Windows 8 Consumer Preview : First Impressions
Well, I have Windows 8 up and running on the XPS as 1 of 2 OS's (the other being Windows Vista) but I mainly have been using Windows 8 since all I use that laptop for these days is my Zune Pass. And I have also been running it as the sole OS my Acer which is primary computer as it is lighter, faster at most tasks and actually has a battery life to speak of. I haven't gone too in depth in anything yet as I worked late both days I had the OS up and running, but have toyed with it enough for some initial comments.
First, before I dive in. I'm probably not representative of your average user by any means. My primary use of my main PC is toying around with side projects in development, and playing music from my other laptop. Sure I surf the web and use many of the every day applications everyone else uses, but I've also been setting up PC's since long before many people have even owned them, so even then my perspective is a tad different. But here it is.
Equal parts greatness, and equal parts shame.
I guess I'll start with the bad. This is STILL not a final release, so it COULD change, but since this is the Consumer preview, that makes me think that less will change. But I could always be proven wrong. Firstly on the bad is, what is there in the next gen UX is most definitely touch first. In my opinion they have not succeeded in making touch and the mouse/keyboard world equal citizens. And I've found this both in 'native' MS screens and apps and in 3rd party ones they now have out in the market. Scrolling through the new Start menu for instance, more intuitive, easier and thus also faster with touch than with a mouse. Wordament, my favourite game from the WP7 was easier to play on Windows 8 when I used Splashtop from iPad than it was using either the track pad OR a physical mouse. And other areas of the UX and applications are similarly flawed. I wouldn't be upset about this, except for 2 reasons. First MS stressed over and over again phrases like "No compromise experience" and claims that touch and mouse/keyboard were both 1st class citizens. Also, this preview isn't going to be used primarily by people with touch first devices and Microsoft knows this.
The next was one that while I understand it... hampers the experience for me. I live in Canada. Many of the apps don't yet work here. The Xbox Live app, the Music app and the Video app for example. Yes, different regions have different processes, regulations and steps you need to take. But this is also not a product Microsoft decided to develop yesterday. This OS has been in the works for years. Unless they can measure user frustration from their telemetry data, I don't see the value in this. Personally, I can't help but feel that they let their veil of secrecy get in the way of squaring these things away before getting to this point.
App selection is #3. I'm not one of those people who thinks Apple has a better App store because they have 500k apps. But I do believe such a store needs a certain volume of applications across a certain number of categories to be taken seriously. Yes, the marketplace is new and they want to take baby steps. But they also want to stress the system and see how well it scales. And there is no better time to break things then when neither the OS nor the marketplace are "official" yet. For this release, they basically had a few contest winners who were allowed in, and a few hand selected free only apps. I'm not going to dive into this one too much, but from what I saw at build there isn't a lot that needs to be changed to get a WP7 app running in WinRT.
I think it would have been brilliant to provide assistance and encouragement to WP7 developers to do so (free app submission for the preview period), then pull the apps once the final store goes live. Why would this be brilliant? Since the apps would be pulled later, and they have already been verified for WP7 they have gone through some verification and while not all of it is applicable to Windows 8, it pads out your marketplace and lets your WP7 developers know if their app was drawing interest in Windows 8. What better way to convince a developer that if they rebuild for WinRT that people will be interested in their app than by letting people take a look at what they already have out there?
So, I think covers my initial thoughts on the bad. This next one is an on the fence but I'm going to call it a plus. They have removed the software Start button from the Desktop application. A lot of people have already expressed outrage over this. But I think it never should have been there in the first place. I got used to it in the dev preview, so I was tempted at first to call it a negative point, but a lot of people complaining about the Windows 8 user experience are people are just too used to the last gen experience. Lots of people complained that they would want to start an application and they would click the start button in Windows 8 expecting the old programs list to pop-up and then they were thrown off when they were instead pulled into the new user experience. Well, now there is no button to tempt you. That one change should make it easier for a LOT of people to differentiate and should actually make the transition easier.
While the touch vs mouse/keyboard thing may not have improved since the dev preview, all of the apps and the experience itself in general feels more polished. The apps with the dev preview were just sample apps, so this is to be expected. But nice to actually see it delivered on.
And lastly on the plus side, while I bashed the app selection, many of the ones that are there bring things I absolutely love about my windows phone to my desktop. The maps application is top notch. It IS very reminiscent of Maps on the iPad… and that is a good thing. It is powered by Bing of course instead of Google. But people have been using personal computing devices for what? a decade now? to map out travel plans, etc.... I'm shocked it has taken this long for a laptop/desktop OS to ship with a maps application. And its ability to determine my location even without a GPS is uncanny (pegged my address at next door neighbours which is pretty much on par with my phones GPS). Native calendar application is clean and good looking. And the messaging app is also fantastic. But I have one gripe... why can't I change the weather application Fahrenheit to Celsius? My regional settings are correct and there is no settings I can find. Oddly, the WP7 equivalent apps from the 2 app suppliers both have that option, so they both know how to do it.
