I think this is a VERY good idea. I mean, it’s not a NEW idea. Microsoft has been TRYING to get this right for 20 years or more since before Macintosh 84. But, I support them getting better and better each attempt. I use windows and have had to suffer through it for years, while my Macs have been virus free, hassle free and totally don’t just die.
So, go for it. Windows 8! Yes. Good luck. May the force be with you.
But, even so... even if they DO “win”.... the still lose... there is one tiny winy little problem everyone forgets in this classic debate.
Microsoft doesn’t make their own hardware and doesn’t even try to set a minimalist standard.
Anyone can make any kind of $99 parts and junk and claim windows will run on it.
Anyone can write any program and put it out on any website and it can totally screw with any number of your settings and preferences and often be loaded with bloatware, spyware, bundled utter junk that will ruin any half baked attempt at emulating an “APPLE” feel to things.
Apple... Mac... is more than a feeling.. more than an OS... more than the hardware... it is truly the very embodiment of the saying “Greater than the sum of its parts”.
And since Microsoft controls only the OS shell for the other than Mac experience, they cannot possibly succeed at an impossible task over which they exert a minimum influence at best.
No.
Microsoft needs to do a lot of work still, and button down their OS and make it more intuitive and secure, all true... but it should DO those things and not get caught up in trying to out Apple Apple for appearances sake.
Careful - someone here will start referring to you as an Apple “fanboy” or worse....
Though you pretty much hit the nail on the head.
> Microsoft doesn’t make their own hardware and doesn’t even try to set a minimalist standard.
Microsoft does indeed make hardware; granted, not much -- no motherboards, power supplies, and such. They make peripherals (the old MS Mouse was the standard PC mouse for a long time) and a few other side items, some of which are quite good, some of which suck ferociously. Their hardware offerings often become defacto standards.
But more important, Microsoft does indeed set standards for what is a PC for running Windows, at every level of detail from chipsets to commands to available API support. They have done so very clearly and explicitly since the mid-90's. And those standards are the reason that nearly any hardware made today in the PC realm will run Windows. It's not an accident.