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I haven't used Win8 but the UI sounds badly designed: Why I'm uninstalling Windows 8
But it's not just the UI that MS has messed up. It's also the developer experience.
They could have finally made the standard Windows desktop touch-friendly. For example, they could make buttons taller, enlarge the vertical space around menu items (when operating in touch mode, anyway), allow you to "fling" listboxes, recognize vertical dragging as a way to scroll instead of to select text, add a "resize bubble" in the bottom-right corner of each window, support tap-and-hold for the right-click menu, etc. Developers could easily digest that, and users might be happy too.
But instead they decided to change absolutely everything. Everything! Developers not only have to learn to develop a new kind of user interface, they have to use a completely new API, too! Developers choosing to write apps for Win8 not only have to invest the time to learn the new API, they also have to discard potential customers using Win7 and WinXP (okay, a good developer can write two separate UIs for his app, but even a good developer would rather not).
Maybe if there were large and obvious benefits to Win8 over Win7, and if MS still had an iron-clad OS monopoly, that would be a successful strategy. But I think Win8 will prove to be a big mistake. Lots of developers that quickly upgraded to Win7 will, this time, sit back and wait to see if Win8 succeeds. But Win8 will not succeed without developers backing, and too many "wait and see" developers will translate into failure for Microsoft.
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Qwertie wrote: Maybe if there were large and obvious benefits to Win8 over Win7
Well, Cakewalk, who make an audio sequencer, did extensive tests and found its performance drastically improved over Win7, less kernel calls, improved disk I/O, lower memory requirements, among others. That's why I installed it, and am so far pleased with the result.
I've come to the conclusion that developers are a reactionary bunch who don't like change. I put in from of my mother, a "normal" user, and she was delighted. I suspect it will succeed.
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