How bad is tablet mode for Windows 10?

Rem97

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For some gr8 points that you make have you given feedback to MS? I am sure they will consider the swipe down to close in tablet mode.

Swipe down to close was shown at the 21/1 event. Maybe it'll be included in an upcoming build, if it's not there currently.
 

TechFreak1

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In a pinch this is how I feel so far:
•Windows 7 equaled great desktop UI, but horrible (and obviously not designed) for touch.
•Windows 8, a great tablet UI, but with serious deficiencies (more like unintuitive UI) for desktop/ non touch users.
• Windows 8.1 brought many grew changes for both tablets/ touch screen devices and non touch screen devices. It isn't perfect by any means but they seemed headed in the right direction.
• Windows 10 has a great desktop. The decisions here seem on the money, but what happened to that fantastic touch UI? There are so many issues so far that I cringe using it in tablet mode. For example: Snapping two apps side by side is now much less intuitive, having a blank desktop while tablet mode seems pointless, getting to all applications is cumbersome and not nearly as slick as windows 8.1. Cortana search (I know its still Beta) is far inferior to the hero and start screen search. I loved being able to swipe in from the left to switch programs. Now I get this grid of thumbnails representing my open apps, it isn't horrible, but you have to touch this tiny x to close each thumbnail, why can't we swipe down to close them like in windows phone 8.1? There are some things I like: Making desktop and modern (store applications) behave the way, and i do like the notification center as well the idea behind continuum mode or whatever it is called, I just hope that it gets a lot more touch friendly before the final release, so that I will enjoy my surface as much as I did in the past.


I'm just wondering if anyone else feels this way. Am I alone my opinion? Please forgive the spelling/ grammar errors. I've typed this on my Lumia 1520 on a quick break at work.

Cheers,
Niko

There are three parties to be blamed here

1) Enterprise customers
2) Microsoft
3) OEMs

Blame the enterprise customers, it was far to alien for them and so Windows 10 was designed to bring them back into the fold. So in the process the charms and left to switch was deemed unintuitive.

Blame MS for not making adequate tutorials in the first place and for being to narrow minded in their approach when they built Windows 8. When they started developing it, the world was gearing up for touch and it was envisioned everyone would be using touch however there was no Plan B put in place to placate mouse + keyboard users and the enterprise users - W8.1 came too late. After your done blaming MS, blame the OEM's for shipping laptops without touch which just added fuel to the fire.
 

Wevenhuis

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My experience between windows 8.x and windows 10 on my surface pro is a mixed bag.

Windows 8.0
startscreen had a clean and natural feel on the surface pro for me. Accessing apps list was a bit problematic through the start screen app bar-> softbutton-> applist. Quickly got used to swtiching apps from the left screen edge. Charms bar need a bit to get used to, but was very powerful. Instant access to settings features and quick toggles and the showing the date and time. Search was very powerful, bing, search, file search, app search and settings search even full screen on selection. No bluetooth quick toggle though. Also the charmsbar supported in app search, a dream to use, simply lovely! Apps had app bars voor quick access of hidden functions at the top and bottom edge of the screen. A simple swipe is enough. Convenient. If you need them, they're just a swipe away. Quick app switching menu is a simple left edge back and forth swipe. Apps could be resized while snapping.

Winodws 8.1
App list becomes a swipe up from the bottom edge. Snapping apps refined, even up to 4 app on some devices. In app search if fased out in favor of developer control of in app search. Search bars in each app all dirrent and all over the place. Search capabilities of charms bar toned down in favor of bing search and a more basic non-full featured search capabilities, compared to windows 8.0. User login and search key and right click menu options for mouse/keyboard use in modern UI added. That's two search buttons right next to each other (start menu top right and in the charms bar only an inch from it). Still no bluetooth toggle. More apps use the app bar functionality. Easily accessible through a single swipe. Start menu button added for mouse/keyobard users.

Windows 10
Charms bar replaced with action center. Quick toggles section at the lower right remains, More than half do not have quick toggle functionality, but are links to pc settings, unlike the toggles in windows 8.

60-70 of the action center is used for notifications. It has currently no other functionality (no quick settings toggle menu's, no search, no access to start, no access to share, no direct access to devices, no quick access to search). Date and time label is gone.

