Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, October 28, 2012, Windows 8, the most controversial Windows system in Microsoft's history, appeared on the stage of history. It is clear that Microsoft has great ambitions for the system: breaking down barriers between desktops and tablets to create a unified interactive experience, and on this basis to create a "All in One" system for desktops, tablets, mobile phones and other devices.

Windows 8 introduces many innovative interactive experiences, including the start screen, dynamic tiles, Metro design language, and so on. However, the radical changes in the Windows 8 system have not been recognized by consumers, and users have received mixed reviews. Microsoft stopped supporting the system on January 12, 2016, but it was like a "reclaimer", laying a solid foundation and pointing the way for later Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Today, 10 years after Steven Sinofsky's 2012 Windows launch, in an interview with Benj Edwards, editor-in-chief of foreign technology media Ars Technica, Steven Sinofsky, former president of Windows, described in detail how Windows 8 was launched and reviewed the entire development process. CTOnews.com compiled as follows:

Development background in 2011, PC sales began to decline year by year, this trend has sounded the alarm. At the same time, mobile devices such as touch-based phones and tablets are very popular. In response, Microsoft set out to develop a flexible operating system that ideally extends seamlessly from mobile devices to desktop devices.

Sinofsky, then president of Windows's division, was assigned to meet the challenge, along with Julie Larson-Green (Julie Larson-Green) and Panos Panay, then head of the Surface team.

Windows 8 represents the most significant shift in the Windows interface since Windows 95. Although the operating system introduced the start menu, Windows 8 removed the iconic menu and replaced it with a start screen full of dynamic tiles.

Although the initial screen works well on touch devices represented by Surface, it performs poorly on traditional desktop PC devices. This led to a backlash from the media and PC sales continued to decline.

While Windows 8 has many drawbacks, it predicts the interactive experience of modern tablets and other mobile devices, including some features that Apple later adopted on the iPad (such as application split screens and screen edge gestures) that were once considered too complex.

As for the "failure" of Windows 8, Sinofsky believes that the most important reason is "going too far and going too fast" (too much and too soon).

The following is an exclusive interview with Steven Sinofsky (Steven Sinofsky): personal background introduction:

Sinofsky worked at Microsoft for 23 years and has been a software design engineer since 1989. Since joining the Microsoft Office team in 1994, he has been managing the development of Office 2000, XP, 2003, and 2007.

Two years later, he became president of Microsoft's Windows division and oversaw the release of Windows 7, Microsoft's most successful product. Sinofsky left Microsoft in December 2012 after the launch of Windows 8.

Sinofsky began keeping detailed records of his time at Microsoft in 2020, and these records were later revised to post "Hardcore Software" on Substack newsletter (an American version of the official account) and serialized them regularly.

Recently, he has been thinking deeply about his history, which makes it prime time for foreign technology media Ars Technica to conduct retrospective interviews via email. His answers have been slightly edited in terms of format, punctuation and simplicity.

What is the first driving force behind the changes in Ars Technica:Windows 8 interface design? IPad?

Steven Sinofsky:

There are many reasons. But the main motivation for changing the interface of Windows 8 is that Windows has reached a turning point in history.

When we created the Windows 7 system in 2006-2009, we were thinking about how Windows should evolve. At that time, the development of the world had reached a critical point: how could PC develop to meet the computing power needed by the industry to call it "the next billion"? Windows 7 has come to the end of this road, unable to achieve the need and vision of "providing computing for billions of people who use PC."

In retrospect, with the launch of the original iPhone in 2007 (its app was launched in 2008) and the launch of Android in 2008, the "next billion" has become the "next billion", and the focus has shifted to smartphones.

Given the trend in mobile computing, one way to increase PC usage is to provide a more consistent experience on the desktop and on smartphones. Implementation requires basic user interfaces (launchers) and metaphors (touch), as well as basics such as cloud storage and all-day battery life, as well as ways in which mobile hardware platforms surpass PC (such as sensors).

The focus is on modernizing computing on PC and aligning it with the modern computing experience on smartphones. It's easy to see this as "catch-up", but in fact, the whole design is designed to push the essence of PC beyond smartphones: sharing between applications, promoting touchscreen typing, living files, file management, device support (printing! (wait a minute, this doesn't exist on smartphones.

