iPad: the lessons of Windows 8

8 Windows, Microsoft is force proposal: it relegates the windows and the mouse in the background and highlights its graphical interface and use Metro Touch. This proposal is so interesting that in some respects, Apple and Google would be wrong not to be inspired by Windows 8


Metro: an original proposal

Metro is a truly original proposal: the new visual language, reminiscent of the Swiss style, spread the Zune to Windows Media Center, then Xbox, Windows phone, and now Windows . Microsoft provides an interface with breaking windows and icons and use of tiles, both areas display information without going into the application, and areas for launching applications.

Microsoft offers, according to him, an OS "without compromise" (read: Windows 8: Touch and uncompromising). With "no compromise", we must understand that "with consensus" the Redmond company has chosen not to choose, to keep a classic interface below the interface Metro, to preserve the habits of users of armed a mouse while moving for those using a touch device. Liabilities Microsoft does not allow him to cut to the quick: equipping a large majority of the PC market, Windows can not change too much without causing major friction.

This strategy biform - some say schizophrenic - should allow Microsoft to propose the "best of both worlds." As far as can be judged with the developer preview of Windows 8, it causes most constant back and forth between the two interfaces to the user, and provides two development environments for the developer.

This dichotomy, which will probably last time an OS will be the major challenge Microsoft by offering "one OS to rule them all," the Redmond company takes the risk out "an OS to annoy everyone."

In this regard, Apple's strategy is clear: the Mac, which aims to become a truck computers, powerful but winded, retains a traditional interface designed for handling indirect, barely crossed with IOS. The iPhone, iPad Touch and other devices fully, they are equipped with a fully designed iOS for direct manipulation. The two environments communicate more or less correctly, share their roots and have a vague resemblance - but drastically separate and incompatible.


Apple's approach means that problems solved long-standing OS X still does not IOS. That Microsoft allows Metro to the highest points of Windows - so what if the evil is hidden under the carpet. And these points, in fact, is a real opportunity for Microsoft in the computer "post-PC" or IOS or Android can not compete.

System sessionsThe first and most obvious, is the system of Sessions: 8 Windows is Windows and OS is a multi-user, unlike iOS and Android. If the presence of sessions is not important on a phone, a device inherently personal, it is already on a shelf, a more domestic appliance. 
The sessions are implemented in a very classic Windows 8: the user name and avatar appear constantly in the top right of the screen of Metro. One click, and we can change accounts. The screen saver displays the notifications related to the active account (upcoming appointments, messages and unread messages, etc.)..

It seems that Apple think about a system similar to IOS, at least in the form of patent applications: a home screen will list all pending notifications for each user. Whoever grabs the tablet is immediately recognized through biometric (read: Soon the multi-session on the iPhone and iPad?). We could leave notes between users and the different environments would be partitioned.

Multi-user iPadSeveral concepts have arisen around this idea, demonstrating that it is a need. IUser available for jailbroken iPad, establishes a simplified sessions (read: Users: a system for sessions iPad jailbroken). The BERG London studio, he has devised a practical implementation of such a system: each corner of the home screen would be associated with a user of the device (read: BERG: a concept iPad MCC) . Four accounts, not one more ("a very limited Apple" according to the designers of the project), and an extremely simple system to partition the different environments.