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General discussion (archive)"Windows desktop is dying"(31 posts)(31 posts)
(31 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 13, 2013
I recall there being arguments here before that Microsoft wants to kill off the desktop from Windows, and the people who thought that are just doom and gloom prophets. Windows, as we know it, will be here forever, right?

Anyway, this guy seems to believe that is the case (just his opinion I guess):

http://windowsitpro.com/windows-8/windows-desktop-death

http://winsupersite.com/windows-rt/desktop-no-longer-default-start-screen-tile-windows-rt-81

And most on the comments there seem to agree, as in "If there was a RT version of Office, I would never touch the desktop ever, even on PC". It seems to them a windowed environment is something that only some geeks would want to use anymore, everyone else wants only full-screen apps, mostly on mobile devices.

What's your feel of it? Do you care if the Windows (and Linux) desktop would die off, and home users would use only panel-devices with touch, talk or waving their hands to the TV? Just normal progress from the archaic windowed desktop, just like two decades ago moving from command prompt UIs to windowed desktops? Or do you feel (Windows) PCs will continue exist in almost every home also in the future, along with the new devices like tablets and phablets?

I personally feel there is definitely push from MS to leave Windows desktop only to some professional users (programmers etc.) maybe in Windows Professional, and others should be using mobile devices and gaming consoles only. And I feel most people possibly would be fine with that, considering how many common people do indeed seem to use almost exclusively tablets nowadays (for things they earlier used PCs or Macs). And, even Steam seems to be preparing its own "post-PC" scenario with a dedicated Steambox.

While I see the benefits of tablets for certain purposes (they are more mobile and personal than even laptops, which is quite nice for many uses like watching pr0n online or Facebook), there are many things which would probably make me hate moving exclusively there (and gaming consoles):

1. For the most part, tablets seem overpriced for what they offer for a similarly priced laptop, considering performance, the wealth of things you can do with it, storage size (32GB vs 1TB??? Come on...) etc. There are some ultra-cheap Android tablets, but I don't know if they are good for anything besides browsing the web and using Facebook.

2. The whole tablet industry seems to promote the idea of throwing out the piece of HW you bought every few years, and buy a new one. The integrated battery in itself makes the few years old tablets pretty useless, and then we have e.g. Android tablet manufacturers dropping support for their old tablets (it has been ages when I last got any firmware update for my ASUS Transformer, meaning I am severely lacking behind with the Android version in use; not sure if there are technical reasons for not being able to run it, or if it is only because ASUS wants me to buy a newer tablet, even though this old one otherwise still works pretty ok).

At the same time, PCs (both desktops and laptops) seem generally much more durable, it is not uncommon to use a PC which is 5-10 years old. As a Linux computer, if Win7 or 8 fails to work on it.

3. I still feel tablets are relatively clumsy to use, be it Android tablets or iPads. Hence I am baffled by the people who feel fully content using exclusively tablets for everything, even for the Office applications. Tablet is nicer to use laying on the bed or when travelling in a train or plane for some little browsing or such, mainly for using content rather than producing it, but other than that... For example at my work, I just love it too much to be able to put several windows side by side, in order to easily compare them or copy&paste stuff across them. Doing the same on a full-screen tablet? Blah. So the UIs on tablets would have to improve a lot for me, before I would want to say goodbye to Windows desktop even in home use. Heck, I would hate to write this message with my tablet.

It is telling to me that Samsung is now introducing a pointing pen in many of their devices. Apparently they have noticed too that using your fat fingers for all pointing and painting is pain in the ass. So using fingers for everything is not always such a boon that some people claim.

4. Tablets promote the idea of walled gardens. The only exception to this seems to be Android which allows installing of non-GooglePlay apps (e.g. from HumbleBundles), so for me that is the "mobile PC" that I want to support, as far as tablets go. Maybe most people don't care about being in a walled garden, but I generally dislike the idea.

At the same time, Android seems to have the same downsides as PCs, ie. wildly different HW setups from several HW vendors, malware etc. But also they seem to be pushing the price of tablets down with many competing HW vendors, so there are two sides for every coin.

5. Also the nice thing about PC-like computers always was that it is always the fully fledged system, used both by professionals/developers, and the content-users. Meaning, any kid with a PC (or Amiga, or whatever) could in time become a content developer, just because he is so inclined and gets the spark from somewhere.

Is the future then that only the relatively few who go to universities to learn about programming and web design, will ever create content, besides some simple Youtube-videos? Or are these tablets generally used for content creation (also web design, programming etc.) the same way like PCs were? Can some end-user set up a gaming server using his tablet, or PS4? How about the modding community, does it exist on tablets and gaming consoles? That's where many serious content developers start their careers, as hobbyists.

6. I generally dislike the idea of keeping _everything_ in the cloud, something that especially Windows RT (and even Windows 8.1 desktop) seems to promote (hence we should be fine with a rinky dinky 16-32GB mass storage tablet, no need for a 1TB hard drive). See the latest Youtube controversy of YT blocking people's videos, or how me and my siblings were rescuing our family photos and videos from a social service that suddenly decided to close the service on a short notice. Bleh.
Post edited December 13, 2013 by timppu
Posted December 13, 2013
I'll believe it when I see it, people say stuff is dying all the time. Right now you can add youtube, consoles, any genre of game that isn't super popular (apparently adventure games were brought back from the dead rather recently, they were pronounced dead all throughout the 00's!)

