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Good idea!
They could call it DanDroidOSi so as not to get sued...
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Christopher Duncan wrote: How do you make one OS work for both desktop and phone ...
The question I would ask is Why? The two operating systems are used in different contexts (I think on different CPU hardware?) and I see no need to force them to be the same. Making desktop/laptop and phone the same to me is like forcing MS Word and Excel to be the same program. It could be done, but things are just fine with them separate.
Windows 8 is the second coming of Microsoft Bob. The only thing they left out is the Fisher-Price logo.
--
Harvey
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Why? Mainly because some highly paid marketing people have tended the heard and pointed them into the direction that "this is the future" There are no Laptops, there are no PCs.. Only devices.. Each persons digital needs and levels of advanced functionality are determined by the device.. But the "experience" should be the single common denominator.
The idea is you buy a phone, using it becomes second nature, how cool if your tablet for school or work happens to work exactly the same way. You are more effective and productive on it and the phone becomes what you use abroad and in a pinch.. Then you set down in front of the laptop/ultrabook/desktop to do more powerful stuff. Video editing, photo editing, document creation, professional grade stuff. You again have the same core types of apps and a [now] familiar experience across the board. [break out into singing John Lennon "Imagine"].
the 2 flaws I find in the story.. A major generational gap. Starting with the phone as your gateway drug may work for todays people, but the billion plus users of 3-5-10 years ago are cast away. The other, there hasn't been clear evidence that even the mass consumer "wants" this either.
I've had spirited conversations with colleagues and friends regarding the pros and cons of an all in one experience. I stand behind my opinion that Apple has little by little made OSX UI more iOS-ish, Google has always tried to make Android a be all OS with Chrome OS seeming to cover the other side of the spectrum, various Linux distros have tried to cover broader device spectrums.. And MS has shown it's willing to go all in with "ONE" experience. The first platform to achieve singularity, despite the angst of it's congregation and past business models, will be successful.
I'm fortunate/unfortunate enough to have entered my career in the dot com bubble burst.. Back when it was still "smart user/dumb phone", light dimming desktops reigned supreme and laptops were for road warriors and executives to spit out crap when they weren't at their corner office.
If it were me doing it.. I'd have phased 8 in much the same way Windows phased in changes since Windows 3.1. Win8 flat drab UI would have been a theme. Win8 would be desktop primary if no touch device enabled, giving you the win7 "upgrade" without spoon feeding everything Metro at day 1. Then, if touch is found and enabled I'd probably configure it as it is. Idea being Desktop is Desktop but if user wants the "familiar" experience as his or hers winphone, xbox, or surface.. Then it's there and the love/hate duality of the UI lives on. Key is, choice.. Steer the heard down the path of destiny all you want.. But minimize the damage while you anger everyone equally.
For Word and Excel to be the same program reference... It was called MS Works (upto 2000 I think) and actually worked quite well for the casual user/student.
Speaking of Bob.. suing MS is trendy again.. I think all the Bobs of the world should unite and sue for use of their name and defamation. Not only did they use the name do build a brand, but the brand ended up being a blemish MS will never live down. Lifetime of damages to everyone named Bob.
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Christopher Duncan wrote: How do you make one OS work for both desktop and phone without sacrificing usability for apps on either side of the street?
You don't.
They are completely different devices that are only related by the fact that they have an operating system.
So does a TV.
So does a DVD/BluRay recorder.
So does a microwave oven.
So does a one-armed bandit.
So does everything else that contains computer technology.
Forcing a wrong OS/user interface onto a wrong device is a mistake that only a complete idiot could make.
"Hey! Computers and microwaves and phones all have numeric keypads! Let's give 'em all TV remote controls!"
[edit] For some peculiar reason, I had typed "keyboards" instead of "keypads".
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
modified 20-Aug-13 5:22am.
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Mark_Wallace wrote: "Hey! Computers and microwaves and phones all have numeric keypads! Let's give 'em all TV remote controls!"
Well, don't mind me, but i would looooove a remote control for my microwave...The more buttons the better too.
Full-fledged Java/.NET lover, full-fledged PHP hater.
Full-fledged Google/Microsoft lover, full-fledged Apple hater.
Full-fledged Skype lover, full-fledged YM hater.
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Really? I don't much see the point. You'd still have to go to it to put stuff in and get it out.
Besides, some bluddy woman would probably monopolise it.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: Really? I don't much see the point. You'd still have to go to it to put stuff in and get it out.
Yes, that is true, and I failed to explain why I would love that.
I used to fight with my former girlfriend over how much time popcorn should stay in the oven. She always kept it about one min further than detailed in the instructions (she liked them well burned), and I would always go and stop the microwave, to which she would go and start it again, and so on. In that case, I was actually praying for a remote.
Mark_Wallace wrote: Besides, some bluddy woman would probably monopolise it.
As well they should.I'd rather not respond to that, temptation for a sexist joke is almost unbearable...
Full-fledged Java/.NET lover, full-fledged PHP hater.
Full-fledged Google/Microsoft lover, full-fledged Apple hater.
Full-fledged Skype lover, full-fledged YM hater.