Ars Technica: which comes first, Microsoft Surface hardware or Windows 8?

Steven Sinofsky:

The two are designed in parallel. We see the need for a computer that reflects the design of the system and a system that can take advantage of modern hardware platforms. We see Surface+Windows as a stage for * your * applications and content.

Ars Technica: who designed the Metro design language based on dynamic tiles? Have you considered other alternatives?

Steven Sinofsky:

These dynamic tiles are derived from the synergy of the "Metro" design language, which itself is an evolution of Microsoft. From Expedia to Windows Media Center to Windows Phone. We have many alternatives, but the essence of the start screen and dynamic tiles is that this combination solves the major shortcomings we see, namely that the start menu, taskbar (including our innovations in Windows 7), system trays, gadgets, and notifications have become so "unusable" in Windows.

Ars Technica: what role did Windows Phone play in designing Windows 8 and Windows RT systems?

Steven Sinofsky:

Windows Phone and Windows 8 share a name, but in the "Metro style" interface, we want to feel familial and deliberately choose a similar graphics language.

Ars Technica: what do you think is the best thing about the Windows 8 system?

Steven Sinofsky:

I think the most innovative feature is "Contracts", which connects different applications to each other. I don't think Apple extended similar features to third-party apps until 2014, which was first deployed on iOS 13. Most of these functions have been done on Windows 8, but not online (such as sharing between applications).

But in 2011, we showed developers how to share content between applications, how to search between applications, or how to span an application's secure file space and connect it to an application with little code.

To this day, even gadgets that are widely discussed as difficult to use are now the standard, such as sliding gestures from the edges or simply typing to start the program. These are not for "advanced" users, but [part of] the basic user experience.

Ars Technica: what do you think is the worst thing about Windows 8?

Steven Sinofsky:

The most unsatisfactory aspect of Windows 8 is the lack of real Windows 8.1s and 8.2s. Like any Microsoft project, we are beginning to know that we are on a 10-year journey.

For comparison, consider iPad in 2010 and iPad today (or compare Surface RT to iPad). Even a year after the release, comparisons can make a big difference, as we saw on iPad.

Perhaps my biggest regret is that, unlike most of the successful things Microsoft has done (Windows itself, Microsoft Word, Windows NT, etc.), Microsoft has completely abandoned the idea of transforming Windows (WinRT API), hardware (Surface of ARM), and the overall user model when it really becomes a platform. If the company had persevered, it could have made substantial progress. While this is not the "worst feature", it is the most common thing that comes to mind when I think about what might happen to Windows 8 in the future.

Of course, the past is a thing of the past, so I can't sit here today and say that this will change the outcome, but the final judgment of Windows 8 may take more time, just as we did everything we did to achieve success at Microsoft (there is still a lot of work to be done).

Ars Technica: how does it feel to see some negative comments on Windows 8 in the media?

Steven Sinofsky:

The most interesting thing about the media response to Windows 8 is that over time, media reviews began to change. The birth of Windows 8 is the result of history taking its course, and its market performance is as expected, and I have no objection to it. But some media said: "everyone is not optimistic about it" and "Windows 8 was a bad idea from the beginning", which is different from the feedback we received when we created Windows 8.

For example, at the Build conference in September 2011, we released the complete product and provided the code to more than 500000 people. There were comments and positive comments on the product at first glance.

For example, Paul Thurrott tweeted: "Hello, Windows 8? this is iPad. You win." Governor James of RedMonk wrote, "the experience still feels amazing, and that's what really matters. Microsoft did a good job."

Ars Technica: do you think it's unfair to have a negative opinion of Windows 8 on the Internet?

Steven Sinofsky:

I never thought the market reaction was unfair. But I can confirm that those who wrote the articles and reviews thought they gave a fair assessment.

As a preview of the new issue of Hardcore Software, I think the huge institutional shift in computing is driven by Apple. This change makes many people feel uncomfortable. In particular, Apple is there to talk about how tablets are the future of computing. Many people do not accept this and really use tablets as "consumer devices" rather than to increase productivity.