Anyway, this is getting long. Will probably have more as time with the OS increases.
First, before I dive in. I'm probably not representative of your average user by any means. My primary use of my main PC is toying around with side projects in development, and playing music from my other laptop. Sure I surf the web and use many of the every day applications everyone else uses, but I've also been setting up PC's since long before many people have even owned them, so even then my perspective is a tad different. But here it is.
Equal parts greatness, and equal parts shame.
I guess I'll start with the bad. This is STILL not a final release, so it COULD change, but since this is the Consumer preview, that makes me think that less will change. But I could always be proven wrong. Firstly on the bad is, what is there in the next gen UX is most definitely touch first. In my opinion they have not succeeded in making touch and the mouse/keyboard world equal citizens. And I've found this both in 'native' MS screens and apps and in 3rd party ones they now have out in the market. Scrolling through the new Start menu for instance, more intuitive, easier and thus also faster with touch than with a mouse. Wordament, my favourite game from the WP7 was easier to play on Windows 8 when I used Splashtop from iPad than it was using either the track pad OR a physical mouse. And other areas of the UX and applications are similarly flawed. I wouldn't be upset about this, except for 2 reasons. First MS stressed over and over again phrases like "No compromise experience" and claims that touch and mouse/keyboard were both 1st class citizens. Also, this preview isn't going to be used primarily by people with touch first devices and Microsoft knows this.
The next was one that while I understand it... hampers the experience for me. I live in Canada. Many of the apps don't yet work here. The Xbox Live app, the Music app and the Video app for example. Yes, different regions have different processes, regulations and steps you need to take. But this is also not a product Microsoft decided to develop yesterday. This OS has been in the works for years. Unless they can measure user frustration from their telemetry data, I don't see the value in this. Personally, I can't help but feel that they let their veil of secrecy get in the way of squaring these things away before getting to this point.
App selection is #3. I'm not one of those people who thinks Apple has a better App store because they have 500k apps. But I do believe such a store needs a certain volume of applications across a certain number of categories to be taken seriously. Yes, the marketplace is new and they want to take baby steps. But they also want to stress the system and see how well it scales. And there is no better time to break things then when neither the OS nor the marketplace are "official" yet. For this release, they basically had a few contest winners who were allowed in, and a few hand selected free only apps. I'm not going to dive into this one too much, but from what I saw at build there isn't a lot that needs to be changed to get a WP7 app running in WinRT.
I think it would have been brilliant to provide assistance and encouragement to WP7 developers to do so (free app submission for the preview period), then pull the apps once the final store goes live. Why would this be brilliant? Since the apps would be pulled later, and they have already been verified for WP7 they have gone through some verification and while not all of it is applicable to Windows 8, it pads out your marketplace and lets your WP7 developers know if their app was drawing interest in Windows 8. What better way to convince a developer that if they rebuild for WinRT that people will be interested in their app than by letting people take a look at what they already have out there?
So, I think covers my initial thoughts on the bad. This next one is an on the fence but I'm going to call it a plus. They have removed the software Start button from the Desktop application. A lot of people have already expressed outrage over this. But I think it never should have been there in the first place. I got used to it in the dev preview, so I was tempted at first to call it a negative point, but a lot of people complaining about the Windows 8 user experience are people are just too used to the last gen experience. Lots of people complained that they would want to start an application and they would click the start button in Windows 8 expecting the old programs list to pop-up and then they were thrown off when they were instead pulled into the new user experience. Well, now there is no button to tempt you. That one change should make it easier for a LOT of people to differentiate and should actually make the transition easier.
While the touch vs mouse/keyboard thing may not have improved since the dev preview, all of the apps and the experience itself in general feels more polished. The apps with the dev preview were just sample apps, so this is to be expected. But nice to actually see it delivered on.
And lastly on the plus side, while I bashed the app selection, many of the ones that are there bring things I absolutely love about my windows phone to my desktop. The maps application is top notch. It IS very reminiscent of Maps on the iPad… and that is a good thing. It is powered by Bing of course instead of Google. But people have been using personal computing devices for what? a decade now? to map out travel plans, etc.... I'm shocked it has taken this long for a laptop/desktop OS to ship with a maps application. And its ability to determine my location even without a GPS is uncanny (pegged my address at next door neighbours which is pretty much on par with my phones GPS). Native calendar application is clean and good looking. And the messaging app is also fantastic. But I have one gripe... why can't I change the weather application Fahrenheit to Celsius? My regional settings are correct and there is no settings I can find. Oddly, the WP7 equivalent apps from the 2 app suppliers both have that option, so they both know how to do it.
Anyway, this is getting long. Will probably have more as time with the OS increases.
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