Or even if they just genuinely tried to address it with a series of updates like they do now with Windows 10 and 11.
The only sort of explanation I can come up with is that the backlash/resistance among certain key customer groups (including in our base too) was so severe and vocal that they over reacted including allegedly firing nearly everyone involved with the design of the Windows 8 UI.
As to Stardock specifically it did look good but I suspect the problems there had more to do with the people behind it. Speaking purely from our own experience, when we tried to license portions of it use on our custom devices they were obnoxious and down right dismissive (they wanted north of $10Mil from us where at the time we barely had $2Mil in total revenue) And thatās been echoed by others I know that tried to work with them.
Ah, well. With their skilled software engineers of the time they could have done something at least as good themselves. It wouldnāt have been the first time āstealingā a third party success and incorporating it into Windows.
Water under the bridge, but it still irks me. Things could have been so different now if they had stuck with it with half the persistence they had with Xbox.
I know you are aware, but for posterityās sake: this is common perception, but it is wildly inaccurate.
Windows 8 changed the start menu to a full-screen, tiled UI and made it the default launch screen. No desktop functionality was lost, and the default screen could be changed to the desktop.
In fact, if you resize the Win10 start menu so it covers the whole screen, you recover essentially the same full-screen, tiled start UI of Win8.
Itās all really muchado about nothingā¦if anything, it highlights the importance of proper user guidance when a new mode is introduced, something Apple is traditionally good at.
This is what I clearly donāt understand. I am NOT asking for fusion or creation of a third way of doing things; two distinct environments - iPad OS and MacOS, with a bootcamp solution is what is needed, so I decide if I will suffer small touch targets, etc. in using MacOS on my iPad Pro. No need to put purists at risk at all, unless there is something about the hardware that would prevent a bootcamp-like solution.
At that level, it just comes across as Apple saying ātwo devices - take it or leave it.ā Capitalism at its BEST and WORST.
I am happy to report that I have tempted another Applephile away from the walled garden, at least partially. My youngest daughter, a computer science student, asked for my Go (original). She has been all Apple prior to now but says she has a need for a small note taker that can run windows. Iāll be interested to see how she likes it and what she can do to soup it up.
@marty, you should know as well as anyone that anymore perception IS reality. To your point though, regardless of the countless hours we spent attempting to show customers that not only did they not really lose anything but they actually gained a lot including the 8 was both more stale and secure.
But as always, whatās old is new and I see the same stuff with Windows 11 and for example the relocation of the start button. Or for that matter, the number of companies that are still running Windows 7 despite MS best efforts to move them forward. The only way some have moved was when MS stopped selling Windows 7 licenses to the OEMS
The problem is that you represent a tiny minority (though Iād put myself and most of us here in that same group) but thatās abundantly proven by our appreciation of the pen, which is.very much a niche at best, in the wider PC market.
Though it is still incrementally increasing year by year. As a matter a fact, I think Appleās embrace of it on iPad has resulted in more than a few PC pen equipped systems.
PS; From what we hear from Apple of late, Bootcamp, at least officially, is never coming to the M1 series Macs
Could you even imagine how MS could go to town against the iPad in the education market if theyād pay Amazon whatever it took for a native Kindle app - no textbook would be out of reach of either Kindle or Adobe Acrobatā¦
@dstrauss are they really that many, or just that loud (and in many cases obnoxious)? Based on my experience with Apple users, Iād say the latter.
I actually thing that there is a stronger contingent that wants Apple (and others) to bring their Pro apps (especially in Appleās case, Final Cut Pro and Logic) with common file formats between those and the desktop versions.
I also think that in aggregate the amount of engineering work to do what you describe is greater than that required to bring the Pro apps over (and with a smaller upside). After all there is far more to it than just sharing a common processor. And I think thatās far more likely to be what happens.
I really do think there is a substantial minority that want a fully āProā iPad Pro. Maybe Apple did bring this on themselves by exploiting the move to M1 (even if it was a chip starved necessity), it is still a strongly desired wish at all the Apple-centric sites I visit (also very contentious with the āpure iPad experienceā crowd). Still, I see the iPad Pro 11 with a revised Magic Keyboard as the spiritual successor to the MacBook 12, with touch and pen chops.
I still believe this is very much $$$ - as long as they can force a two device buy they will do that - so no matter how āProā they evolve iPad OS, it will still not reach MacOS capabilities to preserve that second buy. In fact, your comment:
Is the end of my quest - not by satisfaction but by cementing the iPad Pro as the āsecond deviceā based on file compatibility with lesser versions of the real applicationsā¦
For all its foibles, the SP8 is far closer to a one device solution for almost all users, despite the paltry mobile application load and lack of cellular in full power versions.
@dstrauss if you are referring in your number of Apple sites, MacRumors, you are deeply underestimating the level of contempt Apple employees seem to have for that siteā¦
About the "one device " solution. Apple might be the most prominent and obvious opponent of it, but I think if you gave any of the PC OEMās a shot of sodium pentathol , theyād all admit they would prefer a multi device solution (their devices) as well.
I canāt speak to the entire list, but off hand my estimate is that of all all of them the oneās that they are least close to neutral are The Verge and MacWorld.
And Tim Cook supposedly utterly despises Gruberā¦
@Desertlap - my apologies on the two sales snark - clearly a laptop and a tablet are much better in their lanes than the crossover that tries to be both. In fact that is a very good analogy - a cross over is cramped and hauling space size contrained, unlike its big brother SUV, but gets poor gas mileage compared to its little brother the sedanā¦
No apologies required whatsoever. I genuinely respect your and most hereās opinions . Itās just fun some times to argue about this stuff especially when us here are adult enough not to take it personally
Based on my experience with Apple users, Iād say the latter.