Both Apple and Microsoft's new desktop operating systems borrow elements from mobile devices, in sometimes confusing ways.
Apple is widely expected to unveil a major update this week to OS X Lion, its operating system for desktop and laptop computers. Microsoft, meanwhile, is working on an even bigger overhaul of Windows, with a version called Windows 8.
Both new operating systems reflect a tectonic shift in personal computing. They incorporate elements from mobile operating systems alongside more conventional desktop features. But demos of both operating systems suggest that users could face a confusing mishmash of design ideas and interaction methods.
Windows 8 and OS X Lion include elements such as touch interaction and full-screen apps that will facilitate the kind of "unitasking" (as opposed to multitasking) that users have become accustomed to on mobile devices and tablets.
"The rise of the tablets, or at least the iPad, has suggested that there is a latent, unmet need for a new form of computing," says Peter Merholz, president of the user-experience and design firm Adaptive Path. However, he adds, "moving PCs in a tablet direction isn't necessarily sensible."
Cathy Shive, an independent software developer, would agree. She developed software for Mac desktop applications for six years before she switched and began developing for iOS (Apple's operating system for the iPhone and iPad). "When I first saw Steve Jobs's demo of Lion, I was really surprised—I was appalled, actually," she says.
Shive is surprised by the direction both Apple and Microsoft are taking. One fundamental dictate of usability design is that an interface should be tailored to the specific context—and hardware—in which it lives. A desktop PC is not the same thing as a tablet or a mobile device, yet in that initial demo, "It seemed like what [Jobs] was showing us was a giant iPad," says Shive.
A subsequent demonstration of Windows 8 by Microsoft vice president Julie Larson-Green confirmed that Redmond was also moving toward touch as a dominant interaction mechanism. One of the devices used in that demonstration, a "media tablet" from Taiwan-based ASUS, resembled an LCD monitor with no keyboard.
Not everyone is so skeptical about Apple and Microsoft's plans. Lukas Mathis, a programmer and usability expert, thinks that, on balance, this shift is a good thing. "If you watch casual PC users interact with their computers, you'll quickly notice that the mouse is a lot harder to use than we think," he says. "I'm glad to see finger-friendly, large user interface elements from phones and tablets make their way into desktop operating systems. This change was desperately needed, and I was very happy to see it."
Mathis argues that experienced PC users don't realize how crowded with "small buttons, unclear icons, and tiny text labels" typical desktop operating systems are.
Lion and Windows 8 solve these problems in slightly different ways. In Lion, file management is moving toward an iPhone/iPad-style model, where users launch applications from a "Launchpad," and their files are accessible from within those applications. In Windows 8, files, along with applications, bookmarks, and just about anything else, can be made accessible from a customizable start screen.
Some have criticized Mission Control, Apple's new centralized app and window management interface, saying that it adds complexity rather than introducing the simplicity of a mobile interface. At the other extreme, Lion allows any app to be rendered full-screen, which blocks out distractions but also forces users to switch applications more often than necessary.
"The problem [with a desktop OS] is that it's hard to manage windows," says Mathis. "The solution isn't to just remove windows altogether; the solution is to fix window management so it's easier to use, but still allows you to, say, write an essay in one window, but at the same time look at a source for your essay in a different window."
Windows 8, meanwhile, attempts to solve this problem in a more elegant way, with a "Windows Snap," which allows apps to be viewed side-by-side while eliminating the need to manage their dimensions by dragging them from the corner.
A problem with moving toward a touch-centric interface is that the mouse is absolutely necessary for certain professional applications. "I can't imagine touch in Microsoft Excel," says Shive. "That's going to be terrible," she says.
The most significant difference between Apple's approach and Microsoft's is that Windows 8 will be the same OS no matter what device it's on, from a mobile phone to a desktop PC. To accommodate a range of devices, Microsoft has left intact the original Windows interface, which users can switch to from the full-screen start screen and full-screen apps option.
Merholz believes Microsoft's attempt to make its interface consistent across all devices may be a mistake. "Microsoft has a history of overemphasizing the value of 'Windows everywhere.' There's a fear they haven't learned appropriateness, given the device and its context," he says.
