Microsoft's Windows 8.1 secrets REVEALED ... sort of After weeks of teasing us with vague promises, Microsoft has at last revealed some concrete details of what will be included in Windows 8.1, the update formerly known as "Blue." Describing the response to Windows 8 as "substantial," (You can say that again – Ed) Windows corporate VP Antoine Leblond wrote in a blog post on …
"It's Windows 8 even better," Leblond wrote. "Not only will Windows 8.1 respond to customer feedback, but it will add new features and functionality that advance the touch experience and mobile computing's potential."
So Windows 8.1 will respond to customer feedback?
If I call it a piece of sh*t will it respond and tell me to go and f... myself?
If I ask it for a fully functioning Start button will it respond and automatically provide one?
If I ask it to.....
Is that a stupid statement or what?
You have to wonder if this one also doesn't fly whether they'll actually take the hint?
It sounds like rather than listening, they've decided what people actually want (again) rather than actually gone out and taken detailed note of what they're actually saying. Prime example being start button (given) vs start menu (wanted).
But in the end the markets and sales will tell, and even if users can be ignored, their dollars spent (or lack of them) can't.
Agreed.
It was half baked crap when it came out and it will still be half baked crap after 8.1. Putting a dress on Frankenstein doesn't turn it into Gwyneth Paltrow.
"You can resize apps to any size you want" - whoopie feckin do. KDE4 has had resizeable plasmoids for years.
But it's still not enough.
It's nice to see their new official Windows 8.1 line though - "It's like having a ping pong bat shoved up your ass while you try to get on with your work.".
[...] how can they possibly think this will make even a single person happy?
Well, it sounds like this feller Leblonde is happy; he'll be employed for some time trying to convince the world that up is down, everybody loves what they hate, and that a command line can be driven without a keyboard.
That's more apt than MS are willing to admit, and I hadn't realized just how much until this morning.
My dad who is not a computer type thinks it is finally time to take the plunge. For Christmas he got himself some non-name Android tablet thing and tried to configure it himself. I couldn't figure out the reset combination to try to fix it. He eventually took it back. I gave him a semi-fixed up laptop in May to replace it. This morning when I check WOOT they had a $300 reasonably powered laptop on one of the screens. When I saw it came with Windows 8 I stopped checking the rest of the specs. Yes, I might be able to install a Linux distro on it, and all he really wants to do is get an email account and check the web. But I don't personally use any Linux distros so I'm not going to put something on his PC that I can't support over the phone. So even at a really affordable price point, the Windows 8 logo stopped the sale before I really started to check it.
... and would you believe that they are also bumping the kernel version up to 6.3. So Vista was 6.0, Windows 7 was 6.1, Windows 8 is 6.2 and now Windows 8 Blew is 6.3 ( which quasi-logically might have gone to Windows 9 ). FUBAR all around. So what magical reshuffling of kernel bytes merits this step up? -Rhetorical.
Softie Marketspeak: " Not only will Windows 8.1 respond to customer feedback, but it will add new features and functionality that advance the touch experience and mobile computing's potential "
Meanwhile the rest of the world is already using mobile on the 99% of tablets and phones none of which have "Microsoft" or "Windows" labels anywhere on them. How exactly can they "advance mobile computing's potential" when almost no-one is laying a finger on these MicroTurds. -Rhetorical.
And that's a big fat zero zilch nada on the listening to customer feedback, unless by "customer" they mean those MetroTards complaining that the Win8 desktop still vaguely resembles the productive pre-Win8 desktop. Installing a "Start Screen Button" that points right back to Metro is the biggest middle finger ever directed to a heretofore loyal customer base. Are they truly insane? -Rhetorical.
Steve Jobs may have died, but his ghost is haunting the halls of Redmond wreaking havoc like a ghost in the machine.
WTF, what are they smoking up there in Redmond?
So the browsers available in other touch orientated Operating Systems are not built for touch?
Please MS, can't you even get some basic facts straight.
Be careful or you will start patenting all Touch applications next...
Supporting touch is not the same as built for touch. The latter implies they are designed primarily for touch, not just regular browsers you can poke at i.e. Safari on iOS.
There is definitely a lot to improve in this area. Maybe it's IE's turn to get things moving!!
Currently no browser is "designed for touch". To use the typical forum(1) the ones I have used so far need
"Smear to enlarge the display so I can hit the link"
"Smear to reduce the display so I can read the page"
A browser that is "designed for touch" would have a means to enlarge the links so I can reliably hit them even if the forum is not. Currently each forum / web site must be programmed to do so. Can't say wether MS managed that. Don't care since a Wacom stylus works fine in normal browsers
(1) This one if programmed in a way to be useable by touch with relatively big text, distance between topic etc.
Honestly, and I know Eadon is going to spit so many feathers at this point to make very nice mattress, but I quite like Windows 8 as it is.
I put in on a netbook to give it a go, keeping the old XP/Linux drive in case it was awful, but I've kept it, added Lubuntu for Linux/main OS, and am enjoying the shortcut keys, and the look and feel.
I also know a non-techie neighbour who bought a W8 laptop after a W7 one and when I asked how it was going, thinking it would be maybe complicated, the answer was 'all good, found the desktop, no problem'
So from a non-scientific poll of two, one IT, one not, I think the "it's an awful OS" crowd are somewhat over doing it.
I quite like Windows 8 as it is.
Have you used the search function? It's pretty crap compared to 7. I don't mind the rest of 8 but the search makes everything more complicated. I hope they've added the ability to open a file location from the search, cut/copy a file, copy the file path, check the properties, etc.
ACcc ,
I agree, I have no problems with W8 , but I suspect like most people I rarely use the apps. Once I laid out my tiles in a fashion that suited me I was off. I use it on a "proper" box and a tablet, I also have a Mac sitting on my desk at home and to be honest I prefer win8 to Mountain Lion (I only bought it so that I could create resources for the iThings the kids use).
About 1/3 of the kids in my computing & multimedia classes have tried windows & of the 50 or so that have, only 1 thinks its a pile of excrement, they are still running it. A few (@12) colleagues have new laptops that came with it preinstalled and once I showed them how to connect to the school wireless, and access the schools drives are as happy a pigs in s..t, of these 12 or so only has has gone to win7.
I suspect this is the workflow of most people. I make no use at all of the Store Apps, except for the mail app because it's quite handy having that pinned to 25% of my secondary monitor while still have a desktop that thinks it is the entire screen on the rest of that monitor, meaning maximizing a Window doesn't cover up mail.
Start Screen = big Start Menu. If you just look at it from that perspective and completely ignore the apps, there's not really a great deal of difference between 7 and 8.
And as for the search, Vista/7 search never seemed to find what I was after in any quick manner. If it did find it at all it was several items down the list of results and/or it took 15+ seconds to find it. Search on Windows 8 finds what I want and has it at the top of the list 95% of the time. I never used search in 7, I find I use it quite often in 8.
The only major gripe I have is with the Metro file manager, it is horrendous and my heart sinks every time I need to use it. Hopefully, they'll make that better in 8.1.
Thanks! I always wonder why Linux UI looks so childish. Nothing has changed in 10 years... or maybe 12. Can't remember exact time when I started to play around with Linux. Those screenshots remind me year 2006 when rounded corners were cool. (Remember websites with tr/br/bl/tl.gif-s?) As well as that very, VERY oldscoolish glass hover effect. (Or whatever it is callled - remember photoshop masks tutorials?) And that centered gradient in the background with stripes - certainly an awesome UI masterpiece! Certainly, not alien UI.
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