelonautical

            Re: Dear Matias,

            The definition of intuitive might vary from one person to the next.

            Not everyone considers touch interfaces to be intuitive: touch interfaces often require the user to memorise arbitrary and unnatural gestures to accomplish basic tasks. For example, one big argument in favour of a mouse interface is that it enables "discoverability": users can see all the main objects on the screen and can even see pop-up context help as they roll the mouse pointer over each object, so it becomes possible to explore the interface and discover new features. Discoverability favours recognition over recall: human memory is much better at the former than the latter... it's much easier to recognise an icon or a named menu option previously seen than to drag it from the depths of the brain. Also, the longer a familiar interface remains the same, the more entrenched the mental schema for replaying known actions becomes. A new interface that is "almost-but-not-quite-the-same-as-before" can be very disorientating (e.g. "Where's the start button?" etc.). Knowing a bit about how the human brain works can help to design better user interfaces for the majority of users.

            Of course technology moves on... it's not convenient to carry a mouse around with our phones and also people will prefer cleaner less cluttered interfaces on devices with smaller screens. Some of the specific challenges we face will vary as the display and input technologies evolve, but designers must not forget that there's a human using the device and the fundamental human "hardware" has not changed. In my degree many years ago, we learned about researchers like George Miller and Ben Shneiderman: they taught us a great deal about human memory and cognition which can be used to inform interface design. Psychologists could definitely teach us a few things about how to design systems for regular people and for my money Shneiderman's 8 golden rules are just as valid today. So I agree with the point that engineers are not always the best people to design a UI, as we often lack these insights.

            Having said all of that, I'm a bit suspicious of the current fad around interface design. I believe good design is important and it's great to see it becoming more of a discipline. At the same time, I've seen some very fiddly and unnatural professionally-designed interfaces which are difficult to use and violate many of the good human-based design principles I learned back in the day. And sadly a few people who call themselves designers are too arrogant to listen to criticism from actual humans (constructive or otherwise).

            Innovation is great, but everyone involved in designing systems should remember the humans who have to use the end product and listen to their feedback. If the majority of users hate something about a UI even after having lots of time to adjust then their rejection of that feature should be heeded. That doesn't mean never changing the UI, but it does mean careful thought and research before doing so.

  3. thames

    What people wanted, and didn't want

    Well, being sort of like Windows XP was what a lot of people wanted. What most users are complaining about isn't the UI, it's the intrusive data collection and monitoring and reporting everything you do back to Microsoft, and ramming upgrades down your throat which they don't like. That bit isn't like XP.

    1. GregC

      Re: What people wanted, and didn't want

      What most users are complaining about isn't the UI, it's the intrusive data collection and monitoring and reporting everything you do back to Microsoft, and ramming upgrades down your throat

      Speaking for myself, I most certainly am complaining about the UI - alongside the intrusive data collection, forced updates etc. Thankfully 10 is only on one machine of mine, which never sees the internet, and it's only on there because it made 8.1 go away.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What people wanted, and didn't want

      I want an operating system, not a data collection platform.

      1. Andy A

        Re: What people wanted, and didn't want

        So nothing like Android or IOS then?

    3. thtechnologist

      Re: What people wanted, and didn't want

      Power users that hate MS for whatever reasons are the only ones "worried" about basic telemetry data, the average user does not know, or care, at all, ever. I am practically ostracized by MY FAMILY who call me a tinfoilhatist because I tell them facebook, gmail, etc. is unsafe to use. Users have spoken, they want convenience and a company to just take care of their stuff, in exchange for privacy. The fact that facebook adoption isn't falling indicated clearly no one cares. Only power users care, and MS does not need us anymore.

      1. James Loughner
        Big Brother

        Re: What people wanted, and didn't want

        And that's how big brother was born. The sheepel don't care

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What people wanted, and didn't want

          Shouldn't that be Animal Farm?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Revisionist

    Windows XP was not a hit. Acceptance (more like resignation) happened with SP2. Anyone actually recalling that time should remember the PlaySkool tag. Meanwhile, I was using Indows 2000 Advanced Server as a workstation on the strength of memory management. Did the same for Server 2003 Enterprise for the same as a matter of fact.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: Revisionist

      It depended to some degree on which branch you reached XP by:

      1) From Windows 95->98->ME as a consumer

      2) From NT3.5->NT4->W2000 as a professional

      In the former case you lost quite a lot of DOS games and win16 support, but gained much better stability and security (yes, I know pre SP3 XP was hardly great, but compared to 16-bit?!)

      In the latter case you got...few more devices supported and a Fisher-Price interface? Oh yes, and "product activation". But at least you could go for classic look and be back like w2k (as I did). Having said that, all that w2k effectively gave me over NT4 was USB support really.

      Due to product activation, and some other reasons, w2k was last Windows I bought, XP came as work system. Now I am using Linux almost exclusively and my old w2k & XP machines run as VMs on top. Critically the license for them allows that, something the consumer versions of Fista & Win7, etc, do not.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Revisionist

        You'd have to kill me to get those licenses.

      2. x 7

        Re: Revisionist

        "Having said that, all that w2k effectively gave me over NT4 was USB support really"

        there was more than that: proper PnP driver support, no more fiddling with resources or IRQs. Made a heck of a difference

        1. Mr. Flibble

          Re: Revisionist

          Yes, and no need to reboot lameness if you change your DNS servers or add a modem etc. like on NT4

      3. Davie Dee

        Re: Revisionist

        Win 2000 effectively only gave you USB support? My god man, you are joking right?.

        I happen to like 10 but the XP path was utterly crap, with proper convergence in to NT in w7 we almost got there, but pre 7, 2000 was a mile stone comparable to none.

        Stable, AD, direct x, good driver support, backwards compatibility, etc etc

        1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

          Re: @Davie Dee

          "with proper convergence in to NT in w7 we almost got there"

          What are you talking about? The 16-bit DOS era kernels ended (badly) with Windows ME. With the relese of XP MS dropped 16-bit kernels and moved the "consumer" market to the 32-bit path started with NT.

          XP was the direct successor to W2000 in terms of code/release, and that was the direct successor to NT4. You might argue about the goals of NT being better reached by Win7, but that has absolutely nothing to do with code convergence.

          "Stable, AD, direct x, good driver support, backwards compatibility, etc etc"

          In my case the only difference I saw was USB support. I had less stability issues under w2k, never used AD anyway, and never had driver problems or PnP issues on any of the machines I installed w2k upon. Maybe XP was more stable for some users/program combinations, but for me the only advantage was USB (plus longer support for patches, of course)

          1. Dave 126 Silver badge

            Re: @Davie Dee

            I'm with Paul - what you remember is what you remember, and at the time the chief advantage of Win2K was to me was USB support. Previously I had been forced to dual-boot a PC with '98 and NT 4.

            Direct X didn't bother me - that was what the PlayStation was for.

            Win 2K wasn't without some horrific bugs when it first arrived.... deleting the contents of a ZIP disk and replacing it with a cached copy of the *previous* ZIP disk was one of the stranger ones...

