Microsoft going Apple way - Cheap Windows update every year?

[vesseblah]

So, the mysterious Windows Blue according to unnamed sources is Microsoft's plan to stop doing service packs and instead just release new version of the OS every year for $25 like apple does.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/28/3...pdate-low-cost


Personally I'm ok with it if it turns out to be true.

[Cyanotical]

idk, i really don't like the Apple method, some parts are great, such as carriers not having control over phone OS updates

however, the part that i don't like is "ignore what the customer wants, and tell them to shut up and like it" mentality that most companies seem to be adopting

[skatblast]

God i hope not. Don't they make enough off of windows anyway? Ill probably be sticking with 7 for awhile until something groundbreaking comes out. Just like how i used xp for nearly 10 years.

[neuk]

Paying out huge wages to executives with no vision except to copy what Apple is doing. It just desperate and sad.

[Meleti]

I would be way more likely to upgrade if Windows had a sane pricing scheme.

I paid $20 to get OSX 10.8. It's about $125 to pick up Windows 8 Pro (or $65 if you are just upgrading from an earlier version).

Windows 8 is a bigger upgrade than OSX 10.8 was, but it's not so important to me that I feel justified paying anywhere from 3 to 6 times as much.

[mafao]

Well, Windows was always about providing a naked bare-bone system with almost no features and letting the user set it up as they please. OS X was always about providing a rich feature set from ground up + letting user set up as they please. The only way I see Microsoft pulling this off is providing higher-quality standard applications. Last time I checked, almost everything was still unusable. I pay Apple $20 a year because I get a bunch of improved apps and functionality which I use every day. Why would anyone pay MS for a new Windows if they replace the stock software anyway? I guess MS attempts to move towards making Windows a controlled platform, much like iOS is - the API restrictions of WinRT are already alarming. Which is a really funny thing, because this is what Apple is usually being accused for doing, but never actually did. Seems like MS is trying to be more 'Apple' than Apple itself Basically what neuk said above.

[vesseblah]

People are kinda missing the point. Win7 retail box cost something like $150. If they're going for $25/year it will be much cheaper than any previous versions.

[Benjamin]

Is that true? God!

[vesseblah]

Well, Windows was always about providing a naked bare-bone system with almost no features and letting the user set it up as they please.
OS X was always about providing a rich feature set from ground up + letting user set up as they please. The only way I see Microsoft pulling this off is providing higher-quality standard applications. Last time I checked, almost everything was still unusable. I pay Apple $20 a year because I get a bunch of improved apps and functionality which I use every day. Why would anyone pay MS for a new Windows if they replace the stock software anyway?

You're conveniently ignoring few important facts:

1) Microsoft has been slapped with anti-competitive practices lawsuits many times for bundling stuff with the OS so they literally can't bundle anything. If they had free pass to do any shit they want like Apple does, Windows default software would've been better years ago. For example RealPlayer is and has always been hopeless turd nobody actually wants to use, but because of their lawsuit MS was unable to bundle in proper media player for a decade.

2) Apple has to make the software bundle for themselves because they don't have even 1% of the developers Windows does. If it shipped without the default apps and it came only with the standard assortment of crapware bundled on Windows computers by OEMs nobody would ever buy a Mac.

[mafao]

You're conveniently ignoring few important facts:

Not quite, see below

1) Microsoft has been slapped with anti-competitive practices lawsuits many times for bundling stuff with the OS so they literally can't bundle anything. If they had free pass to do any shit they want like Apple does, Windows default software would've been better years ago. For example RealPlayer is and has always been hopeless turd nobody actually wants to use, but because of their lawsuit MS was unable to bundle in proper media player for a decade.

MS was 'slapped' not for bundling stuff with the OS, but integrating their software as part of the OS system itself. A prime example of this is Internet Explorer, which couldn't even been uninstalled from the system and on which several key components of the OS (like the help system) was hooked onto. Compare this with OS X Safari which is based on an open-source WebKit engine and can be removed completely simply by dragging its icon to the Trash (any other bundled tool can be deleted in the same way). Similarly, you can set default applications (Mail, Calendar etc.) to be whatever you like. And there are official OS APIs which let you work with default tools, such as the contact database, so you can easily write an application which integrates with the default Contacts or even replaces it altogether - while using the same database. Basically, you are free to replace most aspects of the OS (aside how UI looks) with what you want and it will play along nicely with the rest of the system. Apple even goes out of its way and gives you all the APIs to make your life easier.