Shive believes the same could be said of Apple. "Apple has been seduced by their own success, and they're jumping to translate that over to the desktop ... They think there's some kind of shortcut, where everyone is loving this interface on the mobile device, so they will love it on their desktop as well," she says.
In a sense, both Apple and Microsoft are about to embark on a beta test of what the PC should be like in an era when consumers are increasingly accustomed to post-PC modes of interaction. But it could be a bumpy process. "I think we can get there, but we've been using the desktop interface for 30 years now, and it's not going to happen overnight," says Shive.
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Personal Comments:
From my personal point of view and
based on my 30 years IT/Dev experience, I do not see the change of
desktop Look&Feel as a crisis but more as a simple and efficient aesthetic evolution.
Why? Because what was made for mobile
phone first and then for new coming mobile devices like tablets is
what some people were trying to do on laptop/desktop computer's GUI for
years: trying to make the GUI/desktop experience simple enough in
order to make computers accessible to anyone of us, even to the more
recusant to technology (see evolution of windows and Linux GUI). That
specific goal was successfully reached on mobile phones/devices in a very short time, pushing common people to
change of device every two years and making them enjoy new functionality/technology without having to read one single page of an
instruction manual (by the way, mobile phones are delivered without
any!).
It looks like technological constraints
and restrictions were needed in order to invent this kind of
interface. Touch screen only mobile phones were available since
years prior Apple produces its first iPhone (2007), remember the Sony-Ericsson P800
(2002) and its successor the P900 (2003), technically everything was here (they are close to the "classic" smartphone we are used to have in our pocket nowadays), but an efficient GUI and
in a more general way, an efficient OS was dramatically missing. What was done by
Apple with iOS, Google with Android and HTC with its UISense GUI on top of Android brings out and demonstrates the obvious potential of these mobile devices.
The adaptation of these GUI/OS on tablet (iOS,
Android 3.0), still with the touch-only constraint, rises up new
solutions for GUI while extending what can be done through few basic finger gestures. It sounds not surprising that classic
desktop/laptop computers are now trying to integrate the good of all this in
their own environment as they did not succeed in doing so on their own before. I would even say that this is an obvious
step forward as many ideas are adaptable to desktop computer world.
For example, making easier the installation of applications by making
available App store concept to desktop computers is an obvious step,
one does not have to think if the application is compatible with the local
hardware etc... the App store just focus on compatible applications,
seamlessly.
So more than entering a crisis/revolution, I would
say that desktop computer world will just exploit from the mobile
devices world what can be adapted in order to make the desktop
computer experience for the end-user as seamless as it is on mobile
devices... but for some basic tasks only.
You can embed a desktop OS in a very
nice and simple box making things looking very similar to mobile
device's simplicity, but this is just a kind of gift package which is
not valuable for all usages you can face on a desktop computer...
making this step forward looking like a set of cosmetic changes, and not more... because it just can not be more!
Today, one is used to glorious declaration each time a new OS is proposed to end-user, many so-called "new" features mentioned are not more than already existing ones that were re-design and pushed on the scene in order to obtain a kind of revolutionary OS impression: who can seriously consider full screen app or automatic save as new key features for a 21th century's new OS?
Let's go through some of the key new features announced by Apple in Mac OS X Lion:
- Multi-touch: this is not a new feature, it "just" adds some new functionality to map to already available multi-touch gestures.
- Full Screen management: it basically attached a virtual desktop to any application running in full screen. Thus, you can switch from/to full screen applications... the same way you were already able to do so by switching from one virtual desktop to another.
- LaunchPad: this is basically a graphical interface/shortcuts for the 'Applications' folder in the Finder. Ok it looks like the Apps grid on a tablet or a mobile phone... but as it was already presented as a list, the other option was... guess what... a grid!
- Mission Control: this is also an evolution of something that was already existing. The ability to see all your windows in addition to all your virtual desktops.
I'm pretty convinced that these new features are going to be really useful and pleasant to use, making the usage of the touchpad on MacBook even more primordial, but I do not see here a real revolution, neither a crisis, in the way we are going to work on desktop/laptop computers.