            1. Roland6 Silver badge

              Re: @Davie Dee

              I'm also with Paul. I think because XP SP2/3 was around for such a long-time (thankyou MS development for failing to deliver anything reasonable until 7 :) ) we forget just how solid W2K-SP4 was (although I may have that opinion from having used W95 on a laptop). I and some colleagues stayed with W2K until a few months after XP-SP2 was released, in part because it meant handing back our Compaq Armada E500 with its 15" SXGA+ screen and replacing it with a 'trendy' bulk standard HP laptop.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Revisionist

          yep Win2000 was a massive leap forward, all the best bits from the consumer Win95 PnP, etc and the solidness of the pro NT4. We have just got rid of our last win2000 workstation which was running our flexi system, on a OptiPlex gx1 15 years old 256mb RAM, it only ever needed a reboot when the backup agent decided to stop working

        3. cambsukguy

          Re: Revisionist

          I remember putting W2k on a crappy Time Computers W98 laptop.

          What a revelation, the stability, the uptime, the everything was better.

          1. x 7

            Re: Revisionist

            "I remember putting W2k on a crappy Time Computers W98 laptop."

            from a hardware point of view most of the Time laptops were actually fairly decent kit, just let down by the software images - which often had borked drivers

            They were all souceded from decent quality ODMs such as FIC, Clevo, Giga-tech. Most were OK except a couple of the FIC models which had motherboard voltage issues which caused the displays to crash

      4. NogginTheNog

        Re: Revisionist

        "all that w2k effectively gave me over NT4 was USB support really."

        Erm, and a networking subsystem that stopped and started when you plugged and unplugged a network cable, WITHOUT a reboot?! A MASSIVE leap forward in usability.

        1. FrankAlphaXII

          Re: Revisionist

          Don't forget that networking infrastructure was straight out of BSD. I'm not a Windows hater, if anything I can't stand Linux anymore (not the Kernel, I love the Kernel, the distributions killed it for me. Been using PC-BSD and FreeBSD since early 2014 along with Windows 7 and now Windows 10 and I couldn't be happier when it comes to my UNIXlike or with Windows for that matter) but it likely wasn't Microsoft's idea, if anyone it was probably whoever was doing networking for Open, Free or NetBSD at the time.

    2. big_D

      Re: Revisionist

      Yeah, XP is what drove me to Linux and OS X. I hated it. I kept an old machine running in the corner for when I needed MS Office document compatibility, but generally used my Linux workstation as my main machine for years, then an iMac in 2007.

      It was 7 that got me back to using Windows as my main system.

      Still waiting to be allowed to upgrade my Surface Pro 3 to W10. The IT department is saying they will probably get around to installing the updated TrendMicro AV software sometime early next year... That is the only piece of software stopping an upgrade,

      1. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: Revisionist

        The joke used to be, "What does 'XP' stand for?" The answer, of course, is "eXtremely Painful." That aside, users have had plenty of time to learn the interface and how to do whatever needs doing. As the author mentions, the new version "didn't ask anyone to radically re-learn what it takes to drive a computer." That matters more than anything else to consumers. Having to spend weeks or months of frustration while they have to relearn how to do things they had already learned years ago is a sure way to cause slow uptake. I argue that if MS should learn anything from the Linux community it is that the GUI should not be married to the OS. If they would allow their customers to easily maintain their desktops across versions, there would be a dramatic shift in acceptance of Windows 10 and beyond.

        1. fung0

          Re: Revisionist

          It's true that XP did have a goofy look out of the box. But the Fisher Price dressing was entirely optional, and fully configurable. In 'Classic' mode, XP looked just like W2K, and a lot like Win9x. More importantly, in any view XP worked much the same as Win9x - all the controls were instantly familiar. You could even open up an Explorer window to work like Program Manager - the transition was painless.

          Improvements in XP were not immediately obvious. I initially switched from W2K because there was really no reason NOT to. But XP totally won me over within a month or two, as I found one nagging problem after another that had been fixed, one task after another that had been streamlined. XP was like a refined version of W2K - subtly better in many ways, worse in NONE.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Revisionist

      Well, spending the money for a server license - especially the higher ones - was well past the affordability for most users (and no, you can't use Technet or MSDN license for production work...).

      Anyway, if you had then more than two CPUs and many gigabytes of RAM your assertion could have been true, otherwise you were just wasting your money. I'd suggest you to read Windows Internals to understand the real differences between desktop and server versions of Windows...

      1. x 7

        Re: Revisionist

        " you can't use Technet or MSDN license for production work..."

        really ;-) ? oh dear.....

    4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Revisionist

      "the PlaySkool tag"

      Windows for Teletubbies was another.

      1. Martin-73 Silver badge

        Re: Revisionist

        I always used 'fisher price' but yes, the default UI of xp was (and still IS) horrible

  5. Arthur Kater :-D ☺
    FAIL

    Duarte, the Android UI guy (laugh)

    Sorry Mr. Duarte, I'm totally unimpressed with the work you have done in the past years.

    Recently changed from Lumia 920 Windows Phone to LG G4 Android phone.

    Although the LG hardware is great, the Android OS is absolutely miserable. I'm not talking about the underlying OS, but talking about the UI. It's a confusing UI. When you hear a notification sound, you have to dig to find out what app the notification came from.

    Double-layer homescreen (one with all apps, one with selected app).

    Windows 10 has been designed 'together' with the user. MS clearly listened and learned from what the user wants. Has implemented features not based on their cool factor, but on their usability factor.

    1. Shadow Systems

      Re: Duarte, the Android UI guy (laugh)

      MS absolutely Did Not Listen to it's customers when it came time to creating W10. If they HAD then the UI would have fallen back to a W7 or WXP version with the ability for the User to Choose how they wanted to use THEIR machine.

      Instead we get more of the same bullshit tiles, touchy-feely Fisher Price clunkiness, a UI that still can't manage to give the User the chance to Get Shit Done, and then to add insult to injury slaps on enough privacy raping mechanisms to make Android's data slurping look playfully pleasant in comparison.

      We didn't want tiles on our desktop, we didn't want Active Desktop / Live Tiles, we didn't want the Ribbon, we wanted WXP or W7's with the ability to CHOOSE how to interact with our own damn machines, NOT how MSHQ decided to force us to frustrate our ability to GSD.

      I agree with you that Android's UI is crap, but trying to claim W10 was what happens when MS "listens to it's customers" is so delusional it makes me wonder if I might share in whatever your smoking in that pipe of yours. It's gotta be pretty damned good to come up with a trip of that calibre! =-D

      1. big_D

        Re: Duarte, the Android UI guy (laugh)

        The Fisher Price look-and-feel was Windows XP. I much prefer the flatter, cleaner look of Windows 8 and 10. I also prefer them to XP and 7 in general use.

        Having been through iOS and Android, I am very happy with Windows 10 Mobile on my Lumia 1020.

        The same for Windows 8 and 10 on the desktop/lap. I went through Windows from version 2 on and used Linux as my main workstation from 2002 through to 2007 and an iMac after that and at the moment, I prefer 10 to all the others - I still use a Mac irregularly and I still use Linux on a daily basis.

