Metro has been tried already, it didn't work

Remember these?

These devices didn't exactly sell like hot cakes, did they?

And why? Because MS took a desktop GUI and slapped it on a touch device. They added some hacks to it, like hand writing recognition, and et voila, they created the tablet OS! They even had a unified GUI, because it looked just like its bigger brother on the desktop. Too bad it failed though, despite being on the market almost a decade before the iPad.

Same with Metro. This time it's just the other way around, take a tablet GUI, slap a few hacks onto it.. and sell it on the laptop and desktop. Profit. 

Why should it be different this time?

Just like XP was a hack on the tablet, Win 8 is a hack on the desktop. I would love to read the reasons why "this time it's different! honest!".

I have an older tablet with an SSD and it still works great, but it's very different from Windows 8 and does not support touch let alone multitouch.  Yeah, I'm disappointed that it's taken so long, but Microsoft doesn't make hardware (usually).

Win8 metro on tablets is apparently really nice ... haven't had a touch monitor to try it out yet. 

WP7.5 on a Lumia 900 is absolutely fantastic, however; that much I know. 

By the way, the tablet pen input did/does work great, consider it was pre-multitouch and you required a special pen.  And it has nothing to do with Metro; Metro is supposed to be UX guidelines, and obviously it hasn't been tried before.

Richard, I think you're missing his point. He's saying that MS has tried to have one UI for both tablets and regular PCs before, and now they're doing it again, just from a different direction.

@Sven Groot:  His point is invalid because they didn't try to have two different UIs for the old tablets at all ... it just had some pen input features, not a whole UI. 

32 minutes ago, Richard.Hein wrote

@Sven Groot:  His point is invalid because they didn't try to have two different UIs for the old tablets at all ... it just had some pen input features, not a whole UI. 

and .... ?

sorry Richard but i am with the other in this ....  before they did "One Size fits all" with XP on a tablet.  This time it's "One size fits all"  with a strange half and half OS that will "almost work"

i used to hear a saying gowing up "Jack of all Trades, Master of None" I really feel that more than a few folks are saying the same thing to MS but they are not listenting:

a slate / tablet device is very different from a desktop pc or a laptop and trying to make one OS and UI work on all of them is just not going to work on all of them, two different versions of the same core can work if you do it right but trying to cram it all into one will leave places where it lacks features or function or is just awkward and this will mean that it will not be well accepted and will get trashed in the popular press / by critics etc....

I really hate that i see this the way i do  but that's what i see....

6 minutes ago, figuerres wrote

*snip*

This time it's "One size fits all"  with a strange half and half OS...

It's actually one OS that supports multiple input methods, and two different UIs depending on the need.

*snip*

a slate / tablet device is very different from a desktop pc or a laptop and trying to make one OS and UI...

*snip*

If you think about it, they're really not that different. A tablet is really just a gimped notebook. That's why so many companies are creating accessories to turn tablets back into notebooks. Once ultra-portable notebooks start supporting touch and convertibles start being built with ultra-portable specs, the fact of a tablet's being just a gimped version of something else will truly be driven home.

@wastingtimewithforums:

Remember it?  I've got one.  And its' running Windows 8.   Came with Windows XP, replaced with Windows Vista, replaced with Windows 7.  It's the machine that refuses to die.  Don't know if I'll spend the money putting Windows 8 on it when it comes out, as the plan is to buy a replacement.

In my opinion the reason the Tablet PC didn't take off when it did was due to price.  My Toshiba M200 was a good £1500 and my Motion LE1700 was about the same.  Three times more than the junk laptops floating about at the time.

At this point, I would like to see it released and let the market figure it out. 

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
-Mahatma Gandhi 

2 minutes ago, JoshRoss wrote

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
-Mahatma Gandhi 

Oh My God.

Please.not.this.quote.ahh. Almost ever fringe group quotes it endlessly, especially the more extreme Linux adepts:

http://techrights.org/2008/11/04/korea-lockin-deal

Ironic to see it in a topic about Win 8..

@wastingtimewithforums:

You mean this?

Windows 8 has the full desktop available, so what's so different? Anyway I think Metro is easy enough to avoid.

It's not anything like Windows Tablet Edition, which was a desktop OS pretty much. There was no getting away from "desktop mode", which made it unpopular on tablets. Windows 8 is a tablet OS and a desktop OS, and you don't really have to use the tablet part all that much. Just to run apps really, ones that you didn't pin (which is very few for me). Also you can get 3rd party stuff that restores the traditional menu.

And no I don't expect "desktop mode" to go away any time soon.

The point is Microsoft needs an answer to the iPad. They can't just sit around and do nothing while Apple makes billions in a market they have no footing in. They have to act fast before Android becomes "the other option", like what happened in smartphones.

It's really, really easy to click on something with a mouse that is suitably sized for touch. It's much, much harder to touch a control with your finger that is sized based on the precision control of the mouse.

If you can't see how obvious that makes the difference, I'm not sure anything will convince you.

If you think about it, they're really not that different. A tablet is really just a gimped notebook. That's why so many companies are creating accessories to turn tablets back into notebooks. Once ultra-portable notebooks start supporting touch and convertibles start being built with ultra-portable specs, the fact of a tablet's being just a gimped version of something else will truly be driven home.

Quite possibly. I would ask how many of these keyboards are actually sold in relation to iPads. Does every iPad owner buy one? Half of them? One per cent?

14 hours ago, Bass wrote

The point is Microsoft needs the right answer to the iPad.

Fixed

I see iPad + keyboard setups pretty often at coffee shops etc. these days.

3 hours ago, contextfree` wrote

I see iPad + keyboard setups pretty often at coffee shops etc. these days.

Could be it then. I don't go to coffee shops much. I don't see them used much on trains. Folk just use the folding case thingy and the onscreen keyboard, which I'm not a fan of for long notes.

Hmmm......... that's iPad 0.5 from Microsoft and yeah, it failed.