Re: Windows 8: how quickly will it be adopted?

Which is why Apple dominates the market with a phone that's 90% uncustomizable, but it has apps.  And why Google is second with a phone OS that's 90% customizable plus has apps.  These are two different target markets.  If you pursue the former you need top notch UI designers so people can be happy with getting something cool.  If you pursue the latter you need top notch people to engineer the flexibility while keeping the system coherent.


Microsoft clearly does not fit in the former category.
 
Alan Baljeu


________________________________
 From: Philo Janus <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <win_tech_off_topic-hHKSG33Tihh9OS/[email protected]> 
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 10:57:02 PM
Subject: RE: [OT] Windows 8: how quickly will it be adopted?
 

  
> where they believed not so much in making things customisable as making them behave the way you would want and expect out of the box

Right. That's why "There's an app for that" did so well. 

Honestly, if this is true, words fail me as to the level of delusion involved. Sure in the consumer market it's important that your products be useful out of the box, since there are the twelve o'clock flashers out there. But the early adopters, the people who drive the market - they are twidgets and customizers. 

Do you know how I can tell if my daughter has been using a piece of electronics? All the settings are changed. The woman picks something up and it's almost like she can change the theme and background without conscious thought. And she's a trend-setter. She's the one her friends follow. She bought a zune, suddenly most of her friends had Zunes. She got a Lumia, and there's a growing cloud of Windows Phones around her. 

I'll say it again - Winamp, Windowblinds, Wallpapers, themes, Rainmeter, Wordpress themes...

Wasn't the custom ringtone market in the billions? Yet Windows Phone 7.0 didn't have custom ringtones. [sigh]

I love Microsoft products so very, very much, but seriously - what is going on inside Redmond? How have they gotten so lost? 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Elliot
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 2:29 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [OT] Windows 8: how quickly will it be adopted?

On 2012-08-30 22:35, Philo Janus wrote:
> The part that baffles me - fifteen years of software have shown us that Power Users absolutely *love* to customize their user experience. Windows Wallpaper, WindowBlinds, WinAmp skins, Firefox, Chrome, etc, etc - give a geek an API to the UI and they're off to the races. 

I can't point you to any references, but I recall hearing about a strong "default" culture at Microsoft, where they believed not so much in making things customisable as making them behave the way you would want and expect out of the box. I always found this ironic given that when I wanted to customise Windows Explorer I would basically go into the options dialog and invert the default options. Microsoft obviously isn't in the business of making software for *me*.

I'm still on XP, and I'm not budging. But I've never been representative of anything. Still, if you google "programmer fashion strategist", it's all me. :)





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