The Start button was getting obsolete in the age of smartphones and tablets. quite honestly all the Windows 8 forums are so full of whiners crying about their precious start menu that one would assume they would hardly miss, given that the phone, tablet, in-car navigator they use has none, making the whole habit a thing if the past to me.
Windows 8 is one of many OSs that are trying to unify the tablet and desktop platforms into one particular standard. similar to automatic transmissions being more and more a standard on cars today, instead of the ability to choose between a manual and automatic. but all i see is a rehash of the failed Packard Bell Navigator, Microsoft Bob days--if you think Windows 8's tiles for icons for Firefox or Desktop mode apps look bad, try adding a more current program to MS Bob. it creates a giant 16-color icon
Sadly Android isn't escaping the 'noobification' either. if you use Android 4.x there is a little prompt that if an app gets 'too slow' according to Android (and not me) it will pop up an alert that says 'this app is not responding, do you want to close it?' which will come back over and over until you either force quit or until the app gets up to snuff. every time i see that warning i keep assuming that Clippy is popping up on my screen asking me the same question. it was not cute in MS Office, and is certainly not a cute thing in Android 4.x.
Agrred. The only way to make something popular is to m00bify it. You think *nix would have ever gotten 'popular' without GUIs and installers and automated updates? Really?
Remember popularity contests are for the unenlightened. The rest of us use what we need to as we need to.
As for Android ANRs, well, that is what developer options are for - to FC them without the need to actually have to answer that dialog. However, in my case it's the exact opposite - I know the app is still functioning and I think Android is a bit too aggressive in trying to see if I want ot kill an app when I started it in the first place.
Your whole point of unification is spot on - I couldn't agree with you more (as evidenced by my next two replies lol)
I have been toying with win 8 since it came out, as far as i am concerned it is ok for anything with a touch screen.
When it comes to serious desktop users it is a big mistake, there is a very large group of us that are going over to linux when win 7 comes to end of life.
That said if Microsoft come to their senses & make a desktop edition that doesn't try to limit users accessing all areas,then that exodus will stop.
Correction - when it come sto serious
current generation desktop users who have gotten conditioned to having the start menu there.
As SuRoot notes below in his reply, us old school KB junkies already know how to get things done when we need to - start menu / button or not. Win 7 spoiled me in that instead of Win + R I could now run Win and use the search box for my apps - a godsend in that it made running apps just a little easier - and as long as I still have my Win + {X} shortcuts I'm happy - start button or not. As for the rest, well, it looks more mobile, but unification is a good thing sometimes - their strategy is to get you used to the interface on your desktop so that (hopefully) you'll be more confident to use the same interface on a mobile device.
As an IT guy myself, I think it's horrible. It's built for touch, but SO MANY of the things you do on a day to day basis, you need the desktop for.
I find myself at a tile, pressing the windows button to get to the desktop, then pressing it again to get back to the tiles, then pressing the "cmd" tile, then pressing the windows button again.
Navigation around the UI is much slower, and not at all intuitive.
Good idea...maybe, but VERY poor execution.
I sort of disagree. All the start button did was bring you to a pop up menu from the desktop that has all your program shortcuts, a search function and a couple of system areas such as "devices and printers" and control panel. Some of these may have been awkward from a touch screen device. The windows button did the same
Now, pressing the windows button bring up an entire screen that has all your program shortcuts and a search function. There is a pop out side bar that has system settings on it from the desktop already. All they have really done is replace a small menu that takes up 20% of the screen, with a bigger menu that takes up 100% of the screen, with bigger "menu entries" that you could easily touch had you a tablet.
Sure the start screen is more orientated to tablet users. Like Nick said, its unification. Its not exactly hard to use with a mouse, unless you leave ALL your apps on there and have to swipe across multiple screens like an ipad. But you remove what you don't want. You can have live tiles too. There is always the "All apps" button you can access on the bottom bar to get a list of all apps. I think given a bit more exposure, its going to make more and more sense. Its just the explaining it thats going to be the hard part.
The desktop is still there. You press the windows key to get to start, as you always did. They just wanted to make more use of the windows key by removing the gui element, which I rarely used anyway. So the desktop is the same, but without a gui start button. The only other thing is that you have to imagine windows starting up with the start menu popped up. Think of it that way, when you get the metro ui and maybe it makes it better.
In addition - the search button is built into the OS. So is the home button. And a menu button. In Android, anyway, keeping those functions handy in a start button would be not only superfluous, but redundant.
I think the same is happening with WinMo - to get rid of the redundancy, they are focusing on unification,as I mentioned above.