Besides, MS bundled software should be viewed with scepticism simply because of their 'Embrace, extend and extinguish', which already did enough harm in the software development.

2) Apple has to make the software bundle for themselves because they don't have even 1% of the developers Windows does. If it shipped without the default apps and it came only with the standard assortment of crapware bundled on Windows computers by OEMs nobody would ever buy a Mac.

I think its the other way around. The reason why people buy Macs is because they have all these useful tools built into the OS from the start. And Macs always came bundled with basic software, even before Windows existed in the first place. Its simply a different approach to building operating systems.

BTW, number of developers doe not mean that much. Most basic/popular software (like browsers) is available on both platforms. Actually, there are some Mac-only applications which I would absolutely miss with Windows, such as TextMate and Pixelmator. Of course, for professional software Windows is a much more solid choice.

[vesseblah]

Not quite, see below

Not quite

MS was 'slapped' not for bundling stuff with the OS, but integrating their software as part of the OS system itself.

RealMedia did sue Microsoft for including media player, and was the reason why there came only extremely crippled player for a decade without support for MP3 for example. It was never integrated part of OS but a convenience.


Microsoft has been simply too afraid to add anything that might get them sued. But since Apple can do whatever they want and all those extras are widely now considered to be essential part of a working OS (like web browser for example), MS will use that as their defence if anybody sues them again. Hence the PDF reader, AV programs and such in Win8.

[vesseblah]

Honestly, i'd prefer that, presuming we're talking about buying which OS versions you want as opposed to a subscription fee.

It's not a subscription fee as long as they keep the API the same. And they have to if they want to retain compatibility with all pre-8 applications. It takes Microsoft 20 years to deprecate parts of the core APIs, Apple forces subscriptions by obsoleting OSX/iOS versions every 2-3 years.

[ripponesan]

People are kinda missing the point. Win7 retail box cost something like $150. If they're going for $25/year it will be much cheaper than any previous versions.

only if you buys your windows more often than every 6 years.

[Nab]

25$ is not alot for each year, let's just hope they start listening to consumers and bring back the Desktop OS.

[Deleted]

It's not a subscription fee as long as they keep the API the same. And they have to if they want to retain compatibility with all pre-8 applications. It takes Microsoft 20 years to deprecate parts of the core APIs, Apple forces subscriptions by obsoleting OSX/iOS versions every 2-3 years.

I think Apple can just about get away with what they do purely because how quickly they go through versions and the price they charge for them.

[mafao]

You can't forget that the freeware and hobbyist developer side of things is generally more favorable and approachable on Windows for the simple fact it's been THE platform for a generation (sure, choice existed, but you can't deny the iron grip Windows had over the industry from ~1998 through to ~2010 or so). What is developed on Windows won't necessarily work on Mac unless you're using functions exclusive to a cross-platform library/framework, or you handle all the IFDEF associated with cross-platform development manually AND have a compiler for the platforms you want to deploy to. It's slowly becoming easier to develop to both platforms from one codebase (i could potentially do this, but i'd need a Mac in order to compile), but we're not quite at the "Compile for any platform from anywhere" point yet. For the simple fact that we're not at that point, developing to Mac is still a pipedream. It's just much more accessible to develop to Windows for people from my generation.

True, C# and .NET do make development fairly easy. I am not sure though that freeware/hobbyist developers prefer Windows, I think it they a bit more spread across every platform. If you talk about indie game development, then yes, you are definitely right.

