I’m an Android user. I love my Samsung Galaxy S III. So why am I punching my details into the iPhone 5
reservation site every day? For the past week or so I’ve been using a
borrowed iPhone 5, tracking how it holds up – and where it falls short –
to the Android experience I’ve grown accustomed to. During that time
I’ve been frustrated by Maps, impressed by the camera, and generally had
my expectations of iOS shaken up some. It’s always good to mix up the
status-quo every so often, too, and along the way remember that there’s
more than one way to skin a metaphorical cellular cat.
Vincent’s already comprehensively reviewed the iPhone 5,
so I won’t retread old ground where it’s not necessary. Suffice to say,
the general reviewer consensus is that it’s the best iPhone to-date,
and Apple’s announced sales figures certainly suggest that the buying
public agrees.
As I’ve said before, I split my geek life mainly between Android and
Apple. I use a MacBook and I have a new iPad, but I also use a Nexus 7
and my regular phone is a Galaxy S III. I love OS X for its simplicity
(and I love the new Retina MacBook Pro for its build quality, excellent
display, and design) but I’ve had mixed results with iOS. The limits on
things like inter-app sharing are a frustration in comparison to
Android, and Apple’s comparatively locked down ecosystem overall –
though making for a very consistent user-experience – have left me
feeling more at home with Google’s platform.
The iPhone 5 is the first Apple handset that has made me consider
switching, however. Part of that is the industrial design; while there
are many people disappointed that Apple has ditched the glass back panel
of the 4/4S, I much prefer the crisp metal of the newest model. It’s a
device which you simply must hold in order to appreciate: the perfect
alignment and slick finish (assuming yours didn’t get scratched up in
transit), and the balance of lightweight feel yet a phone which still
feels solid in your hand. "The 4-inch screen instantly feels correct"
Even though it’s been stretched out in comparison to its
predecessors, the 4-inch screen and the longer form-factor instantly
feel correct. The old iPhone looks squat and blunted in comparison now.
It’s not just an aesthetic boon, though, and flipping between the iPhone
5 and the Galaxy S III, I was struck by just how large and,
occasionally, unwieldy the Samsung’s sizable screen is. Conversely,
there were times where I was browsing, and the iPhone 5 still felt
cramped when viewing full sites where the same content looked bright,
readable, and bold on the Galaxy S III.
Nothing prepares you for how tactile the iPhone 5 is, however. I
found myself picking it up and toying with it – automatically reaching
for it when I was in-between writing articles, for instance, or just
while watching TV. Not even necessarily turning it on, though the
quality of the display and the smoothness of iOS 6 makes flicking
through apps a somewhat mesmerizing experience. The simple cohesiveness
and immediacy of the UI animations is enough to convince you that
there’s a lot to be said for perfectly matching homegrown software with
homegrown silicon, as Apple has done with iOS and the A6 chipset.
Still, iOS 6 isn’t all good. The “over 200 new features” Apple has
touted of the latest release is an eye-catching figure, certainly, but
in practice it’s tough to identify more than a couple of changes over
previous versions. Some of those, like the switch from Google Maps to
Apple’s version, are effectively a step backwards, too. The learning
curve for existing users is small, then, for the iPhone 5, but the
platform is also beginning to feel tired and maybe even stagnant. Why
can I share photos via email or Twitter from the gallery, but not
Google+? Why is there no “new email” notification when the phone is
locked, despite most other apps getting the opportunity to slot alerts
onto the lockscreen? Why, if even Apple admits that Maps isn’t ideal,
can I not set a third-party alternative as the default for opening
addresses?
iOS helped pave the way for a more user-friendly breed of mobile
devices, but in many ways Android and Windows Phone have surpassed it in
imagination. Part of that might be Apple’s reluctance to leave anybody
behind along the way: as Jony Ive said of the iPhone 5 design changes,
Apple didn’t want to evolve the appearance of the smartphone simply for
the sake of doing so. There’s certainly something to be said for
familiarity and sticking with what works, but there’s a faint whiff of
laziness around Apple’s approach: a sense of “why do too much when
people will buy it in droves anyway.”
