Windows 10: One for the suits, right Microsoft? Or so one THOUGHT

Re: The 'sanity at last' release.

>> See, Microsoft? that wasn't so hard, after all, now was it.

Microsoft never does anything for 'users', only for itself. In the case of Metro, it thought it could foist its fisher price touch UI onto its desktop monopoly in the hopes of imposing familiarity and luring mobile users into the platform. It didn't work. That's the problem with having OEM monopolies. Companies like Microsoft can do what it likes without consequences because no one challenges it. The sooner the desktop market dies the better.

Re: Tiles should replace icons fully - everywhere.

look forward to that in 30.11.

been there, done that.

Re: Tiles should replace icons fully - everywhere.

How often do you sit staring at your desktop? The Mail tile on my surface RT is useless as when you don't have any email, it shows you old mail. Flash, flash, flash arg! I turned them all off except news.

No one wanted Active Desktop.

No one wanted Gadgets in Vista/7 with the exception of maybe a weather app or clock. Even MS abandoned them saying not to use them as they were unsafe.

No one wants live tiles.

Re: Tiles should replace icons fully - everywhere.

Maybe most business users don't stare at their desktop to see 'important' information. The notification panel that has been around a fair while can update you with anything important, but most of the time people in work (at least the places I have worked) rarely see the desktop, they have their actual work open on the PC whether that be the Internet, e-mail, Word, or proper applications.

Even starting up the PC jumps straight to the corporate intranet and starts up e-mail in many places.

Windows introduced Gadgets a while back and I never found them that useful, Live tiles are almost the same in that context but less useful.

On a phone or possibly even a tablet a quick glance at the 'desktop' to see if there are any new notifications or updates works okay. On a PC, especially a business PC it doesn't. That is the issue with Microsoft especially with Windows 8, they never actually thought how a user actually uses a PC different to a phone and tablet, especially for business user who aren't obsessed with social updates.

In fact the OS really doesn't matter much to most business users (not including tech departments) at all. It's all about the software and applications that people have to run to do their job, they just want the OS to allow that as simple as possible and a simple menu with about 10 programs supports that quite well. Learning to use a radically new OS just to do the same work is definitely not a positive.

[Edit: I see after I posted that Tom 35 has the same opinion]

Re: Tiles should replace icons fully - everywhere.

> Why not having a mail or messagin app tile (on the desktop)

> showing you incoming messages?

Because the window containing what you're actually working on will be in front of it, unless you have a 3rd (4th etc) monitor just to display the desktop tiles.

You're probably better to use a Windows tablet for that.

Re: Tiles should replace icons fully - everywhere.

"Microsoft should replace icons with tiles fully. I would like to have tiles which can be resized and can look like simple icons (but yet display some info) when "minimized", or display more information when set at different sizes."

You can already do this in Windows 8.1. Tiles can be resized, and the smallest size is a simple small icon. And if you want it to be static instead of displaying live data, then you can do that too!

In Windows 10, apps appear as normal icons in the Start menu. You can optionally drag them to the Live area of the Start menu where they become resizable Live Tiles.

And yes, the mail app tile (for example) already shows you different incoming messages depending on the size of the tile, or just a number when it's minimised to it's smallest icon to indicate the number of new messages. Other app tiles also show you tasks and status etc. It sounds to me like you haven't even used Windows 8.1.

Re: Tiles should replace icons fully - everywhere.

> Microsoft should replace icons with tiles fully. I would like to have tiles which can be resized and can look like simple icons (but yet display some info)

We have had dynamic desktop icons for twenty years or so--I believe Windows also has them. For more dynamism, you may want to take a look at what we call that Plasmoids in KDE, which are essentially interactive desktop icon-like things. They are also supported in Apple computers and, I believe, in Windows (e.g., Google Widgets?).

However, I admit that even having written Plasmoids myself, I don't find them particularly useful aside from some limited use cases (e.g., weather).

My point is that you seem to be trying to reinvent the wheel.

Re: Tiles should replace icons fully - everywhere.

>Why not having a mail or messagin app tile showing you incoming messages? Why not tiles informing you about an application running tasks and status? Why not an "icon" whose info displayed can be customized?

That's what the notifications area is for.

Some contradiction here:

"Microsoft should replace icons with tiles fully. I would like to have tiles which ... can look like simple icons ... Icons are a relic of the past..."

So when I first log on what should all the various icons on my desk display, given that at this time the system is idle? I don't need the Word icon flashing up all my recent documents. Yes it might be nice to be able to right click on a desktop icon and immediately see a list of recent documents, but that is very different to having lots of icons simply shouting "look at me".

Personally, I find the idea that the best we can do with the capabilities of a computer is build representatives of our real-world physical desks. I'm absolutely in favour of building new interactions that surpass those.

Reminds me of Zuckerburgers vision for VR, which involved being to able to meet up with mates and watch a film, without actually meeting up with mates. Crap, and a total lack of imagination.

Re: What about Windows 9?

What about Aston Martin DB8 ? Went straight from DB7 to DB9.

Perhaps to avoid a model which became known as the "Deviate" and jokes from Clarkson if it ran wide on corners.