        1. cambsukguy

          Re: Duarte, the Android UI guy (laugh)

          Yes, but is it possible to give up the 1020 for a 950 to get all those new features?

          I will wait and see camera images before deciding - and hoping a surprise release of a 50MP Lumia occurs while doing so.

          The low sales of WP might well be the feeling I see from owners I know that they just don't want another phone, from "I wish my 925 had 32MB but none of the others are as beautiful" to "I am not installing the update because it might change something" and the obvious "But the pictures on my 1020 can't be bettered so I can't change" or even "My 920 is useful as a phone, a hammer and a weapon, how will I replace it?".

          That last one was only partially a joke.

        2. Martin-73 Silver badge

          Re: Duarte, the Android UI guy (laugh)

          "flatter, cleaner" look.

          Welcome back to windows 3.1.

      2. fruitoftheloon
        Thumb Up

        @Shadow Systems: Re: Duarte, the Android UI guy (laugh)

        Ss,

        Indeed, I actually think MS 'does' listen to their customers, the problem is their reasons for IGNORING what most of those customers actually said; followed by a large portion of 'innovation'...

        Or am i being unfair?

        Regards,

        Jay

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: @Shadow Systems: Duarte, the Android UI guy (laugh)

          "Or am i being unfair?"

          I doubt it. ASAICS they shackled themselves by insisting on a one-size-fits-all user interface as an article of faith. That's stopped them offering a switchable UI, assuming the architecture would make that possible.

      3. Vic

        Re: Duarte, the Android UI guy (laugh)

        MS absolutely Did Not Listen to it's customers when it came time to creating W10

        Absolutely they did.

        Not quite so much attention was paid to their users, though...

        Vic.

    2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: Windows 10 has been designed 'together' with the user

      Windows 10 has been designed 'together' with the user fanbois. MS clearly listened and learned from what decided that the user wants the same interface on his phone, tablet and PC and ignored anything that went contrary to that idea. Has implemented borked and rearranged features not based on their cool factor, but on their usability confusion factor.

      FTFY

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Windows 10 has been designed 'together' with the user

        >When you hear a notification sound, you have to dig to find out what app the notification came from.

        Go to the app in question, say Email. Go to Options. Go to Notifications. Change it to a noise that doesn't sound like a text message.

        True, you might think you would just go to the >main phone options and >notifications and manage it from there, but this way makes just as much sense.

        1. Blitterbug
          Happy

          Re: Change it to a noise that doesn't sound like a text message...

          Or, you could, I dunno, swipe your finger down from the top of the screen near the left and actually read the notification list? Just an idea.

          1. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: Change it to a noise that doesn't sound like a text message...

            >"swipe your finger down from the top of the screen near the left and actually read the notification list?"

            Yet another of those totally non-obvious features of the Win8 UI. What got me as one of the really stupid thinks MS did with Win8 was not to have a UI learning mode! So for example in learning (or non-touch) mode you lose a few millimeters to a screen border that gives hints that there is stuff lurking out of sight. The laugh is that all the controls are there because they are used to control the display of the taskbar!

            1. Mark Allread

              Re: Change it to a noise that doesn't sound like a text message...

              It *does* have a learning mode. It both runs you through the gestures on first install and then continues to provide prompts until you dismiss them.

              1. Roland6 Silver badge

                Re: Change it to a noise that doesn't sound like a text message...

                >It both runs you through the gestures on first install

                Generally if you buy a new machine the OS is pre-installed...

                Also when installing a clean system, who in their right mind's is paying any attention to anything other than the task at hand, namely installing the new OS with the correct settings and drivers? Personally, when the progress bar come up during a big install that is the time I either walk away and take a break or read about the next steps in the install...

                >continues to provide prompts until you dismiss them

                Yes I've had some of the prompts, not found them to be particularly helpful to the task at hand... I found it more helpful to simply Google what it is I'm trying to do and see how others solved the problem...

    3. ArthurHH

      Re: Duarte, the Android UI guy (laugh)

      The problem is not Android, the problem is LG.

      Same advice for Samsung owners, or any device sourced from a telco.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Duarte, the Android UI guy (laugh)

      "Sorry Mr. Duarte, I'm totally unimpressed with the work you have done in the past years." ... "Recently changed from Lumia 920 Windows Phone to LG G4 Android phone."..."Double-layer homescreen (one with all apps, one with selected app)."

      I hate to be the one to point this out, but you're not looking at Duarte's work. You're looking at an LG designers work. Duarte works on stock Android (as in AOSP), if you want to experience his work, you'll need to replace that LG launcher with the Google Now Launcher (available in the Play Store).

      As for whatever is going on in your notification drawer, I can't comment as I haven't seen it, and there's not a lot you can do about that as that is part of the core OS and if LG have messed with it, the only way out is to flash a custom ROM. I can say on a Nexus, if you get a notification, it's clearly there in the notification draw.

  6. Code For Broke

    Matias sounds like a real prick.

    That's all I wanted to say. Thanks for reading.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Matias sounds like a real prick.

      He's a user experience specialist. They go round breaking things by taking something that was working flexibly and insisting on that it only do one thing and do it in one way.

      1. Naselus

        Re: Matias sounds like a real prick.

        "They go round breaking things by taking something that was working flexibly and insisting on that it only do one thing and do it in one way."

        I'm reliably informed that allowing users to think about doing things a different way would be an abdication of the designer's responsibility.

  7. PushF12
    Boffin

    LTSB

    The LTSB builds of Windows 10 don't have metro/tifkam apps, and regular users aren't able to (easily) install them.

    Microsoft responded to the complaining and stripped it all out. It feels like a service pack on Windows 7.

    Dunno why LTSB hasn't gotten more attention. Works great on netbooks and embedded-ish hardware, short of the enterprise licensing.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: LTSB

      Agree there hasn't been much mention of the three "servicing branches" of Win 10, namely: CB, CBB, LTSB. I think in part because LTSB, other than the evaluation version, hasn't been formally released to market yet.

      The LTSB branch does seem interesting, given what it does and does not contain, I can see many businesses going for this variant, primarily because of it's stability - effectively it will be in "extended support" for 10 years rather than the 5 years of Win7 and 8, but also for the MDM and deployment tool MS are saying it will have and support.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    material design

    Sounds like a made up job to me

  9. jamesb2147
    Headmaster

    For Ed.

    Matias wasn't involved in PalmOS. Mr. Duarte was involved in Palm's (later HP's) webOS, a distinctly better OS. Prior to that, he worked on Helio phones, by my recollection. He actually carried over his ideas on UI/UX (I struggle to differentiate the two, even though I know it) to webOS and got to implement them from the earliest stages, which is partially how we got the "card" metaphor (later stolen by both Android and subsequently iOS). That basically means webOS was Matias' purest vision; even with Google he's had to work within the existing environment, merely making changes rather than radically redesigning the multitasking or windowing system.

    ...But I digress. Ed, please change PalmOS to Palm's webOS.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: For Ed.

