Business. Look at IE6. Microsoft can't force system-wide updates for all their customers, so nearly 0 customers get dramatic software improvements. Of course, everyone gets security updates.
> With Windows, it gets updated instantly whichever OEM built your PC. With Android. it can take upto a year after getting released, or never come out at all.
This isn't really relevant to the point I'm trying to make. I understand that right now, OEMs aren't updating Android frequently. I meant more user software updates; my Android apps seem to get updates every week that add features, fix bugs, etc. This process is streamlined and automatic. This is not true with traditional desktop operating systems (aside from most Linux distros).
Microsoft could simply add an automatic update service right into the operating system, similar to how they have MSI for installations, and then apps would be updated similarly. It's quite possible they're actually working on something like that -- updates seem to get better and better all the time.
For at least the last 15 years, there has been no central way to upgrade user software on Microsoft Windows. Today, in 2011, there is no way to do this. Maybe it's coming eventually, sure. But again, these points are seriously minor issues compared to what I'm trying to suggest:
The "mobile" OS space is consistently more user-friendly than the desktop space.
Maybe desktops can catch up. Maybe MS is working magic behind the scenes. Forgive me if I'm pessimistic here. I find it far more likely that there's a slow, worldwide shift to "mobile" OSs on all computers. It'll probably resemble some sort of iOS/Android/webOS future spawn, or something. I don't know.
The automatic software updates was merely an example to show where "mobile" excels and "desktop" fails. There are many others, and even those this example may change I feel my point is still made.
> For at least the last 15 years, there has been no central way to upgrade user software on Microsoft Windows.
For most of the last 15 years, most people installed their software by sliding shiny round things into their computer.
> The "mobile" OS space is consistently more user-friendly than the desktop space.
Unless you want to print something. Mobile OS's are considerably more limited, which with very little effort makes them much more user-friendly. A pocket calculator is also consistently more user-friendly than a smartphone.
> The automatic software updates was merely an example to show where "mobile" excels and "desktop" fails.
But that's actually such an easy problem to solve. Mobile operating systems (and, in my cases Linux in general) are very bad at solving the hard yet common problems -- like seamlessly printing documents or working with arbitrary hardware and software.
I agree that there will be a shift to "mobile" OS style on computers -- it's already happening with Mac OS X and the Mac App store. No doubt Microsoft is already planning a UI for Windows that is also much more limited and they are certainly working on an app store. Taking a mobile OS and making it work on a PC is much more difficult than taking an existing desktop OS and making it function more like a mobile OS.
>Mobile operating systems (and, in my cases Linux in general) are very bad at solving the hard yet common problems -- like seamlessly printing documents or working with arbitrary hardware and software.
You're out of date. Printing is actually easier on Linux than on Windows.
Part of why you can't take a stock version of android and install it on any phone because the hardware discovery on cell phones is entirely lacking. Think back to the days when you had to select the type of sound card and it's address and all that jazz. Now apply that to every single hardware component.
I think doing knowledge-worker things on an Android-alike, let alone an iOS-alike, would be _awful_. My workflow sometimes involves "have the pdf of the research paper with the equations in it over here, matlab open over here, emacs with some C++ code integrating with matlab in it open over here, and a terminal open over here to build the C++, all arranged so I can see each and every thing (actually emacs and the terminal are transparent so I can see the research paper through them)". I break into a cold sweat thinking about trying to do something like this on iOS, and this is far from the worst case scenario - I do scientific computing, so most of the applications involved, apart from matlab, are pretty integrated into the OS (e.g. compiler, terminal, general dev tools). But what if I were a mechanical engineer, and I have Pro-E/Katiya/AutoCAD, whatever piece of crap windows application I use to program a CNC mill, and whatever other piece or crap windows application (LabView if I'm lucky) I use to integrate with the fucking DAQ, and, of course, Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint?
Being able to see and copy/paste between multiple windows simultaneously is crucial. "Mobile" OSes just _seem_ more user friendly because people only try to use them to do dipshit pseudo-productive tasks. Engineering on one would be awful.
Paper doesnt have copy and paste, still there doesnt seem to be any shortage of mind bending work that people do with paper. In the absence of copy and paste your workflow would probably look a bit different - possible read things one by one in sequential order and form a complete working model before opening the editor to actually write code. Depending on what you are doing this might/might not be a good thing.
Paper has a desk, which allows me to look at several pieces of it at the same time.
When doing derivations on a legal pad, I often get angry flipping between pages and wind up ripping out of all of the pages of work and arranging them on a table so that I can look at them all at the same time. If I'm working from a book, I'll xerox the pages I want so I don't have to flip back and forth.
Android/iOS lack this important characteristic of paper, but traditional desktop OSes emulate it pretty well.
I have to see equations in a pdf and code in an editor at the same time. This is non-negotiable. If I worked at a company using some iOS-alike on their desktop workstation where there was only one app on the screen at a time I would be killing a whole lot of trees printing out papers so I could look at them while I code.
Oh Lord, am I really about to argue that a Microsoft policy 'makes sense'? How the mighty have fallen. :-/
Not from my perspective, but from a corporate perspective this actually makes sense. gag
The problem is that corporates in general tend to test certain things to a ridiculous extreme, and other (usually more important) things not at all. Wherever I've worked at a large gov dept/corporate in the last ~4 years and they haven't updated from IE 6 the (lame) excuse is that it would require too much testing. Not of the new app, but of all the thousands of old apps, any one of which might get sideswiped by this change and you wouldn't even know why.
Last year I took a contract at a major govt dept where they were still using Windows I shit you not 95. That wasn't the only thing that prompted my swift exit, but it weighed heavily in the decision making.
Yes, apt-get for Windows would be fantastic, if you were forced (or wanted) to use Windows. Right now a few Windows programs do updates well, like Steam and Chrome, but a platform-wide solution (like dpkg+apt, or rpm+urpmi/yum) would be better.
Business. Look at IE6. Microsoft can't force system-wide updates for all their customers, so nearly 0 customers get dramatic software improvements. Of course, everyone gets security updates.
> With Windows, it gets updated instantly whichever OEM built your PC. With Android. it can take upto a year after getting released, or never come out at all.
This isn't really relevant to the point I'm trying to make. I understand that right now, OEMs aren't updating Android frequently. I meant more user software updates; my Android apps seem to get updates every week that add features, fix bugs, etc. This process is streamlined and automatic. This is not true with traditional desktop operating systems (aside from most Linux distros).