Left swipe now gives app switch alt+tab like function. Swiping and app snapping is gone. It is replaced by swipe-> alt+tab menu-> press pictogram of app to activate it-> app goes full screen-> if your want to snap it you can then swipe slighly down from the top and drag it to the left or right side. Only two apps at a time can be snapped. Resizing not an option. This increases the user touch experience effectively from 2 swipes/actions for two apps to 4 swipes.

Swipe up from the bottom edge only has a function if taskbar is set to auto-hide.

Taskbar seems to be the "new app bar" of sorts. It is 25% less wide than the charms bar, start, search, pinned apps to the taskbar and the system tray icons are 25-30% smaller than the icons and functions in the charms bar. Makes pressing the icons and functions more difficult. Time and date is font size 8-9, difficult to read on a tablet sized device.

Currently in 9926 in tablet mode.

The function of the taskbar is too small for touch ergonomics and is a huge compromise in my experience compared to winodws 8 on a surface pro.

The hidden taskbar is a hit or miss affair with regard to hiding. It is often stuck in many apps and blocks access to the app bars in many apps. It's also always there even when a video is full screen.

The hidden taskbar does not stay unhidden when I stop swiping goes down within a second.


The start menu in tablet mode only lets users use 75% of the screen to pin live tiles. The left edge is used for locations and most recently used. I can not use this area to pin live tiles. Locations and most recently used are also available as live tiles, so it seems not necessary to dedicate this screen to that in tablet mode. Its and unnecessary doubling of functions in the same screen. It's dysfunctional in tablet mode.

Apps are only scrollable verical now in both portrait and landscape mode. I notice that a horizontal scroll in landscape mode for me is more natural and ergnomic, just like windows 8. It would also make more effective use of the whole start menu canvas in landscape mode. Currently there is too much empty space that can be used for live tiles without getting the feeling of more clutter.

Microsoft has changed strategy for accessing app functions. In winodws 8 this was the charmsbar settings and the app bars. Now it has changed to the hamburger menu in a tiny-tiny icon in the top left corner off apps, accisble through a swipe down. To access this you have to press the app command butoon in this menu to open the app bars. Many apps are adopting this function. The single swipe is being phased out. This will increase user input effectively by three clicks.
These are some of the things I notice with winodows 8 and 10 while using a surface pro as an actual tablet. Looking from a desktop perspective I can understand the design and UI changes made to windows 10. But from a tablet perspective, windows 10 has a poor tablet experience as of version 9926 on a surface pro. Currently winodws 8 has a better tablet experience overall hands down in my experience.

I would say windows 10 has some tablet experience, but I wouldn't call this a tablet experience. I think windows 8 is the better benchmark for this comparisson. If this is the current windows 10 experience I wouldn't recommend surface or tablet owners to do this, but just saty with windows 8.1.

Although this is only the technical preview version, in my experience technical previews have shown that the basic experience scaffolding will still be as it is shown now. That get's me worried. Microsoft has shown with winodws 8 that they are capable of changing things with updates, but not all experiences for the tablet side of windows 8 has been good. A good example is the big change made by phasing out iin app search and full OS search capabilities with the charms search bar. The major changes made were mostly relevant to improve the overall desktop experience.

I believe for tablet expience it is better to currently give plenty of feedback and uservoice on paying attention to the tablet eperience. But other than that just wait and take a sit back. Beacuase for RTM. release its going to be all desktop at first and tablet last. I have a feeling that tablet will, just like what happened with the desktop updates in winodws 8, it will not be untill december 2016 or even later before we see a significant tablet improvement like a 10.1 update. There are generally more desktop and laptop winodws users. User feedback was huge in windows 8 that more support was needed for a better desktop experience. This userbase will go first. Surface and tablet owners are niche.

My advice stick with windows 8 on your surface till the desktop users are satisfied, then start ramping up feedback on the tablet side. Windows 10 is far from ready for the upgrade for a tablet/surface pro right now, even at RTM.
 

JamesDax

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I believe for tablet expience it is better to currently give plenty of feedback and uservoice on paying attention to the tablet eperience. But other than that just wait and take a sit back. Beacuase for RTM. release its going to be all desktop at first and tablet last. I have a feeling that tablet will, just like what happened with the desktop updates in winodws 8, it will not be untill december 2016 or even later before we see a significant tablet improvement like a 10.1 update. There are generally more desktop and laptop winodws users. User feedback was huge in windows 8 that more support was needed for a better desktop experience. This userbase will go first. Surface and tablet owners are niche.

