Windows 8 is like a bad blind date
She's stunning, sexy and sultry. But you can't live with her.
Every day for the last three weeks, I sat down to write this analysis but couldn't bring myself to. I resisted for not having used Windows 8 as much as its predecessors -- typically from public beta to release candidate before offering hard opinion. In October, I requested one of the Samsung tablets handed out to BUILD attendees but Microsoft wouldn't provide one. After several more requests, I got one in April and May for about a month's use and was shocked -- and not "wow, it's good". Windows 8 demos much better than my actual user experience. I blamed myself. Surely the problem is mine -- that Microsoft wouldn't unleash UX worse than Windows Vista. But as I see other users/reviewers sharing similar experience, time has come to break my silence. I wouldn't recommend Windows 8, in its current form, to anyone.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes finally set my writing in motion. Yesterday his June 7 ZDNET post "Final thoughts on Windows 8: A design disaster" popped up in my RSS feeds. The headline doubly impacted: "final thoughts" -- for software not released -- and "design disaster". While reading, I kept thinking "yeah" over and over, because my experience so closely mirrors his.