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And Apple's desktop is any easier to use? From a Window's user, Apple takes some getting used to.
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It is insanely easy for MS to win the mobile market. Of course, if I revealed the strategy then Balmer would steal it and I wouldn't get the big bucks for implementing it; but trust me it is one of those solutions that just stares at you in the face and makes you go why didn't I think of that.
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Quick, let's write an OS! I could use the extra money. 
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Your response assumes my answer and is incorrect : )
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Yeah, like that's new territory for me. 
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Its not about software, but about creating a religion.
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Christopher Duncan wrote: but it doesn't give me anything that Win 7 isn't already doing
I take it you are not doing any Windows Phone 8 development then.
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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Not yet, no. Hoping they'll gain some traction.
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The main gripe people seem to have with WP8 compared to Android and iPhone is the lack of apps. In other words, you and I are holding WP8 back. 
[Like you I have only installed Win8 on a test box so far]
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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My biggest gripe about developing for Metro is the whole "store" thing. Let me install my apps without MS in the middle. Thought that was a really bad move, but of course they're just emulating Apple and Android.
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I wrote a long comment post on yesterday's "What Happened to Windows Phone" article...here it is:
I've stuck with the Windows bandwagon for a long time and I'm still on it with my Samsung Ativ S (which as a device, I think is way better than anything Nokia has put out). I like the philosophy of the OS but I can see why general adoption is low...there are quite a few things that stand out and annoy me.
Anybody who has owned a WP device and then played with an iOS device should know what I mean here, but iOS is a much smoother device. It's like WP is running at 20 or 30 fps and iOS is running at 60. Especially with scrolling, animation transisions, and zooming/panning in the maps application, everything feels much more fluid. The author discusses how smooth and fluid WP is on all hardware, and it *is* in the sense that it doesn't necessarily "stutter", but its just not as silky smooth as an iOS device.
The Maps app is completely useless. Whenever I type in an address, especially in another city, there's a 25% chance that the app will actually find it. Usually, I get something in a completely differenty city. Nokia Drive has no problem finding it, Bing Maps online has no problem finding it, Google Maps has no problem finding it, yet my phone has no idea what the hell it is doing.
Segmentation between the navigation app (Nokia Drive) and maps app is annoying. Maps has traffic overlays, direction list, better manual map control...and Drive has turn by turn directions. Switching between the two is annoying, I just want one fully featured app.
Why can't I paste phone numbers into the phone app? Super annoying. Often times, the number isn't something I can click on directly and I just want to copy and paste the damn thing instead of writing it on a piece of paper and manually banging it out.
The Facebook app JUST got an update that brings it up to a decent state. I say decent because it still has annoying quirks, like the lag between clicking one of the header buttons and actually getting feedback that the button was clicked...it literally takes a few seconds, sometimes leaving you to wonder whether it was actually clicked or not and thus causing you to click it again, which actually unclicks it. Thank god the "panorama" control is gone from the Facebook app...in practice, it just isn't very good. Instead of two clicks - "Menu" and then the section I want, I sit there swiping like an idiot across 4 pages to get to where I want. Not only that, you can't actually SEE what the sections further down are, so you don't even know if you are in the right area of the app to get to where you want, so you sit there swiping through every page only to discover the one you want isn't even there. I don't know who thought that was a good way to do navigation in a UI.
The lagging button input problem is present in a few places. Every UI designer knows that instant feedback to let the user know the action registered is important...take the time you need to perform it, but show a damn loading indicator or something. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is when I click the refresh button in my email box, the phone sits there for literally 2 or 3 seconds doing nothing...and THEN "syncing..." shows up at the top. Sometimes I click the button and wait...only to realize 5 seconds later that it didn't register the click properly. Then I have to click it again and wait a few more seconds to see if it clicked. Then I'll get annoying and click it 5 times, and it actually queues up all the clicks and refreshes 5 times in a row. Seriously? I think they actually fixed this issue in the last update a couple weeks ago, but it only took them 2 years...that was pretty annoying.
I'm not one to really care about a lack of app numbers as long as the few important ones are covered and done well, but not even the big ones like WhatsApp, Facebook, Skype, Yelp etc...are getting the proper level of love on WP. The maps/navigation situation is inexcusable....that's essentially a primary usecase on a smartphone these days, and WP is clearly behind the newest map apps on Android and iOS.
Apps *definitely* launch slower on WP than on other platforms, and that's on my relatively high end device. It's already pretty annoying to sit there while FB sits on a splash screen for 5 seconds just to check a notification or something, I can't imagine how annoying it is to add a few seconds on a low-end device. My girlfriends' S3 loads up FB more than twice as fast. It's especially annoying on apps like WhatsApp - if I get a message notification, I don't want to watch a slash screen for 5 seconds before I can read my damn message.
Why aren't there seperate volume controls for app sounds, ringer, notifications, and GPS voice, background music? At a bare minimum, I should have control over ringer and the rest of the sounds seperately. I like to play games at less than full volume, but my ringer should always be at full volume.
And finally...these problems have all been there from the start. Why does it take so damn long to get meaningful updates that address these issues? I bought into the ecosystem originally with the understanding that Microsoft was committed to faster updates, but it really doesn't seem like it's happening. Pretty annoyed at this point, considering alternatives.