My advice stick with windows 8 on your surface till the desktop users are satisfied, then start ramping up feedback on the tablet side. Windows 10 is far from ready for the upgrade for a tablet/surface pro right now, even at RTM.

​What a load of crap. When Windows 10 goes RTM it will be feature complete for desktops, tablets and phones.
 

TechFreak1

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that's a lot of blaming...LOL^^^^^^^

Lol, I'm just pointing out there is a lot of factors contributing to the decision MS has made with Windows 10. What people must realise is Windows 10 is for the enterprise and not us general consumers. A lot of enterprise customers are deploying Windows 7 even when the main stream support ended on Jan 13 2015. I doubt they will release another service pack as it will mean increasing the extended support of the current deadline from 2020. They sure as not going to offer Windows 10 for free for enterprise customers... makes zero business sense to do so.

I imagine once Windows 10 is in more tablets and continuum gets more refined we may see the return of more touch centric switching and something similar to the charms bar.
 

Coreldan

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There are three parties to be blamed here

1) Enterprise customers
2) Microsoft
3) OEMs

Blame the enterprise customers, it was far to alien for them and so Windows 10 was designed to bring them back into the fold. So in the process the charms and left to switch was deemed unintuitive.

Blame MS for not making adequate tutorials in the first place and for being to narrow minded in their approach when they built Windows 8. When they started developing it, the world was gearing up for touch and it was envisioned everyone would be using touch however there was no Plan B put in place to placate mouse + keyboard users and the enterprise users - W8.1 came too late. After your done blaming MS, blame the OEM's for shipping laptops without touch which just added fuel to the fire.

I upgraded to Windows 8 as soon as I could and it had tutorials available just fine at the time. I think it's more the mentality that people skip all the instructions and are then left wondering why things dont work the same as they used to.
 

Skamath

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​What a load of crap. When Windows 10 goes RTM it will be feature complete for desktops, tablets and phones.
I think what he meant by Desktop first was that the MS resources are pooled towards making Desktop a better experience as vast majority of them are desktop users then followed by tablets and finally the phones and not necessarily that the RTM is not available for the tablets and phones.

Cheers
 

sashlon

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I think its pretty good on a tablet actually.

​I really disliked the earlier builds on my Surface Pro 3, but 9926 fixed pretty much all my issues.

 

Aravind-S

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I'm using Dell venue 8 pro running W8.1.1 and the ribbon menus & taskbar icons are horrible to access. They are so small and not touch optimized. Any improvements in W10TP so far?
 

Wevenhuis

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I'm using Dell venue 8 pro running W8.1.1 and the ribbon menus & taskbar icons are horrible to access. They are so small and not touch optimized. Any improvements in W10TP so far?

Yes, the new office apps for windows 10 have been optimized for touch. Coming from windows 8.1 desktop apps, you will notice a more clean design overall, less cluttered ribon. The basis is still a ribbon design, but they are devided in tabs. Each tabs has fixed number of items on a single line of about 80 pixels wide. It's different to the office desktop because the icons are generally larger. It does mean that compromises are made as to which features from the desktop programs are ported to the apps. But in general its enough to get the basics done and do some basic editing. In onenote the radial menu has been replaced by a menu bar.

I think this is a big step forward for making touch and pen friendlier apps for tablet mode in the surface pro. I do agree though that the buttons are still a tad too small. I have been trying these apps out in tablet mode on my surface pro, but yes they still feel a bit small. ? am hoping microsoft will fix this. I provided feedback through the insiders hub. But I think the final product will probably be a what we see now. I think it has to do with making compromises between ergonomics and design. So I think things won't change other that reporting bug fixes till after release. Only then will microsoft have time and room to improve on design aesthetics. But that's 2 years down the line. I'm not saying this is fact, but a assumption based on a hunch in my experience with microsoft so far.
 

TechFreak1

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I upgraded to Windows 8 as soon as I could and it had tutorials available just fine at the time. I think it's more the mentality that people skip all the instructions and are then left wondering why things dont work the same as they used to.

Yes, the tutorials came after.

Have tried all windows 8 previews in VM and none had tutorials prior to the public release. The first preview gave me a migraine as nothing made sense as the whole UX was touch centric thus meaning one had to bury the mouse into each corner (basically one had to imagine the bezel was part of the screen, once you reached the top corner it would activate the relevant zone). So imagine how the IT department for an enterprise org would have felt after trialing the previews?

