I’m a bit behind today but it seems like a lot of reviews out of Windows 8 and the comparisons to Windows 7 and the iPad seem to be coming out in droves. On Daring Fireball Gruber has accumulated a few of them. 512 Pixels has a charge of iPad Usage basically saying “use a tablet when you don’t want to use a computer”, ie: iPad is awesome because it’s just an iPad, not the “no compromises” platform that Windows 8 is.
I don’t own an iPad or a Windows 8 tablet, and have only ever used Windows 8 on a VM (not the best experience I’m sure). However, I have to come to Microsoft’s defence here, at least in a way. 512 Pixel’s point, noted from Jim Dalrymple is valid of course, but I can see where microsoft is thinking.
“Wouldn’t it be great if you could just have your ~~iPad~~ tablet device and when you need to, plug in a keyboard and mouse and boom, you have a fully working computer.”
I think it would be great, too, if you could do it well. I think that it’d be awesome to have an iPad that when I needed to I could just dock or plug in some how and get access (native, not a VNC solution) to my mac desktop. I don’t know how it’d work, if it would look something like what Ubuntu has done for Android, or an always running (kinda sorta but not on ARM unless you are Microsoft using these 5 applications) solution that Microsoft has. I don’t even know if it’s feasible, though the power available in tablets is increasing rapidly.
I’m just saying I can see what Microsoft was wanting to do. I don’t know if they did it right, or if Windows 8 will be a complete flop for “real” users (vs the “omg look at the pretty computer in best buy” users), but I can see where they were going with their design ideas.