      WebOS? The one who killed Palm? From the stupid name to the lack of compatibility with existing apps? Ah, all clear now.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: For Ed.

        >WebOS? The one who killed Palm?

        That's not what killed Palm. The only problem with WebOS was that it was too late to arrive.

        The 2007 Engadget Open Letter to Palm - written before the Palm Pre and webOS were announced - outlines why people were turning away from them:

        We know you're working on a Linux-based mobile OS to succeed Palm OS Garnet -- which was already REALLY showing its age two years ago -- but we're sorta worried that you're going to just port the old UI to a new kernel. It's too late for that.

        Like when Apple introduced OS X: it made a serious gamble that the stability and features they were offering in their new OS outweighed the compatibility with older apps and user interface comfort which already existed. They took an old, once great, but very dated OS (sound like anyone we know?) and trashed it. And it worked for them.

        If you've demonstrated any true wrongdoing in the way you've sustained your operating system, it's been your inflexibility in cutting ties and moving forward. Believe us when we tell you that's not an attitude embraced by a culture of techno-fetishists -- your core customer. So don't be scared to kill backwards compatibility, or threaten a little bit of what users are used to in order to gain important advances for your OS and devices. Sometimes you have to tear down to rebuild, and honestly, you have a lot to tear down.

        So if Palm, which has been around for around 15 years, doesn't have the user interface design and OS engineering expertise to pull this off, then you should just get out of the game right now. Seriously, if this new OS you're going to introduce is just the old Palm OS with some slightly fancier graphics, your customers will just come to resent you all the more. Respect their intelligence.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: For Ed.

          Pam spent too much time developing a fully new OS killing compat with PalmOS applications. It was a plan very much alike OS/2. Moreover the stupid "web"OS name confused people who wondered if it only worked when connected to the "web", and if applications needed a remote server to work.

          Apple could move people to OSX because they had very little alternatives - and anyway they had to support a compat layer in the beginning. When alternatives exists, and moving (or staying) is not that complex or expensive, people won't adopt the new OS easily. And listening to site like Engadget is the error MS is doing with Win10 - the last user you want to listen to is the gadget-addict needing always a new toy to play with.

          1. Dave 126 Silver badge

            Re: For Ed.

            >And listening to site like Engadget is the error MS is doing with Win10 - the last user you want to listen to is the gadget-addict needing always a new toy to play with.

            Palm had already done the vast bulk of the development work by the time the Engadget letter was published - therefore Engadget didn't actually influence Palm. but did provide a concise over-view of what was wrong with Palm's line-up - bulky handsets, low-res displays, no Wi-Fi.

            ANYWAY - it's a moot point because WebOS was only raised in this thread in order knock its UI designer, which isn't directly related to WebOS's backward compatibility. The few people I knew with a Palm Pre though its UI was good.

    2. Paul Shirley

      Re: For Ed.

      My major problem is how many of the Android changes are capricious, cryptic change for changes sake. I don't need navigation buttons that change radically with every major release, button layouts that swap order, ui features suddenly hidden behind swiping gestures or behind dodgy icons that mean nothing to me. Yet that's what this idiot did with every release.

      Worst of all he's inspired ms to believe they can just ignore customers and do whatever they like with no thought of maintaining consistency. It seems Microsoft are never done trying to copy Google's mistakes.

  10. jamesb2147
    Holmes

    Sherlock

    "Users keep voting with their feet on this issue. XP was simple, and a hit. Vista was confusing, and a flop. Windows 7 was simple, and a hit. iPhones are expensive, but simple, so users are willing to pay a premium. Android dominates the market for cheaper devices."

    Nope.

    Windows releases since XP have been more like this:

    XP

    Vista - Radical release (UAC EVERYTHING)

    7 - Middle ground (UAC cranked way back)

    8/8.1 - Radical release (TOUCH EVERYTHING)

    10 - Middle ground (touchscreens are now supported as near equal citizens)

    In the meantime, those radical releases often achieved a major goal for Microsoft. UAC being so persistent throughout Vista and nagging users encouraged devs to implement proper security to avoid unnecessarily causing a security prompt and annoying users. The worst programming practices were appropriately discouraged through this change. Touchscreen first interfaces in 8 meant that all future Windows laptops will be loathe not to include that feature (something even Macs lack today). Microsoft ensures their partners' fleet of hardware will be ready for the army of youngsters growing up with non-Windows touchscreen tablets today. If anything, I'd criticize Microsoft for holding back on the touch support in Windows 10, which seems to be designed more for XP-style convertibles with stylus than for today's finger touch, but I digress.

    My big point is, Simon Sharwood, to not act like a holier-than-thou Pope when you're resting on an ass. Write an article about why XP's design is better (and no, your one sentence on that topic wasn't enough) instead of picking on Matias' tweets, even if he is a twat.

    Full disclosure: I'm an old-skool webOS fanboi. :3

    Icon relevant b/c I'm tired of seeing tech authors refer to Microsoft's "mistakes" with Vista and Win8 when those were all strategic decisions. Excepting, perhaps, for the driver crashes in Vista: Those were basically unforeseen b/c MS gave their partners access to code ~1 yr before release and the driver authors at partner companies did... not enough with that information.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Sherlock

      >Touchscreen first interfaces in 8 meant that all future Windows laptops will be loathe not to include that feature (something even Macs lack today).

      And for good bloody reason. Touch on a conventional laptop is shit - though 'convertible' devices like the Lenovo Yoga are good for some use-cases (such as watching movies in bed, though that's something a tablet could do). .

      Apple are taking the approach of having users buy a Macbook *and* an iPad. If you want touch input on a MacBook, say for Photoshop tool palettes - then you download an Adobe app and use both devices in tandem. Down the line, Apple are betting on developers like Adobe making iOS productivity apps - the iPad hardware and APIs won't be a limiting factor - and making it easy to shunt your workflow back and forth 'tween Tablet and Mac if necessary.

      Credit to MS though on their Surface Book.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sherlock

        I got a Surface Pro exactly because I didn't want to buy both a tablet and a laptop, nor bring around both. And run anyway the same software with no limitations.

        1. fung0

          Re: Sherlock

          I got a Surface Pro exactly because I didn't want to buy both a tablet and a laptop, nor bring around both. And run anyway the same software with no limitations.

          "No limitations"...? A device that's both a tablet and a laptop is like a Swiss Army Knife. Most people, most of the time, would rather have a proper knife, fork and screwdriver. Nobody eats supper with a spork unless they absolutely have to.

          1. Dave 126 Silver badge

            Re: Sherlock

            >"Touch on a conventional laptop is shit "

            By which I meant the position of the screen on a conventionally-hinged laptop will always be sub-optimal. I stand by that. Devices like Yogas and Surfaces however, allow a more ergonomic, tablet-like position.

            In my ideal world, I would have the two devices, but far better integrated.... i.e the tablet can work as a second monitor or stylus digitiser for the main laptop, or else be taken into the next room for sketching or watching a movie.

            1. Roland6 Silver badge

              Re: Sherlock

              >"In my ideal world, I would have the two devices, but far better integrated...."

