Friday, May 11, 2012
One OS to rule them all….
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| Becoming obsessed with creating one operating system for all our tech devices may not be such a good idea. Just ask Gollum. |
Ever since I started playing with Windows 8 Consumer Release Candidate 1 about a month ago I have been thinking about wisdom of having one
operating system for all our tech gadgets.
The idea is intriguing. Master one set of rules and no
matter what device you are on – whether it be your smartphone, tablet, laptop,
desktop, or even a refrigerator with a touch screen – everything works the
same. No more having to break out the manual – if there even is
one — to decipher some instructions that are so arcane that even the wizard
Gandalf would have trouble following them.
But the more I think about it, the more I am beginning to
think that this is a bad idea.
A very bad idea.
An idea so bad that it – and Windows 8 – could only have come from some volcano in
the heart of Mordor. (Which, come to think of it, Microsoft is kind of the
Mordor of SoftwareLand…)
My thoughts were confirmed after trying to use
Windows 8 to do the things I've always done on my desktop computer. And if your
experience turns out like mine, then I think that instead of making things
easier for consumers, a single operating system for all devices will ultimately
make things much more difficult for the average consumer.
Why?
Because each of our favorite tech devices has a specific use
and function, and it is that function that should dictate how the device’s
software works, not the other way around. It’s a matter of form following
function, not the other way around.
Let’s take the smartphone for instance. It’s primarily a
communications device. It was designed to be used for making phone calls,
texting and for checking your e-mail and/or calendar. Sure today’s smartphones
can do other things too. They make pretty decent point-and-shoot still- and
video- cameras, can play music and with millions of “apps” floating out there in
cyberspace, smartphones can do tons of other stuff. Heck, I have one app on my
phone that even turns it into a pretty useful flashlight. But it is still my
phone first. It only serves as a
flashlight when I can’t find a real one around when I need it.
Tablets on the other hand are what I’d call “entertainment
devices.” With their big screens, they are excellent for watching videos or
browsing the web, reading an e-book and even composing a short e-mail or
two. They’re even pretty good for
playing simple yet addictive games (Angry Birds anyone?). Like their smaller
smartphone cousins, a tablet’s capabilities can be expanded with any of a
million apps, but without the addition of at least a keyboard, I wouldn’t want
to do anything that required extensive text entry. That’s why we have laptops
or desktop computers.
Laptops and desktops are the real workhorses of all our tech
devices. They are best suited for writing long-winded articles like this, or
creating and manipulating complicated spreadsheets or editing video. Some even
make pretty decent gaming machines. Of
course you could do all those things on a smartphone or tablet, but given
a choice, I’d rather type a story or work on a spreadsheet on a device with a
full-sized, physical keyboard; mouse and a nice big LCD monitor. I think you would
too.
Again the form
something takes should be derived directly from its intended function. I
believe the popularity and intuitiveness of Apple products came from Steve
Job’s strict adherence to this idea.
Now I have never been an Apple fanboy and
probably never will (I don’t like their snobby, superior attitude), and I am more comfortable in the
world Microsoft created, but Microsoft could learn a thing or two from Apple on
this score. An operating system should be designed around the function of the
device and since computers, tablets and smartphones are all different animals,
I don’t think it’s possible to unite all three seamlessly. There are too many
compromises that have to be made to get everything to work and Windows 8’s
usability proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I give Microsoft full credit for trying to push boundaries
and exploring the idea. But what they've come up with just doesn’t work.
A better idea would be to build an OS that would recognize
what kind of device it’s on and adjust its interface and capabilities
accordingly instead of foisting a touch-screen based interface on
desktop/laptop users, who have no need for them because keyboard and mouse input works just fine for them and is more practical.
Designer Prashant Chandra has already demonstrated how something like this could work with his hybrid Lifebook mockup. It contains a removable tablet, smartphone
and camera that can be plugged into a notebook shell. As each of these devices
is plugged in to the notebook, they seamlessly share data though a master OS
running on the notebook. Unplug one of the units, like the tablet or smartphone, and you are now running a thinned down version of that OS specifically
made for a smartphone, tablet or camera.
The concept is not unlike the concept behind Microsoft's Office suite or Adobe’s Creative Suite. Each of the programs in Office
– Word, Excell,
Powerpoint, Outlook and Access
– are made to do different things
– like writing a letter, creating spreadsheets or building small databases
– but share a very common interface so users can move between them with ease. The same is true of Adobe's product. Photoshop is for pictures, Illustrator for drawing and InDesign for page layout, yet all three share the a common interface that makes it easy to jump between those programs without thinking. Seems to me the same can be done between the different
hardware platforms.
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All this talk of OS's and not even a casual nod to Linux. Wow. Where's the love?
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