Maybe that’s unduly cynical, and what new features do stand-out are
generally solid. The panoramic photo system may not be the first such
example in a smartphone, but the quality of the final shots is highly
impressive. Put Siri – finally becoming of some use outside of the US
with the recent functional additions – next to Samsung’s S Voice and the
clunkiness of the Galaxy S III’s system is obvious. I’ve not had a
chance to try LTE – I was using Vodafone‘s
network, still on 3G here in the UK as there’s no commercial 4G service
to be had – but battery life proved impressively lengthy.
Maps, then, is the fly in the ointment, and though US-based reviewers
have had less of a struggle, outside of the US the situation seems
considerably worse. Dodgy data is only part of it, though; Apple may
have added turn-by-turn navigation, and I can do without Street View,
but the absence of public transport directions is, for a city-dweller
without a car like myself, a deal-breaker. I’m not the only one, either.
Over the past week I’ve spoken to confused tourists and frustrated cab
drivers, none of whom have been particularly impressed with Apple’s own
mapping tool. "Apple has the opportunity to do something interesting in the location space"
Maps will undoubtedly improve – and I do believe that Apple has the
opportunity to do something genuinely interesting in the location space,
though a combination of gamification and crowdsourcing,
and in the process refine its data considerably – but it will have left
a lot of users with burnt fingers and lingering suspicions of the
native app. Those days I didn’t double up and bring the Samsung with me
too, I relied on the excellent Nokia Maps in the browser (with a
homescreen shortcut so as to pretend as much as possible that it was a
native app).
So why am I considering buying an iPhone 5? Put simply, it’s faults
can be addressed with software tweaks – invisibly on the server-side, in
the case of Maps, so that for users the experience simply gets better –
and its strengths, such as build quality, design, camera capabilities,
and battery life, are all undeniable. Plus there’s a whole lot to be
said for phones with top-spec components but with more mid-scale
displays: 4-inches is a sweet spot that’s overlooked by rival flagships,
and usually if you want a handset of a similar size, you have to make
do with lower resolution screen hardware, underwhelming specifications,
or mediocre aesthetics. Huge displays are eye-catching, certainly, and
they do make things like browsing far more immersive, but they come with
compromises too.
Question is, will I be carrying the iPhone 5 alone, or will it have
to share my attentions with the Galaxy S III? The likelihood is that
I’ll be relying on two devices; I’m also considering pairing iPhone 5
and the Nexus 7, though even at 7-inches the Google tablet is less than
ideal for bag-less travel. So, two phones it is; that makes me an
outlier, yes, but that I’d even consider it having been so satisfied
with Android until now is evidence of the step forward the iPhone 5 has
taken. It’s not perfect, but it does enough – and well enough – to
finally earn a place in my pocket.
\
I have a confession to make: I never tried the Windows 8
consumer preview. You see, I’ve been a lifelong Windows user (I can
remember my parents making a big deal out of our switch to Windows 3.1),
and as a lifelong Windows user, I’ve been burned plenty of times in the
past. Most recently, this happened with Windows Vista, so when Windows 7
came along, I decided that it was the only Windows version I needed for
the foreseeable future. Sure, I watched plenty of videos and read
plenty of articles about Windows 8, but none of those convinced me that
OS was something I needed to have on my machine. Yet here I am,
reviewing Windows 8 for SlashGear. Can Microsoft’s
latest version of the OS persuade this stubborn Windows 7 user that the
grass really is greener on the other side? Read on to find out.
Setup
If you’re upgrading from a now-outdated version of Windows, setup is
pretty easy. You pop the disc in the tray and let autorun take over from
there. Depending on what version of Windows you’re upgrading from,
you’ll be presented with a number of options before the install begins.
Coming from Windows 7, I was given the option of keeping my Windows
“apps,” settings, and personal files, just my personal stuff (which
includes things like your desktop and your documents), or nothing at
all.
