This is where you lose me.
I think we both agree that MS throwing out their current UI paradigms and starting anew is precisely another example of the overreaction you mentioned. We also agree that something must give, but why is it the UI that is the best candidate for doing that "giving"? I don't think you've adequately answered that question.
Ah, fair enough and I have no idea why Microsoft has chosen to butcher the UI in favour of android-esque approach. The only thing logical I can think off is that - they have gone for the "familiarity sell" approach to give those ios and android users what they are familiar with.
I think you're taking that change in UI to represent far more of a change than it actually does.
I am just looking at it from both perspectives, as a techie and from the average consumer's point of view or what they (MS) envisage as said consumers point of view may be. As the average consumer will not see beyond the UI unless they took the time out and did some digging themselves.
From W10M on out, MS is restricting most of WP's UI to doing as iOS does, in most cases hopefully not worse, but unlikely ever any better. This represents the continued removal of differentiators and worse, further limits MS' ability to innovate in ways that are more meaningful than just aesthetics (if MS' app strategy requires them to be as similar to iOS as possible, they can't innovate beyond what iOS does). This is in fact exactly what MS has been doing, bit by bit, ever since WP8.0! Every major change starting with WP8.0 has been about:
a) removing differentiators that are unique to WP
b) adding concepts that are strongly inspired by iOS/Android and
c) backtracking on anything that might be unfamiliar to iOS/Android users.
I absolutely agree, and the last point is in essence what I'm saying - the key word being: familiarity
Yes, W10M is introducing a different UI, but the underlying principles I just mentioned, the principles driving those changes, are the same ones that have been driving WP ever since WP8.0! These principles matter far more than the actual changes themselves. I think this begs the question why we should expect more of these type of changes, to have any more of a positive affect in this round, than they've had in the last few rounds?
True, it's like leading a tired horse, no amount of persuasion will get it to move it faster than it's current speed of travel. Never the less "logic" and "Microsoft" more than often than not cannot be used in the same sentence.
What MS needs is not a change in UI, but a change in guiding principles! Rather than more of the above, MS needs to be bold, provide inspirational solutions, and have the balls to plot their own path without always meekly looking towards Apple and Google! That would be an actual change, and something WP hasn't actually tried since WP7.
Spot on.
The problem is they are trying to make everyone happy and that is impossible as not everyone knows what they want. If everyone was so-matter-of-fact in nature the world would be quite boring in my opinion.
Which would be the same mistake they've made before. It was their shut up and ship ideology which, in part, contributed to them not being able to hear the markets reaction to W8 and basically sank it before it even hit the market.
There is one key difference here, with Windows 8 we only had two to three consumer previews whereas with Windows 10 they have opened up and have given insights and access to earlier bits of the development process. That is a really good thing as some of the features that they felt could be implemented later, would have been brought forward due to user feedback.
However on the flipside some features which were planned to be implemented at release may have been put to one side whilst they brought forward the requested features, some of the iced features may have elevated the o/s to the next level for some - who knows.
I was not referring to Astoria or Islandwood. Both of those require the source code of either an iOS app or an Android app as a starting point, from which you can derive a WP app. IMHO neither of them are important enough to legitimize these UI changes.
I'm talking about the ability to write a single app, in one language, with one library, from which you can directly compile a native app for any of the three platforms. The existence of that type of technology within MS could convince me that these UI changes are worth it. Short of that, I'd say these UI changes are more likely an inconsequential waste of engineering efforts.
I see, that's what you meant and I totally agree. Much ado about nothing.
In a perfect world the other competing platforms would also use the same language & library for that approach to work :winktongue:. Unfortunately for us it is not so rosy as Apple and Google will continue down their road map - as after all they are the incumbent and Microsoft is the challenger, in the desktop space it's the other way round.
Furthermore invariably people will complain that this one language approach is far too draconian and the media, inevitably will draw comparisons to what has happened historically around the world.
To surmise, I feel that both of us are essentially saying the same thing albeit differently and looking at it from a different angles & perspectives.
Anyway, I hold my hands up and appologise for going off topic as well :grincry:.