However, it raises some UI questions with me, some of which I already had a few weeks ago. The observations in that post was more a result of the way the applications that are being run inside the browser are being developed. Now however, this news from Google has added to my doubt whether the current incarnation of the browser is an appropriate one. The biggest question mark would be tabs. As great as they might seem, tabs have some inherent usability issues associated with them:

Cyrus: Ok, i seriously don’t get tabs on Windows. Hell, i don’t get tabs on OSX either. In the latter there’s a great system called Exposé for that, and in the former the task bar does the job just great. Once i start using tabs though things go all to hell. On OSX i can’t tell which FireFox/Safari window has the tab i want (since it’s too small), and similarly in windows i find myself scanning the taskbar for a site i was looking at, but i can’t find it because the task bar entry only lists the site that is the currently active tab. This makes it so difficult to actually find the site i want and it ends up being far slower than just having a window available for each site.

Now however, they are becoming a much more important navigational element. Whereas in it’s current inclination, tabs are used to navigate web pages and applications withinan application within an OS, they will eventually be used to navigate web pages and applications within an OS only (read: browser), the behaviour of which is similar to the taskbar found in Windows or Exposé in OSX. This shift in usage will most likely result in a much higher dependency on tabs and I somehow think that it is perhaps good idea to look at how this demand can be met.

equals

Somewhat ironic is also the way in which applications are accessed: on windows most people seem to click on a icon to launch them (this might vary: I am lost without being able to search for applications). In a browser this might not always be the case: the address bar functions as a sort of smart command line input that allows us to look for and launch online content.

By all accounts however, the current form of the browser will most likely need to be adapted to allow it to fit better into the usage patterns, but also the environment in which it is used.

Downloaded and installed Windows 7 this morning, after partitioning my disk last night. First impressions: this is a significant improvement. The UI seems better thought out, everything has worked so far and it is definitely more responsive than Vista (although that is not hard to do).

In fact, it works so well that I will continue to use the Beta until it expires in August. It does not feel like it is in Beta at all. I am currently dual booting with Vista, so if it all goes sour, I would still have an OS. However, I can’t really recommend using it unless you are willing to take a risk and have backups of your work.

Windows 7 can be downloaded here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

For a few screenshots, take a look at this gallery:
http://windows7news.com/windows-7-screenshots/

Which one of these are the “best” is a silly question and I won’t go into the gory details of comparing any of these systems. However, what is as clear as daylight is that amongst these 3 the biggest “loser” seems to be Vista. It has been criticized since before day 1. The adoption rate of Vista hasn’t been that bad though, but whether this should be attributed to Vista or an increase of hardware sales (more than 90% of computers come with Vista installed) isn’t clear.
The real moneymaker for Microsoft is probably the business sector and upgrading to Vista will in all likelihood only occur after the first service pack is released. Right now, certain vendors still give you the option of getting XP instead of Vista but that will change soon enough.
Market Share
But, the real reason I am writing this is to put certain things into context. Firstly, an overwhelming majority of users use windows. Xbit labs reports that the market share is about 90%. That is massive. To compare: Apple’s share is about 6.06%. To serve a customer base that big is tricky. There is a saying along the lines that to design a product for everyone results in a product for nobody. There will be problems, no matter what.

Similarities with XP
A big argument you hear when discussing Vista is that it doesn’t offer any real advantages over XP. Whether that might be the case or not, the adoption of XP was just as sluggish as Vista. Do yourself a favor, search the google news archives for Windows XP news and you will be surprised at how much the stories about XP and Vista sound alike, yet, XP is still the most popular OS by far.

Too far ahead
And lastly, to those people predicting the end of Microsoft: dream on, with a market share of 90% they aren’t going anywhere. At best they will lose some of that 90%. Don’t expect to see OSX, OS11, or any of the (great) Linux distributions to overtake that.

Disclaimer: I don’t care what OS you use, how you switched and how good (insert OS here) is compared to Vista. And, biggest market share doesn’t equal “the best”.

Sources:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20071002235454.html
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=564
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN3131673820071101

From time to time I get the urge to give Linux a go. There are a few things that always bug me though. Number one is the fact that I must manually edit config files. In order to get my graphics card to work I had to edit some config files, something many of us won’t be too happy about. Second thing that bug me a lot is the amount of times I have to use the terminal/command line. I know it isn’t such a big deal but I am sure the average user would feel much more at ease if they can simply change some things using a GUI instead of the command line.

One big hurdle for me is the lack of support for dual monitors. Having two monitors greatly improve productivity but more importantly, it looks cool. I know it is possible but to give you an idea of the difficulty, take a look at this thread on the Ubuntu forum:
HowTo: Dual Monitors (Xinerama/TwinView/MergedFB/Big-Desktop).

Now, that is exactly the kind of thing you should try to avoid when wanting to attract new users. But, credit where credit is due, the Ubuntu and Linux community in general is really great, the support is fantastic and the improvements I have seen in the past 3 years that I have been fiddling around with Linux has also been tremendous.

For those of you who want to give Ubuntu a try, I’d suggest heading over to Wubi.

Linux:

Windows (XP and Vista)

So, are the UI guys at Redmond wrong? I don’t really know but it just feel really wrong having a button that makes me go a step back located where I would think it would take me a step further and I will still be putting my cancel buttons on the left.