Obviously, opting to move nothing over to Windows 8 will result in
the shortest install and setup times, whereas going with the first
option will mean that you’ll be waiting a while as everything is moved
over. I chose the first option, not realizing that pretty much everything
on my hard drive would be spared. I have around 750GB of stuff stored
on my hard drive, but despite that, the total time it took to get
Windows 8 ready to go was only around an hour and a half. That doesn’t
seem too bad, but then again, I don’t make a habit of installing new
operating systems all that often, so I don’t have much to compare it to.
Still, regardless of which option you choose, don’t expect your
Windows 8 install to be instantaneous. You’re not required to do much of
anything until the install is nearly ready to go, so you’ll want to
occupy yourself somehow while Windows 8 works its magic. Once the
install is almost finished, you’ll be asked to either log into your
Microsoft account or create a new one. As far as I could tell, there
isn’t a way around this, but the account creation process is quick and
painless, so you may as well get it over with.
After that, you’ll be presented with a number of customization
options. You’ll be picking your Windows 8 color scheme here, and there
are a bunch of different options to choose from. I chose black as my
primary color will blue accents – relatively tame, but there are
definitely some wild color choices for the more adventurous types
(anyone in the mood for an orange Start page?). Naturally, you can
change your color settings at any time, and indeed, you’ll have more
options at your disposal once you’re doing this within the Settings
panel, so don’t fret too much when it comes to picking your scheme –
you’ve got a brand new operating system to dig into, after all.
It isn’t long before you find yourself at the Start page, and I have
to say, for someone who has been using Windows all his life, seeing that
Start page on the screen for the first time can be pretty jarring.
We’ll be talking about the Start page in much more depth in just a
minute here, so let’s move on for the moment. I was pretty surprised to
see that not only did almost all of my programs survive the transition
to Windows 8, but they worked just fine after the switch. There will be a
few programs that you’ll need to update after you install Windows 8,
and you’ll probably need to update those sound and video drivers before
you get everything working perfectly, but for the most part, everything
was working as it should.
That is definitely something that deserves some attention. The fact
that most everything was working properly without me having to do
anything else is a major bonus, and it makes upgrading to Windows 8 as
headache-free as possible. Naturally, not everything will be working
perfectly, but the majority of it should be, allowing you to jump right
in and see everything Windows 8 has to offer. Speaking of which…
Start Page and User Interface
By far, the biggest change in Windows 8 is the introduction of the
Start page. Gone is the Start button we’ve had since Windows 95,
replaced by a screen that’s packed with tiles just waiting to be
touched. That’s part of the problem though – while I have no doubt that
the Start page will be excellent on touchscreens, it seems kind of
unnecessary with a mouse and keyboard. It certainly looks sleek, but
whatever advantages it has overthe Windows 7 desktop are, in some ways,
lost on me.
That isn’t to say there aren’t upsides to the Start screen. From the
very start, it comes packed with handy apps that are actually quite
useful – but we’ll get to those later. In some cases, information will
be shown right on the tiles, with apps like the News tile giving you a
very brief rundown of the day’s top news stories (this is provided
you’re connected to the Internet, of course).
More importantly, the Start screen gives you a way to access the apps
you have installed on your computer with a quick click – though
clicking on any of the tiles that are for programs as opposed to apps
that are made specifically for use with Windows 8 will just take you to
the desktop. For apps that are designed for use in Windows 8, however,
you’re treated to better visuals; Windows 8 apps match the overall
design of the Start screen, which does a lot to tie the whole Windows 8
theme together and make the OS stand out from past iterations.
There’s a lot you can do from within the Start screen too. By right
clicking on a tile, you’re presented with a number of options: you can
remove the tile from your Start screen, remove the program from your
task bar (assuming it was there in the first place), uninstall the
program entirely, open it in a new window, run it as an administrator,
or open the file location. This is all geared toward ease-of-use.
Instead of having to open the “Add or remove programs” menu by going
through the Control Panel, for instance, you take care of all of that
through the Start page. It’s a nice touch, and these streamlined
features give Windows 8 an edge over its older OS brothers.
