The idea of unified interface layout itself wasn’t bad, that’s the implementation. It felt like they both didn’t have people testing desktop UI at all and didn’t have any idea how to leverage that idea on a desktop.
Things they could do:
- Seamless device switching, projecting and control across Win platforms over local wireless;
- Crossplatform app development, with a wordpress-like UI wrapper;
- Tiling DE, so you can have a couple of vertical mobile-like apps contained in their constant positions for ease of use.
Let it be an ecosystem where every new Windows device can be an opportunity multiplier. Like how KDE Connect makes my phone a media remote or a mouse+kb, and my PC a handler of recent photos I took with my phone today, no cloud involved. With their huge marketshare they could’ve pushed anything they wanted onto hardware producers as a demand and put Apple out of game entirely.
Instead, we had horizontal scroll in Start menu, fullscreen Calc app, no third party desktop app bothering with Metro interface, everything being like a worse Win7 and the only living reminder of Metro phase ever existing being rectangular squares in w10 Start, now retired for MacOS copycat. GG WP M$. It could’ve been your turning point going into smartphone age, but you had too much money and yesmen to care.
CIA_chatbot@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It was actually pretty great for phones, but in true MS fashion they fucked that all up