noman wrote on Apr 19, 2013, 15:33:
Jivaro wrote on Apr 19, 2013, 13:46:
That is great stuff there for an enthusiast, but what MS has done has driven off the casual/average user. Those folks won't go looking for a regedit fix, won't do a regedit fix, and in most cases don't feel like they should have to do a regedit fix. Then they will ask you just what the hell regedit is.
Casual users will find start screen better suited to launch desktop applications than the old start menu. The start screen button pops up at exactly the same location where start menu used to be. There's very little learning curve there, if any.
The metro-apps though will throw a curve ball, mostly in terms of learning the search/print/settings options in the charms menu, but that's a different issue. The start-screen itself is just a better start menu.
Most casual users would have a bunch of desktop icons any way (from installing applications), and will not use start menu or start screen in the first place.
It's incredible how much the lack of start-menu has been mourned by some, when it was one of the most useless parts of the OS, at least in the way it was designed.
The point of the article is that, at least according to some the hardware manufacturers, the casual/average user is *not* finding Win 8 better suited to anything and are thus leaving to something else they do find familiar. While your opinion may be that the casual/average user should find it easier than the start menu, the article seems to indicate that this is not the case. Sales have been weak, the manufacturers are complaining, and Apple continues to increase it's own PC sales despite changing virtually nothing about the products.
Heck, you may even be right...it might very well be easier in some sense. I myself tend to agree that Win 8 is pretty damn easy to use, but that point is irrelevant to the larger problem. People don't like different. It looks different, they go find something that looks familiar. I am not sure why people keep argueing over whether Windows 8 is a "good" OS, or if the start menu being gone is a "good" thing. It is irrelevant. The mainstream (and more importantly the business sector) seems to be saying they don't like it and, at least according to this article and various others that have been popping up over the last 6 months, the manufacturers that provide Windows hardware are starting to get even more anxious than they were when Stevie B and crew first started pushing it.
Again, as enthusiasts, I don't see how any of us could possibly be surprised by any of this. Look at the Windows Phone. You could make a strong case that the mobile OS is strong and easy to use. It is however pretty different in appearance to just about everything else out there. People who used Palm back in the day could easily transition to iOS or Android. People who use iOS can transition to Android. Android transitions iOS easily. People can stay loyal or bounce from OS to OS and it doesn't matter. But then we have the Windows Phone...and it's tiles...and people take one look and say "damn, that's weird"..and without even bothering to give it a shot, they move on to something else more familiar. Blackberry is facing the same problem. People who use them don't like it when they change stuff and once they go use something else they don't come back because the competition is easy to use and transitions easily. My mother can use a iOS phone without getting instructions from anyone even though she has owned an Android phone for the last 3 years. Believe me, if you knew my mother and her technophobia you would understand just how big of a statement that is.
The same thing is happening here that has been happening to MS on the phones. Given the choice the mainstream is either staying with what they know (Windows 7/Vista) or going to Apple rather than learning something new....and it was so entirely predictable I am seriously at a loss for why anyone would be surprised or feel a need to defend it.
I disagree with this concept that MS is blameless. They have seen the success of others and instead of building on it they have tried to present the exact same results with a visually and functionally different UI. They made that choice, the results are on them. I do agree that articles that don't specify numbers or sources specifically are ultimately not very useful however.
This comment was edited on Apr 19, 2013, 16:36.