Someone's bound to be right at some point, but you really can't tell where the next big shakeup with technology is going to come from.
Posted December 13, 2013
I bet you Linux fanbois will jump in and agree
if anything ms maybe just trying to centralise everything.
Posted December 13, 2013
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nijuu: I bet you Linux fanbois will jump in and agree
If most people wouldn't want to use a windowed environment for their every day tasks, then I presume that means also Linux Gnome etc.
Posted December 13, 2013
In all fairness, Paul wrote that quite a while back before we knew that the next Windows version will have an SKU that will feature the classic desktop, start button, start menu (yeah, that's right) and the ability to run Metro UI apps in separate windows...

http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/further-changes-coming-windows-threshold

They did another round of backpedalling on their "you shall not get Windows 7 stance too":

http://windowsitpro.com/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/windows-7-life-cycle-rejiggered-allow-continued-pc-sales

Appears they know they fucked up and that they're willing to fix it. Good.
Posted December 13, 2013
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nijuu: I bet you Linux fanbois will jump in and agree
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timppu: If most people wouldn't want to use a windowed environment for their every day tasks, then I presume that means also Linux Gnome etc.
At the moment, 'ordinary users' are those who just want things to work; things that work to industry standards. Right now it is pretty much windows desktops in most workplaces and also in the home environment. Those who are above ordinary in their usage may or may not explore other options. We dont know.
MS themselves seems like they are trying to centralise everything in one spot, imho CrapXBone + tablet OS linked to main desktop OS. Or at least that seems to be the way with Win8 feeling like a stupid OS meant for tablets. *if* windows desktop ever dies, it will take a long time - just think about how many windows desktop OS users there are out there right now.
Posted December 13, 2013
There are rumours that the next Windows release: codenamed threshold, will see them backtrack further to the desktop. The flip side is that Geeks are in the minority these days and they're the only ones that choose what OS they use everybody else just goes along with the status quo, so...maybe it will die.
Post edited December 13, 2013 by Egotomb
Posted December 13, 2013
Unless they replace it with just as effective gui, I'll stay happy, ... but I must have a wallpaper.. just plain menus/etc. is just too boring.
Posted December 13, 2013
Whether it "dies" or not I will still be using a desktop or laptop as my main computer. I have two tablets and couldn't begin to imagine switching completely over to them, partly because everything I use for work and such are PC-only applications and I can't ever see them being made into touch screen apps without drastically dumbing down functionality. Tablets are good bathroom and bedside devices, though.

At any rate, the "death" of PCs has been happening for the better part of the decade, and from what I have read, most data only takes into account prebuilt PCs and also neglects the fact that these days PCs don't need to be upgraded as often as they used to, and certainly not as often as the constantly-evolving tablets.
Posted December 13, 2013
Clearly he's never worked in a proper business before. Cloud based solutions and tablets just don't cut it for most business users; I need a full desktop with real keyboard and mouse and ideally multiple monitors.
Posted December 13, 2013
Long analysis what I think of this:
From my observations of colleagues at work who are no "power-users" like me, it is easy to spot that multitasking of a desktop is nothing they would ever need. A full-screen window is more than enough to keep them busy. The problem is that many sometimes do not even seem to grasp the idea of having multiple windows on the screen and find it rather confusing instead. I have the feeling that this is the majority of users, especially people in their 40ies now, but not in general of course. In my opinion it boils down to their way of getting in touch with computers when they were younger or in the worst case later on in their job. Without childhood experience or heavy personal effort to learn about computer-usage, they will not catch up. They need a system that is easy to use and self-explaining while at the same time it cannot be broken by a user misuse. Yet they will not be free of doubt that any "wrong" key-pressing will crash the computer beyond repair (which often is a experience they learned on older systems that where far away from the stability of modern Windows 7/8 systems).
Android, iOS and I suppose SteamOS too, mask every critical process behind a very limited GUI. The user has next to no influence of what is going on behind the GUI and in general does not care or want to know about as long as it works. If it does not work, they will not solve the problem themselves, but rather contact the technical support. With the "walled gardens" strategy of these systems it is also more comfortable for the support to solve problems because the user will most probably not have access to core functions of the OS.
Windows Mobile/RT on the other hand have the Windows-stigma from the start. Those people I described above will rather not go on Windows Mobile/RT due to their bad experiences of the normal desktop Windows. Microsoft would have been better off, giving Windows Mobile/RT another brand that is clearly showing that it is not a "real" Windows.

I've grown up with AmigaOS, Workbench, DOS and Windows. I was pretty underwhelmed by MS-DOS coming from Workbench at the time because the system was miles ahead, even of Windows 3.1. Multitasking was also pretty much not-existing on Windows, let alone DOS.