              Yes, all OS platform vendors seem to be avoiding the personal cloud and device integration and collaboration; although Apple with the iWatch is making baby steps into this area. Yes we now have Office 365 et al, but that is an example of a wide area cloud (WAC) application not Personal Area Cloud (PAC) collaboration like you example...

      2. Naselus

        Re: Sherlock

        "Touch on a conventional laptop is shit "

        You know, 12 months ago I might have agreed with you. But touch on laptops is pretty solid nowadays. We've been trialing a combination of Win 10 HP Specters and Bootcamped Win 8 Macbooks at work (identical specs for both), and the feedback is extraordinarily one-sided; the users like Win 10 and they like the touch screens, and they strongly dislike the Macbooks (mostly, I suspect, because the antiquated drivers that are provided for Win 8 run the CPU at 70% when idle, randomly close port 80, and generally make them little improvement on the 5-year-old Sony Duos that the Macbooks were intended to replace rather than an inherent problem with the laptop. But you try and teach our 60-year-old Senior Partners to use an OS they've never seen before. Moving from Win 7 to Win 8 nearly killed them; I honestly think the 'close' button being on the wrong side of the window might cause a stroke).

        I do think that Win 10's approach to tablet vs desktop is a good balance between the Win 8 model and the desktop-centric approach we actually wanted, but I do see the benefit of a single device that flips between the two. I don't want to pay for both, I want a tablet that can actually do something useful (so no droids or iPads) and I want to be able to flick it into a proper laptop when I need to do some typing or something. I browse a lot of forums in my free time, so being able to go tablet for reading and then flip out a real keyboard if I want to reply or comment is a real boon.

      3. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Sherlock

        >Apple are taking the approach of having users buy a Macbook *and* an iPad. If you want touch input on a MacBook, say for Photoshop tool palettes - then you download an Adobe app and use both devices in tandem.

        You can use your iPad/iPhone today with your OSX/Win7+ box:

        http://www.duetdisplay.com/

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sherlock

      Touchscreen first interfaces in 8 meant that all future Windows laptops will be loathe not to include that feature (something even Macs lack today). Microsoft ensures their partners' fleet of hardware will be ready for the army of youngsters growing up with non-Windows touchscreen tablets today. If anything, I'd criticize Microsoft for holding back on the touch support in Windows 10, which seems to be designed more for XP-style convertibles with stylus than for today's finger touch, but I digress.

      And... you're wrong. Touchscreen laptops still cost more than standard versions, are really are no more than a gimmick. With Windows 10 Microsoft is ensuring that their partner's fleet of hardware won't sell very well. Look at how much PC sales have jumped since Windows 8 and 10.

      Also, there's a reason Apple didn't try putting OSX on iPads or iOS on Mac laptops.

      You quite clearly overlook the simple issue that dekstop PC users DIDN'T WANT A TOUCH INTERFACE.

  11. jamesb2147

    Note on Windows 8

    <rant>

    I do rarely see this mentioned: If you're going to make fun of Win8/8.1, do so b/c the OS is called Windows, not "a Window at a time" or maybe "two windows at a time" or "you can run as many windows as you like as long as only one's on the screen at a time."

    The OS is called Windows. It had damn well better support real window management.

    </rant>

    I quite like Win8 on a touchscreen tablet with removable keyboard dock! It seems like the use case the OS was designed for, to the detriment of everything else.

    1. big_D

      Re: Note on Windows 8

      I am running Windows 8 on my Surface Pro 3 with 2 external displays and I have nearly a dozen windows open and visible... In fact its multi-monitor support is better than Windows 7.

      Yes, when I am on the move and using it in tablet mode, I have mainly full screen apps running.

      That said, most "average" users that I have met have always used 1 application full screen in Widnows...

    2. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Note on Windows 8

      I quite like Win8 on a touchscreen tablet with removable keyboard dock! It seems like the use case the OS was designed for, to the detriment of everything else.

      It was.

      The Win8 UI was exclusively designed for the Surface Pro, and worked pretty well there.

      Unfortunately, most PCs are not Surface Pros.

      1. fruitoftheloon
        Thumb Up

        @Richard 12: Re: Note on Windows 8

        Richard,

        On a similar note, we have a Lenovo 8.1 lappy with a touch screen, which suits our needs very well indeed, if Apple had something similar with a touchscreen we probably would have bought that instead...

        Regards,

        Jay

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: @Richard 12: Note on Windows 8

          >On a similar note, we have a Lenovo 8.1 lappy with a touch screen, which suits our needs very well indeed, if Apple had something similar with a touchscreen we probably would have bought that instead...

          @Jay. Hiya!

          I could ask you how you use your Lenovo, and why you find it easier to convert it to a tablet instead just picking up a separate device. But I won't, because it is very hard to distil the behaviour of real people into bullet-points. This is why UI/UX design is so expensive.... many hours of testing, videoing the the test users, that sort of thing.

          It might be that you travel a lot and don't want the extra weight of a separate device, and that 'touch in tent mode' is great for casual browsing and watching movies on airplanes.

          It might be that the OSs and software aren't optimised for working together.

          It might be that you want touch input married to x86 software.

          It could be a lot of things.

          1. big_D

            Re: @Richard 12: Note on Windows 8

            @Dave 126 for me it is the convenience of just having one device. Full stop, end of story. If I am working at my desk and go out, I grab the Surface and all of the data is there already, nothing to sync, no app incompatibilities etc. And when I get back, I plug it back into the dock and carry on. My notes from the trip are in OneNote in one window on one screen and I type up my report on the other.

            Simple, no fuss, no muss, no problems with syncing data before starting to work. No worrying about not having the relevant app installed on one device or another.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: @Richard 12: Note on Windows 8

              @Dave 126 for me it is the convenience of just having one device. Full stop, end of story. If I am working at my desk and go out, I grab the Surface and all of the data is there already, nothing to sync, no app incompatibilities etc. And when I get back, I plug it back into the dock and carry on. My notes from the trip are in OneNote in one window on one screen and I type up my report on the other.

              And do you use it to make phone calls also?

              I can use my iPhone 6+ for pretty much any tablet apps.

              Oh, and it has OneNote on it, too.

              When I want a real computer, I'll bring my laptop.

          2. cambsukguy

            Re: @Richard 12: Note on Windows 8

            One reason to leave a keyboard on a tablet in tablet mode is simple stability.

            You put it on your lap with the keyboard folded underneath and the Surface foot sits on the keyboard making it very stable and usable without holding. For earlier Surfaces with one foot position it fixes the stability problem perfectly.

            That horrible foldy, usually tattered, not-even-a-keyboard, triangle thing for iPads only works as a stand on a good solid table from what I see. Add a BT keyboard and a case to hold it all in and the whole thing is thicker and heavier than a cheap convertible laptop, probably costs more too.

          3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: @Richard 12: Note on Windows 8

            It is very hard to distil the behaviour of real people into bullet-points. This is why it shouldn't be done.

            FTFY

          4. fruitoftheloon
            Happy

            @Dave 126: Re: @Richard 12: Note on Windows 8

            Dave,

            'tis my pleasure Sir!

