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From what I've seen of Windows 8 sofar, I don't like it one bit. They are designing Windows 8 around touch. Everything can be tapped, swiped, docked, whatever. They are forgetting that their core market is still desktop PC's and that most users who have been using PC's for their entire life just want a regular desktop and not some fancy touch interface.
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I think the problem with this line of thinking is that the way the tech market is moving paints a very different picture.
- The smartphone market has absolutely skyrocketed in the last few years. The number of smartphone users is huge, and the number of apps being created is astronomical.
- Tablets have also made huge leaps and bounds. The iPad alone has sold more than 55 million units, and they keep selling more.
- Touch screens have become commonplace in many areas outside of computing. Cash registers, restaurant table management, health services, information displays all use touch.
- The accessibility and ease of use of touch. Touch interaction is intuitive – we all know how to touch things, to move things around. It makes sense, and it’s faster and easier to learn than traditional desktop mouse and keyboard input.
We can already see touch being integrated into the PC world—graphics tablets, laptop trackpads (including those such as the MacBook which recognise multitouch gestures), multitouch mouses—but so far that integration has been slow. The mouse and keyboard have been around since forever, at least in part due to familiarity and unwillingness to upgrade, but I think that eventually there’s going to have to be a move towards something new.
Windows 8 may not be successful, but I think it’s the start of something big. And we can’t hold on to the old methods forever.
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It's too bad they can't just keep the entire touch interface seperate, or at least not default.
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One thing I’m really apprehensive about is the transition between the old taskbar-and-windows UI and the new Metro look. Looking through the
developer blog, they seem to spend about as much time showing off the new features in the classic desktop as they do showing off the new Metro features. This is despite the new UI’s dominance.
It makes me wonder if the desktop is really going away as quickly as they keep making it out to be. Perhaps the classic desktop will still be a major part of the OS, and perhaps we’ll have the option to disable the new UI completely.