“With Windows 8, Microsoft’s marketing and engineering teams were clearly asleep at the wheel. They didn’t listen to what the public really wanted — or needed for that matter — and deluded themselves into believing that the tiled interfaces of the failed Zune music players and the stagnant Windows Phone platform would somehow succeed in a traditional personal computing environment,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl.
“While there are significant changes in Yosemite, Apple’s designers and engineers understood that Mac users want Macs, not warmed over iOS gear. But that doesn’t mean Apple didn’t make significant changes to accommodate the fact that most Mac users are probably using iPhones, iPads or both. They rely on these tools for different functions, but need to seamlessly move from one device to another with as little delay or relearning as possible… customers want familiar environments where things just work,” Steinberg writes. “The Continuity features of OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 recognize the fact that someone may begin such tasks as writing email or Pages documents on a Mac and, for whatever reason, need to continue those tasks when they are on the road or at the office, where the iPhone and iPad are at hand. Being able to pass on these functions is critical.”
“For years, Microsoft had a dream of putting Windows everywhere, rather than consider what customers want or need. That explains the Windows 8 and Windows Phone disasters. For Windows 9, it’s reported that Microsoft will set default environments, the interface formerly known as Metro on convertible PCs and tablets, and a Windows-style desktop interface on regular PCs,” Steinberg writes. “That decision, if implemented, will simply confuse customers even more than they are confused now.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Apple’s Q314: Surging Mac defies a shrinking Windows PC market – July 24, 2014
More good news for Apple: Microsoft previews Windows 8 (with video) – June 1, 2011