True and and wise, but look at WHY people are turning to Apple: Windows 8...
blatanville said: "I think the biggest thing that determines your success with an OS is your attitude and the pre-conceptions you have (give to you by others.)"
It is indeed a question of attitude and I tip my hat for the sanity input in this discussion, but I always come back to why Apple will be gaining converts with the move of Microsoft to Windows 8.
At this point, although, to me, Windows 8's USER INTERFACE is pure horror and I positively, viscerally hate how Microsoft (and Apple before it), has made users slaves with limited freedoms on their won computers and has made every effort, through the design of their GUIs, to make sure users cannot find their ways into the actual File System, key to our computers (sometimes I wonder if I couldn't make my own Windows Shell, in which the Start button is actually the system's real file manager), I CAN TRULY APPRECIATE the advantages of the TOUCH INTERFACE for smaller screens and for media consumption.
But for general computing, what computers were designed for, a TOOL for CREATIVITY? Honestly, I just cannot believe Microsoft can actually force users to abandon the Start Menu and File System paradigm, which is so essential for freedom of use, and lock users into a world where they live in Microsoft cubicles and all consume Microsoft Goo from the Microsoft Store!
We've seen a gradual loss of freedom ever since Windows XP took over, where computer users lost the ownership of their system and were put on the same level as potential criminals, with the need for credentials and other controls, and Microsoft has slowly, and to most, imperceptibly, been removing access to what is in reality their PERSONAL COMPUTER (why would anyone need to stress this fundamental principle is beyond me).
Truly and irreversibly abandoning the Start Menu and File System would be like forcing collectivism in a society based on personal, direct democratic participation: it's just bound to fail.
THE LOSS OF FREEDOM is why, in my opinion, there is so much negative reception to this UI, that was in reality just designed for pure, mindless CONSUMPTION on small MEDIA DEVICES that cannot be used for any real work. The real problem comes from the fact that Microsoft is insisting that we should now all convert to their new religion and to leave creation and decision making to them, just like in the virtual world of the Matrix, instead of actually OWNING our tools, to be able to CREATE with them what We, the People, see fit, as true, fully realized human beings.