We have a very different point of view, it is not tablet-centric, but "computer-centric". We believe that "mobile devices", "tablets" and "laptops" have come together, and it is entirely possible for an operating system to cross these areas and optimize between them.

That's why at every Windows 8 event, we showcased devices running Windows 8 in all shapes and sizes. Similarly and orthogonal, we saw the cloud as an integral part of the experience from the start: Windows 8 + Windows Live was the earliest cloud system demonstration.

We are very focused on productivity and mobility, which is why we designed the overall keyboard experience for Surface. We see that the user always has a keyboard, even if it is folded on the back as a lid.

At the same time, the bracket is about using the device for leisurely consumption, or, as I've shown, it doesn't interfere with productivity (the camera in Surface is tilted, so it points correctly to the table when standing on the bracket). From the beginning, we mainly designed the operating system in horizontal mode and designed "multitasking" support to assume that the application uses a widescreen layout, so that the two applications run well side by side.

Ars Technica: how has your view of Windows 8 changed in the past 10 years?

Steven Sinofsky:

First of all, a lot of feedback about Windows 8 focused on deleting the "start" menu-the traditional text menu-that we knew at the time had reached its limits. So in many ways, I think the feedback exaggerates the role of the start menu, just as early Windows critics exaggerated the removal of "C:\ >" from the core experience. However, of course, like the early Windows, we have the ability to keep it (the desktop in Windows 8).

Second, 90% of the calculation (which is a rhetorical statistic) is now done through the application grid view, starting with touch and filling the screen. Mobile browsing plays a dominant role in desktop browsing, and the total screen time on mobile devices is much longer than that of desktop browsing. Desktop computing is declining. That is assuming full use of desktops, and for billions of people, they will never look at desktops the way they have traditionally been imagined.

So in this way, we try to get Windows to take the next step naturally. It was too early for us to do this, and as a result, Windows did not move forward and still maintains its security position today-although in a shrinking desktop world, Mac faces greater challenges in 2022 than we do in 2012.

Ars Technica: what aspects of Windows 8 do you want people to remember most?

Steven Sinofsky:

Windows 8 will be remembered for the way it operates in the market. I hope that over time, some people will reflect on what they have done, re-examine the initial assessment, and realize that what Windows 8 is trying to do is a classic effort that companies should do-it is always better to subvert themselves than to be subverted by another company. That's what we're trying to do.

Windows 8 is an example of failure because it has "too much" innovation. In many ways, from the lowest layer of the hardware / software system API, the UI, the application runtime, and the user experience in the system, every layer of the system has crazy (even absurd) innovation. The market cannot absorb all of this at once, although all parts have proved to be relatively prescient in so many ways.

That's what innovation and business are like-everything has to be coordinated. But how to coordinate is a difficult problem for all enterprises.

Ars Technica: do you think Windows 8 is undervalued in the historical version of Windows? How do you compare it to Windows 95 or Windows 7?

Steven Sinofsky:

One of the most interesting phenomena in the tech world is that people remember very successful products, and then they also remember catastrophic failures. But people also remember products that are less successful, but remember them as if they had changed a lot of things, almost more successful than them.

From Altair to Zune, to Windows Phone, to Newton, to Amiga, there is a complete series. These are not successful businesses, but now every business has incredible fans-irrational fans.

I hope people will realize that Windows 8 integrates innovations from edge sliding gestures, API, ARM support, window management, sharing / search / selector contracts, real-time dynamic tiles, and so on. Although Windows 8 itself has not succeeded in bringing these innovations directly to Windows users, many innovations are still ahead of the iOS and Android platforms.

Ars Technica: is it cathartic or emotional to write about Windows 8 on your Hardcore Software Substack?

Steven Sinofsky:

I would say neither. For the most part, I am documenting conversations with hundreds of groups and companies over the past 10 years. People are very interested in the "ways and reasons" of strategic and management choices, and these stories resonate with managers, product owners, engineers, and so on. What Windows has experienced may be bigger and higher than many enterprises have achieved, but every enterprise will face a moment of survival.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.