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I am not sure which article you are talking about. I did see a post in the Lounge, but I did not get where the poster was going with it - or coming from for that matter.
I have never used an iPhone, so I cannot verify what you are saying regarding the comparison. I do however have a Nokia Lumia 920 and I don't recognize what you are saying about slow launch time of apps and definitely not the 'Sync' option in the mail part - I have never seen that sucker take longer than a second to start sync'ing.
The same goes for waiting 5 seconds for the Facebook app to load. I do not see that. Looks like less than 3 seconds on my phone. I don't know if that is considered slow.
I share your rant about the lack of separate volume controls and the slow development pace by Microsoft to improve the OS.
I will add, that Microsoft broke something in the Skype integration. When I first got my phone and my wife called me on Skype while it was charging, Skype popped up and worked as it should. Now I have to have Skype open in the view to receive calls and messages. They need to fix that because it ticks my wife off and she yells at me. 
I used WattsApp for a while, but uninstalled it because it was draining my battery.
Lastly, I am a bit confused about something. Do you have Nokia Drive on your Samsung phone?
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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Yes, Nokia Drive has been available on all devices for a while. MS and Nokia had an agreement that Nokia would get exclusivity for a couple months after launch but would then make it available to everyone. I just realized that Nokia Maps (or rather HERE Maps) was released to all devices as well...so I've been playing with it. It's better in some ways but worse in others. Traffic overlays don't appear to be working for Toronto (Canada), so now I need to juggle between 3 mapping apps  At least the address location function actually works though.
I may have exaggerated by 1 second, but from the moment of pressing the notification toast to the moment the message UI is displayed is ~4 seconds...but then it takes another second or two before the message contents actually load. Either way, it's about twice as fast on an Android or iOS device. Everything is. Most apps that need a splash screen on WP don't even bother on Android/iOS because it pulls up so fast. It's undeniably slower if you compare it to the same class of Android/iOS device, like say your 920 to an S3.
I don't know why WhatsApp would be draining your battery...that does't make much sense to me. It should be tombstoning the app after you close it and then using push notifications after that. That said, the Samsung Ativ S has wayyy better battery life than the 920, which is one of the reasons I think it's a much better device. I don't know why that is, considering it is much lighter as well. But I can literally go 24 - 48h without plugging in depending on use, with pretty much everything including Wifi on.
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Well, as I mentioned earlier, I have never used an iPhone so I can't really comment on your comparisons, but I don't feel anything is slow on my phone. There are certain apps that take a while to load their stuff, but I am thinking the eBay app and similar with a lot of data to load.
It is possible they have fixed WhattsApp, but after I uninstalled it my phone could go for days without a recharge. WhattsApp would drain it in less than a day and I saw numerous comments in their review section saying the same.
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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It definitely isn't "slow"...but if you are doing a side-by-side comparison in a cell phone store or playing with your friends' devices to make a purchasing decision, there is a certain fluidity in iOS that can't be matched by WP.
I spent some time playing with my lady's Galaxy S3 and the scrolling performance on my device is definitely better in comparable apps, like for example the Facebook news feed. The apps are practically identical after the recent update, and mine is clearly more fluid. iOS is a different story though, and it probably has a lot to do with the fact that the coding is done in a lower level unmanaged language.
I investigated further into the Facebook loading time issue and the app does in fact take just as long, if not a tad longer to load the first time on her device, but it appears that the phone keeps it available in memory for subsequent launches.
Turns out WP can do the same but its background application management system is kind of obtuse. I didn't fully grasp the background app handling until I played with it more just now, and I think it is kind of silly. As long as I don't hit "back" but rather hit the homescreen button, the app will stay running in memory and pull up fast for subsequent toast notification clicks and such...but if I get a toast notification and I'm in the middle of something, I want to look at it and hit "back" to get back to where I was...but that unloads the app instead of putting it into the background. I find it kind of strange that I can't go back to what I was doing and still leave Facebook running in the background. Rather, I have to look at the message, hit the homescreen button, then hold the back button to pull up running apps and find the one I was just using. Not particularly user friendly.
If I allow an app to run in the background in the settings, it should just run in the background as long as memory is available instead of exiting when I "back" out of the app. I don't get why it would be treated differently if I back out or homescreen out. I also don't understand why the running app area (that comes up when "back" is held down) doesn't have an option to close the app. Why do I have to go to the app and then repeatedly press back until it goes all the way out to close it?
Same applies to WhatsApp - it's very fast as long as I don't use the back button, which is stupid because if I click a toast notification I usually want to go back to whatever I was doing before. Oh well, what can you do?
At least I learned some new stuff about my phone through all this :P
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I totally enjoy Win8. Actually, I have a hard time understanding what people are bitching about. So I'll probably end-up re-employing Steve.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb
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It's not that I think it's bad, it just doesn't do anything for me. On a PC, I use the desktop. Metro adds no value to that equation. If I'm on the Surface, I have to bypass Metro to do many things, which is clumsy. Neither one really makes my life better.
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