Craig,

I have been playing with Metro on WP8 phones a bit and find it slicker than Android
but probably not as slick as iOS. I tend to be cautios - and having only limited expirience with iOS
(some 3 Weeks iPad,some family iPhone) - might not have checked out all possible tricks.

WP8 and ARM Win-RT offerings by themselves are IMO solid offerings,
but why go that way if freedom and low price are cornered by Android,
high price and (s)nobility are Apples back yard ?

If the future is accessibility through any device, I guess that back end linux will
keep major MS profits in that area at bay, while the desktop machine will often be replaced
by a VM on a big backbone driving a big screen - also lowering profits.
Vendor lock-in MS had in the desktop will evaporate and desktop machines will
follow big iron to a diminished status - and MS will loose a lot as they have not
cornered a lot of the new personal device space.

But if the WP8 or Win-RT device has a better coupling to the info displayed at the big screen needed for work,
this might give a needed special charactristic to decide for a MS mobile device. Also - again IMO -
Metro on the desktop is lousy for KB and mouse usage -
again inferred from limited playing with it from my side. Wasteful of screen space and with a mouse
I want my 50 odd most used programs directly accessible to 1 mouse move and click.

Metro interface on minority report data input IMO is flashy but stupid -
good on movie screen but not in real working life unless as a fitness trend.

But an armchair input like Herbert alluded to in Dosadi Experiment might make sense -
perhaps retulilizing the phone or pad the user is accustomed to and works with
when not in front of the big screen.
For me nothing else but a change in input vector to a faster,
but less discriminative channel like fingers makes sense
as reason to set metro as default on big screens as well.

Perhaps with some ghosting on the big screen this will replace mouse work later on.

IMO W8 suffers in public opinion from being a MS product and from the fact that it is now only a
"me too" product having no real benefits which cannot be foud in one of the other offerings.

When Android came along it offered much more freedom compared to the iPhone,
from mSDHC to loading programs and other areas. Thus it was clear that there was a group
running to android and buying/working/enhancing that stuff.

Currently I see no furure for Windows if the trend to "any device" is not changed.
Coupling Metro on personal device and big screen and the user already trained
on the personal handling side might offer MS a fighting chance.
So I am talking about Metro and in the long run OS branch of MS.


>Are you talking about Metro or a tablet?
>
>>My guess is that the only way for Metro to succeed is to have it as another entry option
>>like a pad besides the keyboard if you are sitting at a desktop/laptop machine adding "finger food".
>>Even large screen in table won't work IMO.