I was in my local Apple Store yesterday. My five year old grand-daughter likes to play on the iPads, having learned from one of her friends who has one, and the staff there don’t seem to mind.
So, I decided to look to see what an iPad/iPad mini could do, and headed for the business app section. Hmmmmm.
There was a fair bit re communications, calendars etc but where are the apps which enable a website to be worked on, or the MS Office/Outlook equivalent. I couldn’t find any of this, only separate apps, none of which appeared to integrate overly well. Not being a ‘Mac-ite’, I may have missed something.
What I didn’t miss is that all of the customers in the store, and there was a few of them, were standing in front of machines which had keyboards and touchpads or mice. This echoes what I have seen in PC stores. Time to speak to a sales representative.
He told me that most go for laptops or the occasional desktop type because more can be done on them. Desktop machines sold to those who liked the permanent computer station, people running home based business, and laptops sold to people who didn’t have the room for a permanent station or who liked the idea of being able to move about.
No surprises there.. 
.. Anyway, people were buying.
Meanwhile, back in TigerDirect, my preferred store because it is just around the corner from where I live, again there are still no people interested in tablets, and those who look down the laptop and desktop aisles do just that.. look. Why wasn’t anybody buying?
It doesn’t matter how you look at it. The Windows 8 default interface is a deal breaker. A line of Windows 8 laptops displaying the default menu certainly stands out, but there is nothing there that looks even remotely familiar. Anything up to eleven of the tiles would have little if any interest to a lot of users, and that does not leave too much.
It wouldn’t be so bad if there was a demo of what Windows 8 was and could do, something to indicate that there are two faces in Windows 8, the modern touch style interface and the more down to earth familiar desktop.
I have seen no evidence to suggest that computer users are rushing to buy touch only devices. People are still carrying regular laptops around with them because they cover ALL exits. The Apple salesperson confirmed that it is the same pattern in his store.
Yes, tablets are being bought, but I would imagine that most are presents given for birthdays and Christmas, mainly to kids as pacifier devices for the times when kids get bored stiff and start to look to cause mischief and mayhem.
Microsoft was brave to introduce an OS which could/can do both, but implementation has been a disaster, especially for the millions who would rather use something familiar and useful for ALL computing purposes.
If Blue doesn’t make the necessary changes, and Microsoft releases Windows 9 in the same manner as Windows 8, and with the same lean to a mode of working which is NOT conducive to ease of use as the old desktop mode is, I can see Microsoft operating systems and the home PC industry going down the tubes.
Breaking News:
Windows 8.1 brings back the Start button and menu, allows a boot direct to to desktop, and makes many more changes to Windows 8. See the Windows Blog..
and Ed Bott’s blog here..
http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-1-unveiled-will-it-change-your-mind-about-windows-8_p2-7000016112/
Microsoft listened. Way to go..