Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On , a column about consumer technology.
Last week’s Switched On discussed how Lion’s feature set will be perceived differently by new users or those coming from an iPad versus people who have used Macs for a while, while a prior Switched On discussed how Microsoft is preparing for the same transition in Windows 8. Both OS X Lion and Windows 8 seek to combine elements of a tablet UI with elements of a desktop UI or — putting it in a different way — a finger-friendly touch interface with a mouse-driven interface. If Apple and Microsoft could wave a wand and magially have all apps adopt overnight so that they could leave a keyboard and mouse behind, they probably would. Since they can not, though, inconsistency prevails.
Yet, while the OS X-iOS mashup that may be Lion exhibits is share of growing pains, the autumn-off effect isn’t as pronounced because it appears it is going to be for Windows 8. The primary reasons for this are, so as of accelerating importance, legacy, hardware, and Metro.
Legacy. Microsoft has a very strong commitment to backward compatibility. So long as Microsoft supports older Windows apps (so that it will be well into the longer term), there’ll be a more pronounced difference between that old user interface and the brand new. This may occasionally become more of a difference between Microsoft and Apple through the years. For now, however, Apple may be treading lightly, and a number of other of Lion’s user interface changes — including “natural” scrolling directions, Dashboard as an area, and the hiding of the harddisk at the desktop — may be reversed. Even a number of Lion’s “full-screen” apps are just a cursor movement faraway from revealing their menus.
Hardware. As Apple continues to maintain touchscreens off the Mac, it brings over the look but not the input experience of iPad apps, relying instead at the precision of a mouse or trackpad. Therefore, these Mac apps would not have to embrace finger-friendliness. Compared, the “tablet” UI of Windows 8 is designed for fingertips and therefore demand a cleaner break with an interface designed for mice (although Microsoft preserves pointer control to boot so these apps can be utilized on PCs without touchscreens).
Metro. A late entrant to the gesture-driven touchscreen handset wars, Microsoft sought to distinguish Windows Phone 7 with its panoramic user interface. When Joe Belfiore introduced Windows Phone 7 at Mobile World Congress in 2010, he repeatedly noted that “the telephone seriously isn’t a computer.” That’s a correct assessment, and maybe one worth repeating in light of all of the feedback Microsoft ignored through the years within the design of Pocket PC and Windows Mobile, and it also of couse holds true beond the user interface for design around context and support of location-based services.
But now that the folk in Redmond have created an enjoyable phone interface, have things actually changed? Was it true only that the telephone and PC shoud not have the usual Windows interface, or is it also still true that the computer and call shouldn’t have the identical new Windows Phone interface? Was it the character of the user interface itself that was at fault, or the notion of an identical user interface across PC and speak to despite how good it’s?
There’s certainly room for more consistency across PCs, tablets and handsets. However, Microsoft didn’t just differentiate Windows Phone 7 from iOS and Android, it differentiated it from Windows besides. And that’s the main it’s because the shift in context between a classic Windows app and a “tablet” Windows 8 app seems more striking at this point than the adaptation between a classic Mac app and “full”screen” Lion app. Lion’s full-screen apps may be the new point of crossover with Windows 8′s “tablet” user interface mode. In response to what we have seen at the handset side, it’s certainly possible for developers to jot down an analogous apps for the iPhone and Windows Phone 7, but these are generally simpler apps (after which there are games, which usually ignore most user interface conventions anyway).
Apple and Microsoft are both clearly striving for a less complicated user experience, but Microsoft is additionally attempting to adapt its desktop OS to a brand new form consider the method of doing so. The balancing act for both companies could be making their new combinations of software and hardware (from partners in terms of Microsoft) embrace a brand new generation of users while minimizing alienation for the present one.
Ross Rubin ( @rossrubin ) is executive director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm The NPD Group . Views expressed in Switched On are his own.
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