            The Lenovo concerned is U330 - more-or-less a Mac laptop look-alike (the Mrs liked it because it is kind-of metallic-purpley). Another reason for picking it over a Mac (ignoring the absence of touch screenage) is that the case has these weird things in it called SCREWS!! Hence when needs be, I may have the option of upgrading bits of it...

            Hence it doesn't do the 'undock' or 'tent' thingy, I realise most commentards would berate the screen res, but it is fine for us, and is often connected to a good but oldish 21" HP screen, occasionally to 46" tv via Onkyo amp as well.

            For tablet duties I have a Samsung NotePro (12" jobbie), which is a lovely bit of kit (I adore Wacom digitiser devices), which is sometimes used with a very good bluetooth case/keyboard.

            Compared to ipads et al the NotePro is clearly heavier, but I hardly ever use it on my lap, so that isn't an issue; also as I no longer have a 'proper job' I don't have the misfortune of lugging it around on public transport...

            Together they work great, if I had the funds at the time I would have bought a speedy Surface - that would have covered both use cases.

            Cheers,

            Jay

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Note on Windows 8

        "Unfortunately, most PCs are not Surface Pros."

        Disagree. Mine isn't a Surface pro and I count myself rather lucky.

  12. acerzw@msn.com

    "Android dominates the market for cheaper device" ... many of which outperform the iPhone on features and power as well as having more versatile interfaces... not every android buyer chooses them because of the price... Just because you can afford an iPhone doesn't mean you will buy one because of the simple UI...

    1. dogged

      I'm pretty sure people don't buy them for the UI design either.

      I bought a BlackPhone 2. The security software is excellent. Most android apps seem better than WP apps. The hardware is lovely. The "user experience" of Android itself should be taken outside and shot.

      1. Naselus

        "The "user experience" of Android itself should be taken outside and shot."

        I'd agree with that, tbh,

        Frankly, Matias Duarte sounds a lot like the Google version of Johnny Ive - a self-important prick who's responsible for the weakest part of the product he works on, thinking that because it was successful (almost definitely for features other than the one he was responsible for) his own contribution has been vindicated. It hasn't. Android's UI is fit for purpose, but it's hardly a mighty triumph.

        It's like if the janitor from Apple tried to claim some responsibility for the iPhone 6's success and started using that to lecture other janitors on how to use a mop.

  13. fordfiveohh

    Software Performance Engineer II , MCTS, Linux + , security +, LPIC-1 , Novell CLA , SAFe

    I don't think you know what you're talking about...

  14. wsm

    Who would have thought...

    that Windows 7 would be Microsoft at its peak. Windows 7 was the fix that people wanted. Everything to follow has been a failure of management to bend their employees to the customer's will. Nobody at MS wants to listen to its customers, corporate or private. They seem to think they know better and BillG isn't there to change that.

    Pride goeth before a fall...

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Said the one working on..

    ... a derivative of 1970 Unix with 1990 Java on top and a Windows 1.0 Program Manager interface... Android is a bunch of outdated software and designs cobbled together to deliver a cheap and bloated way to steal user data. The last part is the only 'innovative' one. Shame on MS to have followed the same path win Win10, though.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Said the one working on..

      Wow, just wow. At earliest, it's 1990/1 Unix. but guess what, it's still in active development. As for 1990 Java... no, the Android framework is based around (part of) the Java API, everything else (the runtime environment - i.e. the code that does those API tasks) has been (mostly) re-written by Google. Go ask Oracle if you don't believe me.

      I'll give you Program Manager, the app tray is nasty, but it does what it says on the tin. A well setup home screen fixes this and also alleviates the groans each time Google decide to change the scroll orientation of the app tray, which seems to happen every few releases.

  16. Davie Dee

    I think some folk have too much time on their hands, win 10 works, win 10 mobile works, and even better they are integrating really well with each other, typing away and need to send a txt, leave your phone in your pocket and get the computer to do it, missed call, win 10 lets you know. yes there are third part alternatives but as an out of the box experience I'm really liking the way its going.

    as for the UI, I'm quite liking the simple design, I feel less distracted and when going back to win 7 I feel like its all a little cluttered and things aren't as simple as it should be. dot get be wrong, 7 isn't bad, but personally I find 10 better.

    I rarely use my tablet mode on the tablet tho, it works fine the way it is so never really had a need to use it

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FTFY

    XP was simple, and a hit. Vista was confusing, and a flop. Windows 7 was simple, and a hit. iPhones are expensive, but simple, so users are willing to pay a premium. Android dominates the market for cheaper devices.

    Windows Mobile is a flop. Windows 10 is simple, and a hit.

    Oh, and remind me of the OSX and (50 Shades Of) linux total install bases again?

    1. Naselus

      Re: FTFY

      "Oh, and remind me of the OSX and (50 Shades Of) linux total install bases again?"

      Just a quick lesson - Linux may only have like 2% of the desktop market, but every single one of those 2% will come here and downvote any comment which mentions that, usually within about half an hour. I half suspect that Ubuntu has an alert mechanism built-in to tell users whenever and wherever someone online mentions that, outside the data center, combined Linux is still somewhat less popular than Windows XP is.

      1. fung0

        Re: FTFY

        GNU/Linux is vastly important for reasons other than numerical adoption rates. It is, in fact, our only hope of keeping commercial OS vendors even marginally honest. Putting it down is thus only cutting your own throat, regardless of which OS you're rooting for.

        Linux also happens to be a nicer OS right now than any of the commercial OSes, in most ways. That has to count for something, even if the great mass of users remains shackled to commercial OSes - chiefly as a consequence of those OSes' massive software applications support, not their technical superiority.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Awful

    I have a macbook pro and a dell desktop. On the macbook pro I can press the funny key and space and if I search for an app by the first two letters it comes up almost instantly and I can launch the app.

    I installed windows 10 on the desktop thinking it would be a good upgrade. I installed ONE APP which was Kodi. I launch the start menu type Kodi in and it does not find the application. I have had it for two months now and it still doesn't find Kodi so it isn't like it needed time to 'learn' the apps I use the most.

    It is a POS if it wasn't for the fact Netflix on Linux is damn near impossible I'd wipe it.

    1. Glenturret Single Malt

      Re: Awful

      I have frequently used apps (like Kodi) on the taskbar. One click and it is open.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Awful

        Yes, but this new super awesome start menu is supposed to be the future. 'Live' tiles and using Cortana to search for things whether by voice or keyboard yet it clearly doesn't work.

        Personally I think the live tiles are a good idea. Maybe a bit boring due to their flatness, but a very good idea. They will fail however, because people simply won't develop the apps for them. The fact they are trying to get Android apps running on Windows phone 10 suggests Microsoft know this too.

        The Cortana integration sucks though it is absolutely useless. The fact it can't find one app makes me wonder if it is too busy sending my info back to microsoft to worry about things like indexing the drive

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Awful

      Does Kodi installer follow Windows guidelines for setups? If it doesn't install properly, Windows app search function may not work as you think. It doesn't just look for executables around the file system.