I know this is getting a bit off-topic, but one last thought if I may I do not believe in 'Compile for any platform from anywhere'. This is what results in ugly applications. Each system has a distinct UI design (which is especially true for OS X) and non-native applications just look wrong. If I had to develop a proper cross-platform software, I would do a common code backend consisting of model/controller and a platform-specific front-end. This isn't that much work, actually, if the application is designed in a proper way (of course, I am talking about relatively trivial applications). The only applications which can be truly cross platform are games, but here you have to deal with different drivers, optimised codepathes and individual quirks... cross-platform programming is a nasty thing

[mafao]

Oh, that's the beauty. With the help of styles and OS detection, it's not too difficult to build an application that looks native across platforms. I mean, it's 1 line to change the style (in my case; Self.Stylebook := 'StyleBookMac'; for example), while the majority of the work will be in actually creating something that looks like it belongs on that platform. To create a native-looking windows stylebook wouldn't be too difficult as screenshotting from various applications until you've built a bitmap of all your components would solve the issue. Likewise, the same could be done for Mac, though i suspect that it's coloured "OK" buttons might cause some issue (assuming my memory of the UI isn't failing me). Assigning areas of the image to individual components isn't a difficult task, it's just time consuming (but now you've got me talking about it, i want to go ahead and make a totally native-looking Windows style for my apps, instead of the default "creative-mellow" ones that are provided).s again is one of those things that aren't available to everyone just yet, so it's another area that would really be good to compliment "compile anywhere". I'll definitely agree that not doing something to make it look like it belongs on that platform ends up with an OS specific mentality that doesn't work well (such as the reversed order of "Yes/No/Cancel" dialogs between Windows and OS X)

Oh, you actually render the controls yourself? Well, that is bound to fail in modern compositing window system, as its pretty much impossible to get the nuances like shadows/gradients/translucency right. I am not even talking about stuff like font rendering algorithms or stuff like Apple's HiDPI mode Many GUI libraries use native widgets to circumvent this problem.

Actually, the problem I was talking about is a much deeper one - that is, on different platforms, the actual layout of UI is completely different. Menus, tool-bars, option settings, even the way modal dialogues work...

BTW, are you using some form of Pascal?

[mafao]

I am using Pascal, Delphi

Nice to see people still use it My first 'serious' programming was using Delphi 2. Ah, those were fun times ^^

Think we'd better keep this on topic though. Feel free to create a new topic regarding development though (or PM me if you're wanting to know more). Might eventually make one where we could discuss something like that properly without it feeling off topic. I don't want to stifle discussions i enjoy, but i do have to try and keep things relatively on track

I agree, sorry for derailing the thread. Was fun talking to you about this stuff though!

[vesseblah]

One thing i am now concerned is the relation to applications. Something about only Windows 8 apps working on it. I don't expect this means them cutting out traditional applications, but i'm not sure exactly what it DOES mean.

Once Windows Blue is released, the Windows SDK will be updated to support the new release and Microsoft will stop accepting apps that are built specifically for Windows 8, pushing developers to create apps for Blue. Windows 8 apps will continue to run on Blue despite the planned SDK changes.

The way I read it is something like WinBlue will have new "apps" framework again which is downward compatible with Metro and Microsoft store will automagically refuse all uploads which are not compiled with the latest SDK. That would not affect anything pre win8.

Most obvious reason that comes to my mind is that they'll redo the UI so that it looks better on desktop computers because of all the deserved shit they've gotten recently and don't want the first generation metro crap uploaded for sale ever again

[blackblade]

I would be way more likely to upgrade if Windows had a sane pricing scheme.

I paid $20 to get OSX 10.8. It's about $125 to pick up Windows 8 Pro (or $65 if you are just upgrading from an earlier version).

Windows 8 is a bigger upgrade than OSX 10.8 was, but it's not so important to me that I feel justified paying anywhere from 3 to 6 times as much.

It's 40$ to upgrade to windows 8 from XP or higher until the end of jan (digitally).
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w..._Home_FPP_Null

Having toyed with Win 8 a little bit, something like this makes a lot of sense, actually.

Win 8, all things considered, is a decent OS. There's a fistful of things that could be better, and releasing Windows 9 to fix them just dosen't make sense.

For example, the start screen: You have very limited options for customizing it. App Tiles are either a set color (defined by your current color scheme) if they're a desktop app, or if they're a metro app, they're defined by the app's creator. there's about 20 different options for color schemes, and about 10 options for background patterns, with no option to use your own files. (you can still set your own lock screen image, desktop image, just not the background of the start screen.)

Instead of releasing windows 9 and developing a more dynamic start screen, they could instead sell a "Start-screen+" as a 5$ mod that gives you more power over your start screen, expanding the customization of the OS without waiting for "Windows 9"

Things like security updates and such will still likely be free. No-one wants to have the OS hackers love to dominate.