Windows 11's tablet-friendly taskbar pulled from Insider builds Microsoft has pulled the "tablet-optimized" taskbar from Windows Insider builds, citing "feedback" as the cause. Few will forget how the company made major OS tweaks for the sake of tablet users in Windows 8, no matter how much Microsoft might wish they did. The company has since gradually distanced itself from such exploits, …
I suspect there was a bug in it that they couldn't be bothered fixing, or some manager didn't like it. I mean, why would they change the habits of a lifetime by actually listening to user feedback, instead of either ignoring it or replying with a snidely worded piece that's just a longwinded way of saying "you're wrong"?
Microsoft should give away a selfe stick and matching stuffed glove with every copy of Windows. That way they can standardise on touch-sensitive screens and completely do away with the ancient mouse/pointer rubbish for deskbound users - no longer a WIMP but a WIFP (Windows-Icons-Finger-Prod) UI. Icon for ... uh, I'm not actually sure which aspect of this post.
Windows has intentionally been developed in a mobile first approach since Windows 8, this is just a well known fact.
Windows 8, 9, 10 and 11 are designed for phones and tablets, that's why nearly all driver support for PCI(e) expansion cards were omitted in Windows 10. In fact, driver support in Windows 10 and 11 can be summed entirely by whatever hardware 3 players are using: HP, DELL and Lenovo.
You joke about the truth.
For several years I've been waiting to read an announcement for the IoT and embedded world that puts Microsoft fully into the SaaS realm. It's coming, give it time but eventually your Microbian will materialize. Although it wom't sound cool like that, it will be something like "WSL_H1FU.v5.365" (or something stupid in the way Microsft versions things).
I own a Surface and very occasionally use it as a tablet. So a 'tablet taskbar' aka fat fingered taskbar isn't a bad idea
Just make it a option that can be turned on rather than buggering about with the UI for everyone else.
Better still, spend the resources fixing the horrible context-sensitive on-screen keyboard. My iPad keypad appears just when needed. The Windows 10 one appears when not required and doesn't open without a click (on the too-small taskbar!) when needed. Or it disappears when it does eventually auto-open by which time you've prodded the task bar (expecting it not to appear) and promptly close it again.
Hmm. If I knew anything about hardware and software, I'd wonder why Win11 couldn't scan for what system the OS is installed on and adjust the UI accordingly.
Then again, it's Microsoft. So unpluging someone's keyboard & mouse would trigger conversion to tablet mode. Reverting back to proper OS-fearing keyboard mode would, of course, require confirming the change via your touchscreen.
I mean this is the OS that installs & runs XBox glue, even when there's never been any trace of an XBox on the network.
"If only Microsoft similarly listened to feedback back when it sought to push a touch-first operating system at customers."
I knew a Microsoftie through another forum. It seems they had performed quite extensive testing of W8 with 'ordinary users' and the arrangements in that version were well received and easily understood. He was really quite certain about this, and was very upset that everyone though it was the un-tested tramsmash that the world+dog perceived it to be.
There must have been some kind of primer and pre-participation training that heavily skewed the results, but somehow didn't get incorporated into the introduction process that one sometimes gets with a fresh OS installation. It's always been a source of wonder that Apple can get the introduction to a new install so right and M$ get it so wrong, as though no-one in marketing would look at the competition and think "That's a really good idea - we'll do it better next time" instead of presenting candy crush crap etc in start.
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