PopcornPenguin

Who are these designers that insist on painting plastic to look like metal?? It looks cheap, feels cheap and looks terrible after a few chips and scratches. Why is Nokia the only company that can make plastic into a high end material? No respect for HTC either – the few pieces of my HD7 that ARE metal have been given a coating that has partially rubbed off, so even those look cheap.

Can we create a new rule for industrial design? – Be honest to the material.

Is your productivity really tied down entirely with the Start Menu? The rest of the OS will work much like it always has… And Metro apps will certainly pop up to cater to schools in a more meaningful way thanks to the centralized app store.

Could very well be true, but I can also see the desktop as something that will always be there to dig through more complex operations, just like the command line interface has always remained there for those users that need that power.

It does seem obvious however that the desktop will keep diminishing in importance. Maybe it feels like a blow as it’s all we’re using right now, but I can certainly understand wanting to shift to a more efficient and secure platform such as WinRT

Now if only an OEM could provide touchpad functionality that even comes close to Macs…

This isn’t a release preview. It’s a screenshot from an internal build. The linked article states that the final tweaks to the design won’t be visible until RTM.

I guess I’m young enough that I’ve never used a bank account without being able to pay bills, check the balance and make transfers online… But I suppose you can go in person to a branch or call to do these things.

I’m beginning to think you use a multi-monitor setup… in which case I would totally agree with you, those corners are impossible to get at. However, with the improvements indicated in this article, even multiple monitors will allow all corners to be easy to reach.

That’s the whole point of using corners. You don’t have to target anything, you just fling the mouse in the right direction and click.

Not sure how it’ll be for novice users to learn, but once you know where it is, it certainly isn’t difficult to reach.

People have been using the start menu for so long they forget how unintuitive it was when it was introduced. It DID need its own tutorial:

What 6×6 pixel space are you targeting? Just shove the cursor to the bottom left corner and click, like you probably do subconsciously anyway on Windows 7.

What you’re avoiding however is the direction that technology is going is driving many of these similarities: thin notebooks WILL encourage a wedge shape, unless you want the cooling system beneath the user’s hands. trackpads have been getting larger since they were invented. Should they get smaller now that Apple’s made them big?

Chicklet keyboards have been made on laptops way before Apple had them, and the grid of metal between the keys most likely helps stiffen the top surface.

No one will ever argue that Apple’s leading in terms of industrial design. But to yell “THEY COPIED” each time someone catches up is not correct either, especially on this laptop which has as many differences as it has similarities.

With the current rate of marketshare decline of BB, I think you could easily argue that most users actually prefer the “toys”.

All of a sudden I feel quite vulnerable without a towel about me.

Also works for anything negative. Apparently, having any opinion at all on Windows Phone guarantees page views.

To be honest, I can’t think of any other Microsoft product that has produced this kind of passion (either for it or against it). It has to be a good sign.

I find myself still getting annoyed at the Ribbon from time to time as I forget exactly where on which tab a certain function is located. That said, the real point of the ribbon was to make those hundreds of functions easily discoverable. And in that regards, it’s been a huge success. I’ve learned tons of new commands in this way, and I suspect many have as well. Honestly, all that’s missing is a quick search for commands, which I think is supposed to be on its way on the next version.

WP7 has by far the most elegant solution to this common problem. I find myself having to guess what a button press will do often on iOS.