What do I think about desktop systems vanishing? Well, I can not really imagine that the desktop systems can be replaced in a productive work environment. That being said though, it maybe possible that we will see some kind of workstation-OS for professional use and a home-OS that is highly restricted on the administration level. The home-OS will probably have no desktop, work on full-screen all the time or split-screen (like MS introduced with Windows 8 ModernUI apps) on TVs, tablets, consoles and all that. Even further down the line, I could imagine that the whole administration of your home system is being transferred to a cloud service, so you basically see a graphically frontend which runs on a server. Would I like this scenario? As a "power-user" who wants to control his computer to the last bit and wants to know what is going on, no, I would not like it.
In the best case, we will see a professional license being sold also for private-usage in the future for a higher price, but with the advantage of still being able to control the computer it is running on. At least I hope so.
Post edited December 13, 2013 by Quasebarth
Posted December 13, 2013
It was nice to see the report from a few days back that some desktop features, like Start menu (not just button) and the ability to run RT apps in a window may be coming (back). So maybe MS is backpedaling, at least for now. The "start icon on Win 8.1" was pretty meh.

Pretty good analysis, some comments

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Quasebarth: The problem is that many sometimes do not even seem to grasp the idea of having multiple windows on the screen and find it rather confusing instead. I have the feeling that this is the majority of users, especially people in their 40ies now, but not in general of course. In my opinion it boils down to their way of getting in touch with computers when they were younger or in the worst case later on in their job. Without childhood experience or heavy personal effort to learn about computer-usage, they will not catch up.
If I understood you right, you say it is the older people, like people in the 40s, who might want to steer away from PC-like computers (finding them confusing etc.), and be content with simpler tablets?

I feel the opposite, ie. it is the young ones of today who start seeing PCs as some archaic devices, and tablets as the devices they primarily want to use and does everything they want. I was reminded this a couple of days ago in a supermarket, where in the IT department I saw several kids trying out the different tablets, mainly iPads. At the same time, none of them seemed interested fiddling with the PCs (laptops) there. It seems as if they are completely taken by the tablets already, maybe they don't even know how to use a PC properly? That used to be different when PCs used to be the only way for also the children to get online or play some casual game.

Also I was genuinely a bit surprised that nowadays there are some very popular social applications/networks where you can't even connect to with a PC, but only with the mobile devices. I'm starting to think that if Facebook was invented today, maybe it wouldn't even appear on PCs and Macs, but only for tablets and smartphones?

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Quasebarth: Windows Mobile/RT on the other hand have the Windows-stigma from the start. Those people I described above will rather not go on Windows Mobile/RT due to their bad experiences of the normal desktop Windows. Microsoft would have been better off, giving Windows Mobile/RT another brand that is clearly showing that it is not a "real" Windows.
That might be partly true, but I think the main problem with Windows RT is that the people who fancy simpler tablets and such, have largely already migrated to iPads and Android devices. I feel MS has already lost that audience to others, unless they are able to make Surface much better than the existing leading tablet platforms.

Now MS seems to be trying to convince the remaining PC users that no, you don't really want to do that on a Windows desktop or a PC, you want to do your PC stuff on a walled-garden Windows RT device.

I was originally a bit interested into the Surface tablets, at least Pro which seemed like a tablet that can run old Windows stuff too! Great, best of both worlds, right?!? But as it seems MS would much rather want to see people like me to eventually move to Windows RT (not Surface Pro with x86 compatibility), I've started questioning is that really what I want to replace my PCs with?

As I said, I already find Android much more "PC-like", also in a good way, like that it doesn't restrict me into GooglePlay (nor isn't it locked to one HW vendor, like iPad). So as a PC user who still prefers PCs for their semi-open structure and such, Android seems closer to my ideal.

Even then, I find it somewhat discouraging that the times of end-users having full-fledged systems, that would allow them to become content-developers and service-creators as well, would be then over. Would the C=64/Amiga demo scene, or PC game modding activities, started in a world of tablets and gaming consoles? What will the long-time consequences of it for software development overall? It would be the same as if the only way I could have ever learned foreign languages, including English, would have been only in school and universities. Or booking into language courses. Yet, I feel I have learned much more from English magazines (I used to be a long time reader of e.g. Black Belt and Byte magazines, learning a lot of English from them), movies, internet etc.
Post edited December 13, 2013 by timppu
Posted December 13, 2013
So I'm dying with it considering it is my leading computing platform 24 hours a day? Oh geez, time to prepare my funeral....
Posted December 13, 2013
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timppu: It seems to them a windowed environment is something that only some geeks would want to use anymore, everyone else wants only full-screen apps, mostly on mobile devices.
That's something I can't understand. My screen resolution is "only" 1920x1080 (there are much larger screens), but everything already looks ridiculous in full screen mode. I don't want to have two thirds of my screen covered with white space, left and right from whatever I'm doing. But that's what most websites and programs look like...
Posted December 13, 2013
Tablets never were, are not, and never will be a replacement for the desktop PC
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)"Windows desktop is dying"(31 posts)(31 posts)
(31 posts)