You can also click and drag tiles to move them around the page, or
move entire columns of tiles around at once. Once you get enough tiles
to fill up the entire page, the Start page begins to extend past your
screen, which places a bar at the bottom that allows you to scroll
through and see all of your tiles. I didn’t have enough tiles place on
my Start page to see how far the entire Start menu can extend, but it
certainly looks like it can go on for a while. All of these features
allow for a pretty deep level of customization, and it seems like
Microsoft wanted each user to have a Start screen that felt uniquely
their own.
Speaking of customization, remember how I said earlier that you’ll
have a larger array of Start screen customization options at your
disposal once you got Windows 8 up and running? Though you don’t have
more color scheme options, you do get to pick from a number of different
background images through the PC Settings menu in the broader settings
hub. Background images range from tame – a few swirls to add a
minimalistic accent, for example – to loud and chaotic, such as one that
populates your Start screen with jungle animals that look like they
just jumped out of the impressionist era. It’s pretty cool, and it does
that much more to make your Start screen feel like your own.
While the Start screen is definitely one of the biggest changes to be
found in Windows 8, it’s only one part of a larger User Interface
overhaul. Move your cursor to the upper right-hand corner of the screen,
and you’ll be presented with a menu bar that pops in. By doing this,
the time and date will also appear in the lower left-hand corner of the
screen, which make it easy to check the time while you’re on the Start
screen, but proves rather unnecessary when you’re on the desktop – the
time and date are already displayed in the lower right-hand corner of
the desktop, after all, right next to the system tray.
In this menu bar, you have five different options. You can open up
search, which is a super-fast way to find programs that are installed on
your machine; you can open up a share submenu, which will let you share
a link to any app on the Windows 8 store; you can click the Start
button to be taken to the start screen; you can click the devices button
to check the various devices you may have connected to your computer;
and finally, you can open up the settings menu, which changes depending
on whether you’re accessing the settings from the desktop, Start page,
or within apps.
If you’re on the desktop, you have the option of opening up the
Control Panel, the personalization hub, your system information, and the
help menu. It’s here that you also have access to volume controls,
Internet connections, Windows notifications, and power options like shut
down, restart, and sleep mode. If your monitor supports it, you can
adjust the brightness from this menu bar, and you can also switch
between languages supported by your keyboard. Again, this serves to
improve ease-of-use over previous Windows versions, as it means that you
don’t have to go searching through the Windows Explorer to find these
individual submenus.
If you’re on the Start screen, you don’t have as many options with
the settings menu, as it only allows you to change your tile settings
and opening up the help menu. You also have access to the power,
notifications, Internet, volume, keyboard, and brightness submenus from
the settings on the start screen, but you’ll most often be accessing the
settings menu on the desktop rather than the Start screen.
The settings menu will also change when you access it inside a
Windows 8 app. When you do, you’ll be given individual settings for the
app you’re using, which is great. Accessing different settings by
carrying out the same action saves a lot of time, and it means that you
get one straightforward way to do a lot of different things.
By clicking on the upper left-hand corner of your screen, you can
quickly switch between your desktop and any Windows 8 apps you have
open, whereas by bringing your cursor to the upper left-hand corner and
“swiping” downwards (or upwards from the lower left-hand corner), you
can open up another menu bar that shows you thumbnail images of your
desktop and the Windows 8 apps that are currently running. Clicking and
dragging a thumbnail into the center of the screen provides an alternate
way of switching between your desktop and Windows 8 apps. In short, by
bringing up the menu bar on the side of the screen, you can jump back to
any Windows 8 apps you have running without having to go back to the
Start screen first, which definitely comes in handy when you need to
quickly switch over to check something.
Right-clicking on one of those thumbnails will let you snap the app
to the left or right side of the screen, which is basically a dream for
multitaskers. This second app will take up about 20% of the screen, but
there’s a bar separating the two apps that you drag over to let it take
up the majority of the screen when you need to use it. It’s a nice
feature to see, but obviously, you might not want to use it as often if
you’re using a lower resolution on your display. Screen real estate will
already be at a premium if you are, so it might just be a better idea
to only look at one app or program at a time.