      There are better chances OSX developers adheres to the OS rules than many Windows ones, especially most open source developers of cross platform software with not enough Windows setups knowledge.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Awful

        Dear downvoter, there are several registry keys you have to properly setup to properly register an application in Windows. A proper Windows setup is far more than blindly copying some files in the file system. You may like it or not, you may ignore it or not, but that's the way Windows is designed to work. Without complying, some features may not work as intended.

        For example, I suggest you to give a look to the App Paths key and how it is designed to work: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee872121(v=vs.85).aspx

        Unluckily is a fact many Windows developers - open source or not - don't know how to properly install and uninstall an application. Windows 3.x times are long over. But some people prefer to stay ignorant and pretend nothing ever changes...

        1. fung0

          Re: Awful

          The fact that application installation in Windows is a Byzantine procedure hardly seems like a strong defense of Windows.

    3. Naselus

      Re: Awful

      Booted Win 10 machine.

      Installed Kodi

      Typed 'Kodi' into the start menu.

      It found it more or less immediately.

      Could not replicate. Problem exists between chair and keyboard.

    4. ArthurHH

      Re: Awful

      "It is a POS if it wasn't for the fact Netflix on Linux is damn near impossible I'd wipe it."

      Although I'm not a fan of chrome, if you use a recent vrsion it works great with Netflix under Linux.

  19. Mike 125

    Can't resist this bandwagon..

    - He's excited to 'try a new thing', but he's not sure why.

    - He's always liked Microsoft's attempts to 'change the paradigm'.

    - He thinks that a user interface defines how a computer *works*.

    Confused people like Matias him are the reason IT, big and small, is in a mess. Put your suit on sir, and go sell something to... maybe a government department?

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Can't resist this bandwagon..

      Maybe things don't come across well in messages of 150 characters or less.

      >- He thinks that a user interface defines how a computer *works*.

      If we make that a user interface defines how a computer system *works*., then the statement is largely true, since the user is part of the system.

      1. Mike 125

        Re: Can't resist this bandwagon..

        @Dave 126

        Goddamn it, you mean I gotta go redraw my Context Diagram *again*!

        Ok, but he oddly tries to draw a distinction between how an OS *looks* and how it *works*, when actually, he's talking about the system in both cases.

        Agreed, Twitts can't win.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Although Windows 10 is a horrible product it is not something that I can get as worked up about as some others do. Best just to avoid it.

    I tried it for a month on one of my machines (a Dell desktop previously running Windows 7 that has FTP and Hauppauge TV servers, plus normal office s/w) and found that it got in the way of my work. I can see the use of a new UI when it makes work easier but one that requires learning and then makes matter worse has no place in my life. I used Macrium to restore my Win7 environment. I make no apologies; I am a WIMP man!

    Win7 is set to be supported until 2020 and all of my machines will be replaced by then so there is no need to move them to Win10. I have an old PC linked to my sound system for music and that runs Lubuntu and I have a Sandbox running other Linux flavours to see how they are getting on (Ubuntu, Ubuntu Mate. Linux Mint). They are not quite ready for the general public yet but they are getting there (any OS that in normal work requires you to open a terminal and type sudo apt-get update then sudo apt-get install ......... is a fail).

    I have put Windows Update on "Notify but don't download" ie no automatic updates, banned a bunch of specific updates* that push Win10 and increase telemetry etc and have put a Microsoft block list in my Peerblocker. That is me sorted until 2020 unless I have to buy new h/w in the meantime and I shall deal with that when it happens. Fives years is a very long time in computing and who knows, Win10 may go the way of Vista by then. Microsoft is not invulnerable; look at Nokia.

    (* they are

    KB2952664

    KB2976978

    KB2977759

    KB2990214

    KB3014460

    KB3015249

    KB3021917

    KB3022345

    KB3035583

    KB3044374

    KB3050265

    KB3050267

    KB3065987

    KB3068708

    KB3075249

    KB3075851

    KB3080149

    KB3083324

    1. auburnman

      Cheers for the list.

  21. TeeCee Gold badge
    Facepalm

    "says Android user experience leader"

    OI! Pot! You're black you are.

    Kettle.

    (I take it that we are talking about the same Android where the "user experience" varies wildly between devices....let alone releases?)

  22. The entire Radio 1 playlist commitee

    xubuntu just works - perhaps its similar to XP I can't remember or care.

  23. phuzz Silver badge
    Gimp

    Technically Win10 is Vista with a flat UI on it. Or at least the internals are much closer to Vista than XP (ie kernel v6). In the same way that XP might have looked more like win 98, but it was based on NT.

    He's welcome to his dislikes, but at least be technically correct about it ;)

    1. Naselus

      (ie kernel v6)

      I thought win 10 claims to be Kernel v10 now (after mysteriously skipping 7, 8 and 9). I'm not sure what kind of giant difference that's supposed to make, mind.

      But anyway, I doubt he'd recognize the technical details under the UI if you forced him to sit through a 7-year computer science degree on the topic. What he means is that the start menu is still in one corner, and the clock is still in the other, so clearly nothing original can possibly have happened anywhere else in the entire system.

    2. John Savard

      I knew that Windows 7 was really Vista with some of the most annoying security defaults removed, and some small improvements. I didn't know about the internals of 8 or 10, as to how much they were built on Windows 7 or included fresh, new code.

      But if one really wants to nit-pick about that, it should be noted that Windows XP is really Windows 2000 with improvements to Windows 95/98/ME compatibility.

      So, while I think it's a choice as to whether to regard the differences between Vista and XP as major or minor, and so to be technically correct, he didn't have to refer to Windows 10 as "Windows Vista with a design skin" (and if he did that, he would be criticized as being unfair to Microsoft, since Vista was a roundly disliked version) but he could be criticized instead for not calling it "Windows 2000 with a design skin".

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All this had made me wonder.

    If my users are going to go mad at me over 8 / 8.1 / 10 whatever I do, then is it time to move to Linux? Might as well take the knocks on the chin. These will reduce in severity over time, and then when the last gnasher / wailer realises they are screaming into a void, we end up with an estate we can actually do something with going forward...? Maybe, maybe not.

    Interesting times.

  25. CheesyTheClown

    I miss Windows 8.1 ;(

    Windows 8.1 was as close to perfect as a desktop operating system ever got. I've adapted to Windows 10 now, but Windows 8.1's start/search screen was awesome and I loved the Windows 8.1 charms bar.

    I sometimes wonder if Microsoft is doomed to always tease me by giving me exactly what I want in one version and taking it away the next. :(

    1. Naselus

      Re: I miss Windows 8.1 ;(

      "Windows 8.1's start/search screen was awesome and I loved the Windows 8.1 charms bar."

      Get. Out. Now.

    2. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: I miss Windows 8.1 ;( @CheesyTheClown

      Like the ironic wind-up :)

      >I sometimes wonder if Microsoft is doomed to always tease me by giving me exactly what I want in one version and taking it away the next. :(

      Agree, MS have consistently played fast and loose with the UI in each 'refresh' of Windows. However, it seems that since Bill Gates stepped back from day-to-day involvement little consideration has been shown to MS's loyal users of Windows and Office...