Furthermore they hid the shut down menu inside settings, how moronic can you get?

After these scathing previews without any proper guidance, I don't blame the enterprise for going down the Windows 7 route. Also you need to factor in the training cost for the current staff [bearing in mind most would be accustomed to XP and the remaining Windows 7] and compatibility with their legacy applications.
 

Coreldan

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Yes, the tutorials came after.

Have tried all windows 8 previews in VM and none had tutorials prior to the public release. The first preview gave me a migraine as nothing made sense as the whole UX was touch centric thus meaning one had to bury the mouse into each corner (basically one had to imagine the bezel was part of the screen, once you reached the top corner it would activate the relevant zone). So imagine how the IT department for an enterprise org would have felt after trialing the previews?

Furthermore they hid the shut down menu inside settings, how moronic can you get?

After these scathing previews without any proper guidance, I don't blame the enterprise for going down the Windows 7 route. Also you need to factor in the training cost for the current staff [bearing in mind most would be accustomed to XP and the remaining Windows 7] and compatibility with their legacy applications.

Enterprise is a beast of it's own, I'm not even talking about it. Just look at teh whole support ending for Win XP. I don't expect Enterprise to touch Windows 8 or even 10 in the next decade. It's just easier and safer and cheaper to just hang on to the oldest thing available, which is now Win 7.

Consumer then again.. Only a small, tiny minority will preview something like Windows 8 beforehand. The tutorials were in the final product, that's what most consumers used/tried.
 

TechFreak1

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Enterprise is a beast of it's own, I'm not even talking about it. Just look at teh whole support ending for Win XP. I don't expect Enterprise to touch Windows 8 or even 10 in the next decade. It's just easier and safer and cheaper to just hang on to the oldest thing available, which is now Win 7.

Consumer then again.. Only a small, tiny minority will preview something like Windows 8 beforehand. The tutorials were in the final product, that's what most consumers used/tried.

Also there is another bone of contention, which I didn't mention as this thread was about the tablet mode. Most people who used windows 8 on their desktop machines with large monitors (non-touch) some even a TV as a monitor. Therefore when they would open up an store app it would launch full screen, so imagine having to drag your mouse all the way up to the top, click+hold then drag down or go all the way to the left. If your not used to using shortcut keys, this will get old pretty fast.

Furthermore another issue was snapping, once you had snapped an app there was a void on section of the screen with no visible cues that the user had to click on that segment in order to go back to the start screen / app list. So for the average person who is not IT literate would be left baffled, I'm speaking from experience - I used to teach elderly folks and kids how to use Windows 8 as their new laptop / desktop pc had windows 8 on it and they had no idea how to interact with it.

There are other issues which I won't list as this post would become a tldr essay :winktongue:.

But yeah, I would love to see MS refine and implement the touch centric UX of windows 8 for tablets on Windows 10.
However what I don't want to see is another idiotic move like putting the shut down menu in settings lol. Never the less Windows 10 has not even reached RTM so things will change between the current public build and the end product.
 

mister2d

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I rolled back to 8.1 on my SP3 after I realized that I couldn't:

1) Swipe from the left to do fast app switching
2) Swipe from the right to quickly adjust brightness setting, and others
3) Swipe feature in Reader to quickly reveal the Save button after annotating PDFs.

I've sent many feedback notes and then quickly rolled back. It's hideous for touch coming from 8.1
 

sashlon

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I rolled back to 8.1 on my SP3 after I realized that I couldn't:

1) Swipe from the left to do fast app switching
2) Swipe from the right to quickly adjust brightness setting, and others
3) Swipe feature in Reader to quickly reveal the Save button after annotating PDFs.

I've sent many feedback notes and then quickly rolled back. It's hideous for touch coming from 8.1

1) That's funny because I swipe from the left and get multitasking.
2) Yes that is a fail. But its a TECH PREVIEW. I'm sure they'll address it.
3) The App Commands is fairly simple to access.
 

mister2d

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1) That's funny because I swipe from the left and get multitasking.
2) Yes that is a fail. But its a TECH PREVIEW. I'm sure they'll address it.
3) The App Commands is fairly simple to access.
1) I didn't say multitasking.
2) I understand as much. Like I said. I left ample feedback. Then rolled back.
3) Not applicable.
 

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