If you bring your cursor down to the lower left-hand corner of the
screen and click, you can switch between whatever you currently have
on-screen and the Start page. This is something that definitely takes
some getting used to, especially on the desktop, as you’ll need to get
your mouse into the corner of the screen before you can click to switch.
Anyone who is used to the traditional Start button will struggle with
this at first, since you’ll probably find yourself mindlessly clicking
in the general area of where the Start button used to be before
remembering that it’s been replaced with a Start screen. More often
than not, doing this will open up the first program pinned to your task
bar, which can lead to some headaches when you’re just starting out. It
won’t be long before you get the hang of it, however, and you’ll be
switching between the Start screen and the desktop like you’re a Windows
8 pro in no time.
There’s also a lock screen present in Windows 8, which again is
something that makes sense for touchscreens but seems a little out of
place on desktop PCs. The lock screen is the first thing you’ll see when
you boot up your computer, and through the PC Settings submenu you can
assign a new background image and designate a handful of apps that will
display information. It’s a fancy touch, but as I said, its use seems
somewhat limited if you’re using Windows 8 on a desktop.
Make no mistake, Microsoft has made a lot of changes with Windows 8,
but for the most part, the Windows we know and love is still intact. The
desktop is more or less the same as it was in Windows 7 (with exception
of the now-missing Start button, of course), and you can still delve
into the depths of your computer by using Windows Explorer. I’ve found
that most of the user interface changes Microsoft has implemented in
Windows 8 are for the better, though it would dishonest if I didn’t
mention that there were some that left me scratching my head. The
necessity of the changes may not be immediately clear at the moment, but
I think they will be once we examine Windows 8 apps a little closer.
Windows 8 Apps
Windows 8 comes installed with a number of apps right out of the box,
though in order to use most of them, you’ll need to be signed into your
Microsoft account. Of course, the Start Page is incredibly customizable
in the sense that you’ll be able to add any number of new apps you
purchase from the Windows 8 Store, so for the sake of brevity, we’re
just going to cover the ones that come pre-installed with Windows 8 so
you can get a better idea of their purpose.
The usual suspects are all present and accounted for, including Mail,
Calendar, and Messaging. Since I signed up for my Microsoft account
with my Gmail address, my Gmail inbox was there the very first time I
opened the Mail app, but you can add other accounts easily. The Mail app
gave me all of the functionality of my Gmail account, which means that
by accessing the Mail app, I save an extra step or two by cutting out
the need to open up a browser and sign into my Google account.
The same seamless integration mentality applies to Calendar. Upon
opening it for the first time, I was greeted with my Google Calendar,
and edits I made in my Google account immediately showed up in my
Calendar app. That kind of integration can’t be understated – it’s
really, really nice to have Microsoft implement something like this. It
means that the amount of setup that falls on the shoulders of users is
next to nothing, which will definitely be appreciated, particularly by
those who feel a little overwhelmed when seeing all of the changes
Microsoft has made in Windows 8.
With the Messaging app, you’ve got MSN (or whatever it’s called these
days) integrated from the start, but you have the option of integrating
other accounts to turn the Messaging app into one big messaging hub.
For instance, I was presented with the option of linking my Facebook
account to get Facebook chat right in the app – I didn’t take Microsoft
up on that offer though, since I’ve never been a big fan of Facebook
chat. Still, that will be an option that a lot of people like, so it’s
good to have it around.
Next we come to the People app, which like the Messaging app, serves
as another hub. You can link all of your favorite social networks to the
People app, which means that you collect all of your contacts across
multiple accounts and networks in one place. You don’t get the full
functionality of each social network along with the People app – you can
download individual apps from the Windows 8 Store for that – but it’s
still nice to have all of your contacts collected in one place.
The Weather app is powered by Bing Weather, and naturally gives you
forecast information for your area. It gives you a very broad range of
data, including a five day forecast, an hourly forecast, more maps that
you can shake a stick at, and even historical weather information. The
Weather app is especially handy simply due to the fact that it presents
you with a plethora of information. After checking it out, I see no
reason to visit any of the weather sites I used to.