      Interestingly, it also seems that some Linux distributions are following the same path, in the pursuit of 'hip' rather than usability.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I miss Windows 8.1 ;( @CheesyTheClown

        re: hip Linux desktops.

        I assume you are referring to the Gnome3 and Unity desktops beloved by Ubuntu. They are indeed hopeless but you have the advantage over Windows in that you can load many different GUIs on Ubuntu to obliterate Unity. My choice is MATE for better PCs and LXDE for older kit. Try doing that with Redmond's finest!

  26. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    User Interface

    My computers are tools that I use to get stuff done, not shrines of worship. I don't care if an electric drill has a red or a blue casing, the question is if it's the right tool for the job at hand. Likewise I don't care all that much how the GUI looks as long as it is comprehensible and does the job. If the GUI changes due to upgrades/updates/whatever I find it very convenient if the new GUI as least resembles the old GUI so that I don't have to waste time on getting to know it all over again.

    Re the install disk-illustration: I've still got the stack og 3.5" floppies that NT 3.5 came on somewhere.

  27. inmypjs Silver badge

    Criticism from the morons who...

    designed a UI on/off widget which slides left or right when you press down on it and gives you absolutely no indication if left or right or it being a light or dark shade of some pastel colour is supposed to be on or fucking off.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Has he 'special needs', employed on a quota scheme?

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Per the title

    OK, fine-- I must be an antique, and I don't care. I like XFCE the way a redneck likes his pickup truck. Yeeehaaaw!

    Beer, because beer.

  30. azaks

    best laugh I've had in ages...

    so there is actual conscious design behind the Android UX? Huh... who would have known? Keep up the great work fella...

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    These words told me all I need to know about this guy

    "I've always liked Microsoft was attempting to do with Windows 8 - change the paradigm."

    ARSEHOLE

  32. John Savard

    Not Taking Him Seriously

    Windows 7 is Windows XP with significant improvements. When I copy from one directory to another, it gives me more options when dealing with duplicate files. So that's already not a 'design skin'.

    Windows 8 is to Windows 7 and XP like a version of Android that lets you turn off Android and enter full-blown Linux is to Linux. Having a whole new ISA for a new class of programs is rather more than a 'design skin'.

    Anyways, Chromebooks and Android smartphones and tablets are all very well, but if you actually want to get stuff done, you need a real computer. You don't have to use Windows for that; you can use Linux or get a Mac. Are those "dated" too?

  33. Mark Allread

    "Windows Mobile is a flop"

    It's not even out yet FFS. Why is The Register so relentlessly anti-MS as to come out with this bullshit?

  34. Hans 1
    Mushroom

    I do not like what MS did with Windows 8, but it is way better than 10, if you ask me ... here's why:

    The start menu in Windows 10 is less usable than the TKFM or whatever it is called this week of Windows 8, at least in Windows 8 you have more space to place your own apps and, you do not have to go through an alphabetically ordered list full of 99% useless apps ... well you do, but since they are puked all over the screen in multiple columns, you hardly have to scroll.

    I have skype for business installed, yet I still have a "Get Skype" item

    I have Office 2016 installed, yet I still have a "Get Office" item

    Despite what was said in a sarcastic Apple ad, Alarm & Clock are not the most interesting apps on Windows, why are they listed in second spot under all apps, I would expect them under accessories. This is just a silly example, as I said, 99% of what is there should be under folders.

    Why is it so that I have opened Word and Powerpoint on the command line at the least 260 times, yet they still do not show up in "Most Used" ????

    Why do I have OneNote and OneNote 2016 listed ?

    Why, when I search for Word in search bar below, is Wordpad the best app the first time I try, and, without opening Word inbetween, why is Word now at the top of the list?????

    What 8 and 10 have in common: I spend a certain amount of time in the beginning unpinning a gazillion apps from the respective "start screen"s and place my own, Windows 8 makes that far easier.

    The Windows 2000 menu was by far the best menu.

    Now, please tell me ... why ohhh why the FUCK do you store a single start menu for all users ????? Are you f'ing nuts? Windows 2000 had default and user-specific start menus, so did XP.

    I seem to remember Windows 95 also had user-specific start menus.

    I have to put up with this shit for work and believe me, I have tried very hard to postpone this .... thank Linus I have a Linux box where I spend most of my work time.

    Ohhh, and, for some reason, the start screen did not come up through rdp or vmware vcenter client, a reboot fixed that ... as they say, if it don't work, reboot ... just like Win95 ...

  35. Updraft102

    Hand-held touchscreen devices require big UI elements. Human fingers span tens of pixels on a 5 inch screen, and there's no feedback indicating what element will receive the tap before the tap takes place (in contrast with a mouse, where one can clearly see the position of the pointer before clicking). If one-handed operation is desired, it's even worse, as the thumb spans more pixels than the other digits. Additionally, one-handed operation favors the "portrait" orientation, which is seldom used with traditional PCs.

    A system using the large controls that work with small-screened touch devices must use screen space sparingly, as there's not much to work with. Onscreen buttons and top-level menu options are sparse, with many actions requiring quite a bit of drilling before you can find what you're looking for. It's a necessary annoyance when one is dealing with a small screen intended to be used with human fingers.

    A traditional PC interface has none of those limitations. A mouse pointer can easily and reliably hit a target that is only a few pixels wide, and the display is large enough to allow many more onscreen UI elements than would be feasible with a mobile device. To push that same touch-oriented UI onto a regular PC would be to waste much of that screen space, and to impose the annoyance of having to drill down through layers of menus when there is plenty of screen space for a faster, more elegant solution. It's a necessary annoyance with a mobile device, but an unnecessary one on a PC.

    That's one of many areas where Windows 10 fails. Many of the menus and dialogs built into the OS are of the touch variety, with no standard versions available. One example is the touch-oriented Settings app, which is slated to replace the mouse-oriented Control Panel that has worked for us for decades. Changes like that are a step backwards in usability and UI design for the PC user. We're being asked to accept the compromises to make Windows work on mobile touch devices even though we aren't using them. It's all cost and no benefit... well, there is benefit, but it's not for us.

    Sorry, Microsoft, no sale on that one.

    The code for traditional Windows menus already exists from previous Windows versions, and it could very easily be selectively used on non-touch devices with no noticeable increase in the installed Windows footprint. In fact, I would guess the old Win32 dialogs from previous versions of Windows are still there in Windows 10, but are simply turned off, which would be normal for Microsoft.

    If you use a resource editor to examine the hundreds of files that make up a Windows installation, you can see dozens of obsolete Windows dialogs from Windows versions long forgotten. These dialogs take up so little room (on disk or in memory) that it's better to leave them in than to take the slight risk that removing them will cause unexpected regressions in stability. Clearly, they're not taking up much room, or MS would undoubtedly have removed them from the code base years ago if there was any tangible benefit to doing so.

    So, if that's the case (and it is), what's the rationale behind forcing PC users to muddle through with touch-oriented dialogs? Are you there, MS?

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