We also have News, Financial, and Sports apps to take advantage of,
with each one offering a ton of information from different sources. The
Financial app is particularly impressive, as it not only gives you a
collection of financial news from a bunch of different publications, but
it also allows you to set and follow individual stocks. Not only that,
but the Financial app provides you with a list of “market movers,” as
well as information on currencies, commodities, bonds, and mortgage
rates. You’ve got an impressive amount of information at your fingertips
with the Financial app, and it will prove extremely useful for those
who follow the market for one reason or another.
The Sports app is similar to the Financial app, in that it gives
users a collection of news stories from a number of different
publications and allows them to follow their favorite teams right there
in the app. By right clicking anywhere in the app, users can bring up a
menu that allows them to view news for different organizations and
sports, whether that’s the NFL, NBA, NHL, Golf, the Premiere League, of
Formula 1.
The News app is pretty straightforward, as it brings you selections
of news stories from the political, entertainment, technology, and
business worlds. It’s worth pointing out that the news stories you read
in the app aren’t as fully featured as those same news stories on the
Web – for instance, if the author of the story posts a video, it won’t
appear in the app’s reprinting of the article – but it’s still a good
resource to use if you need a quick rundown of the day’s top stories.
Naturally, with Windows 8 being made by Microsoft, you’ve also got a
Bing app. The Bing app is pretty basic, as it allows for quick search
and an overview of trending topics. This one didn’t see too much use
from me, because to be honest, even though the Bing app looks good, I’m
still a Google guy. There’s also a Maps app to take advantage of, which
is powered by Bing and Nokia. The fact that Nokia is along for the ride
makes this app instantly appealing, as Nokia has done a lot of good work
in the maps space. This is one app that won’t see too much use on
desktop, but you can bet that it will get some heavy use on tablets and
laptops.
Next we come to SkyDrive, Music, Movies, and Games. SkyDrive is
Microsoft’s own cloud solution, but it’s really like any other cloud app
out there – choose files to upload to the cloud, and then you can
access them from anywhere after you’ve signed into SkyDrive. Xbox Music,
Xbox Movies, and Xbox Games are essentially just stores where you can
buy movies, television shows, music, and games but they also display the
relevant files you have stored on your computer right there in the app.
I have to say, it’s nice to see these three get their own apps, since
that means that you won’t have to trudge through a bunch of other app
listings just to find the entertainment offerings.
Finally, we come to the Windows 8 Store. The Store reminds me a lot
of the Xbox 360 dashboard, and more specifically the Xbox Live
Marketplace. There are already a healthy number of apps available for
Windows 8, and they’re split up into different sections right from the
start, making navigation easy as pie. The Windows 8 Store is one of the
most exciting parts of the Windows 8, and I’m really interested to see
it become even more fleshed out.
I’m already impressed with the apps that Microsoft has packed in with
Windows 8, and I’m sure that once developers are pushing out apps for
Windows 8 full-time, I’ll be even more impressed. The Windows 8 Store is
one of the operating system’s strongest offerings, and its existence
makes Windows 8 even better. It helps draw further distinction between
apps and actual Windows programs too, and has convinced me that there is
a reason for that distinction – before, I thought it was rather
pointless to have “apps” that were separate from regular old programs,
but Windows 8 did a good job of winning me over. In short, I’m sold, and
I look forward to seeing how Windows 8 grows after release, especially
from an apps and marketplace standpoint.
Performance
Before we wrap this up, I want to touch on the performance of Windows
8. When it came time to install Windows 8, my copy of Windows 7 was
starting to struggle a bit. This, of course, is due to the fact that
over the past two years I’ve packed my hard drive with a lot of stuff
(most of it worthless, admittedly) and that my computer was starting to
show its age somewhat. Imagine my surprise, then, when I booted up
Windows 8 for the first time and discovered that it moves very fast.
Opening up the search panel and looking up a program is incredibly
quick – much faster than using the search bar in Windows 7’s Start menu
ever was. Just the same, switching between the desktop or open apps and
the Start page is seamless and almost instantaneous. The sidebar menus
pop up quickly when you get your cursor in the right position, and it
only takes a few seconds for an app to load after selecting it.
Boot and shut down times have also been significantly decreased.
Whereas it would take 30 seconds to even a full minute to boot and shut
down Windows 7 (for me at least), Windows 8 boots in about 15 to 20
seconds, and shuts down in about the same amount of time. Naturally,
this is going to change depending on the power of your processor and
whether or not you have an SSD installed, but for someone who has been
chugging along for almost two years with a nearly full hard drive, those
times definitely aren’t bad.
Microsoft has also taken measures to hide the fact that some things
may not load as quickly as others. Let me give you an example: I have a
lot of stuff on my desktop – or at least I did before I cleaned it up a
bit for these screenshots. I had so much stuff that, even after booting
Windows 7, it would still take an additional 20 seconds or so for the
items on my desktop to fully appear. It still takes the same amount of
time for my desktop to load, but that’s something I hardly notice
anymore, since the Lock and Start pages load instantly once Windows 8
has been booted. Even though the desktop still doesn’t load as quickly
as it once did, it’s not much of an issue these days, thanks to how fast
the Start and Lock screens appear.
But speed and fluidity in use make up only a small slice of the
larger performance pie. The new features that are present in Windows 8
make it much easier to multitask and get the information you need
quickly. At the end of everything, Windows 8 represents a lot of
improvements for Microsoft, but are those improvements worth an entirely
new version of the Windows OS?
Wrap-Up
By now, you’ve read all about my experience using Windows 8, and as a
Windows 7 die-hard who was unwilling to change while the rest of the
world was talking about Windows 8, I have to say that I’m impressed.
Microsoft has made a lot of really smart changes with Windows 8, and
very few (if any) seem frivolous.
That alone is worthy of praise, especially since in the past,
Microsoft has known to pack new versions of Windows with unnecessary
features. True, the Start screen isn’t quite as useful on desktop as it
will be on touchscreens, and Windows 8 in general is clearly geared
toward to ease-of-use on tablets and laptops. To be honest, it may have
been better if Microsoft had put out a version of Windows 8 that was
specifically made with desktop PCs in mind, instead of releasing an
operating system that tries to work on multiple levels with all sorts of
different devices.
I’m not saying that to undercut the advancements made with Windows 8
though, because there are certainly plenty of them. Windows 8 is
beautiful, it’s fast, and most importantly, it’s easy to use (once you
get through that initial rough patch of adjusting to the changes, at
least). Microsoft only made changes where they would matter, and has
left much of the Windows we know and love untouched. The company
deserves a pat on the back for that one, because it realized that not
everything about Windows needed to be completely revamped in this latest
release. Some things have been entirely overhauled, there isn’t any
doubt about that, but the fact that some things have been left untouched
speaks volumes to the idea that Microsoft really thought this through
and didn’t simply change for the sake of offering something totally
different.
This is only the beginning too; even though I’m impressed with
Windows 8 at this early stage, I know it’s only going to get better as
the Windows 8 Store begins to flesh out more. I think having apps made
specifically for Windows 8 is going to be a big draw of the OS,
especially once people get their hands on the full version and begin
using apps on a daily basis.
I know there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the extreme UI
changes Microsoft has made in Windows 8, and indeed, those changes take
Windows in an entirely different direction. As far as I’m concerned,
however, the change in Windows 8 is only a good thing and should be
embraced. It may not be the Windows we’re comfortable using right out of
the box, but it won’t be long before hesitant users begin to realize
the value in Windows 8 – the fact that it makes multitasking easier, the
fact that it sports a lovely new Start screen, and the fact that
ease-of-use has shot through the roof. For that reason alone, Windows 8
is a worthy successor to Windows 7, and worthy of your attention.
Dissenters can keep complaining as often and as loudly as they want, but
I’ll be too busy enjoying Windows 8 to notice.
+29 [93 votes]
