Editorial: 10 outdated elements of desktop operating systems

We've come so very far in the way computer operating systems treat us, and in the way we treat those computer operating systems. They multitask, they animate, they reach into the internet and pull down our favorite parts, they rarely crash and they're always on. It's a far cry from a decade ago, but I think we could go so much further. The advent of the cheap, ubiquitous touchscreen, always-available internet and continually cheaper and more powerful hardware has revolutionized the phone industry, and I think it can also help the desktops and laptops we know and love do more for us. But a laptop isn't a phone: we're supposed to get a lot done on it, under some unrealistic deadlines, and some random company with big ideas can't come along and reinvent the desktop OS in one fell swoop -- that simply isn't practical when we have things to do.

So what's an OS to do? I think there are serious opportunities for evolution available to the Microsofts, Apples and Ubuntus of the world, but they involve embracing new technologies in new ways. And stealing a ton of ideas from phones. A finger on a screen is not a mouse on a pad, an internet browser is not the end-all be-all of the internet, and playing Crysis in a quad HD resolution at 60 fps is not the ultimate expression of gaming for 95% of the population. Join me as I explore a few bits of legacy cruft that need to be addressed before the desktop OS can become as important to this decade as it was to the last one.

1. Windows management

Problem: Spending time hunting for this text editing document under a dozen other windows.

This is at the top of the list, because it's probably my most frequent frustration; I'm always looking for the right window. Sure, you might tell me I can use "Spaces" or command / ctrl+tab or some other wild method of shuffling between my windows, but if tools like that exist to help you shuffle through the clutter, there's probably a deeper problem here. Everybody (my mom) always says that the best way to keep a room clean is to have places for everything and never let it get messy. I can't even count on one hand the features introduced in Windows and Mac OS this decade to help me "manage" my windows, but what if I never wanted to sign up for that job? An operating system is about performing tasks, not juggling. A touch of ADD and what might seem like a logical, modern operating system to some just ties my poor brain in knots looking for what I'm doing or what I'm doing next.

Solution: webOS

A theoretical computer that has a touchscreen just for kicks has room for adding more intuitive gestures into the workflow. Instead of trying to remember a key command or a four finger gesture, a bit of on-screen multitouch could probably rearrange those windows in a jiffy. Some of the Windows 7 snap-to functions are also very intelligent and could aid in this task. A single swipe in webOS puts me in a "card" view that is the overarching metaphor for navigating through the OS, not something tagged on to make it merely livable.

The other thing I would pull from webOS and other phone operating systems is the idea of pushing an app completely off the desktop and out of mind, while allowing it to run a background process to pull in its relevant push information or perform whatever other duty it does (a minimized window or app still remains in the task switcher or in the task bar, and therefore in the way). A nice little touchscreen flick (or maybe a pinch and flick, go wild!), could tell my computer that I don't want to see that entire application anymore -- while staying safe in knowing that Growl will pick up anything I'm missing by not having that window poking through 1/32nd of my screen.

Of course, we still have to multitask, since this is a desktop operating system. That's where things get tough, but I still think there's a way. Take that speed dial view in Chrome and Safari, for instance: it's a natural interface that's self-adjusting to my use of the browser and providing shortcuts in a relevant and organized manner. In the case of webOS, a larger screen could possibly allow for a two-up card view, where you pick two cards to co-exist. For the most part, if I'm doing actively doing more than two operations at once, I'm not really getting anything accomplished. I'd much rather drill through tasks and then send them away than see how many items I can manage to allow to coexist on my desktop before I lose my sanity. I'm frequently afflicted with an overabundance of tabs in my browser, but at least it presents me one at a time. I can read that page or bookmark it, and then I close it and then move on to the next tab. I'd never want to keep a window for Google or Facebook open at all times "just in case" a need for it arises.

Perhaps we've gotten too lazy with our implementation of drag and drop? If I could drag to a virtual target, such as the Start Menu or Spotlight, and then just start typing my desired target (iPhoto, Gmail, Tweetie, Windows Movie Maker, Facebook), which would subsequently launch in a way to deal with what I'm dragging, it would reduce steps and clutter. I want to execute tasks, not operate apps. Something our command line Unix friends know well. Quicksilver users, too.

2. Inappropriate use of touch

Problem: fingers aren't good at "clicking."

So, while we're on the subject of touch, let's dive in a little deeper. I think touch implementation is one of the biggest missed opportunities of Windows 7, and while Apple has the luxury of not selling any computers with touchscreens, and therefore not having to "worry" about it, that doesn't let it off the hook in my book -- the technology is clearly cheap and available.

And it should be used! We're all completely familiar with touching things in the real world, so it makes sense that we'd touch them in a virtual one. But five fingers are not a mouse cursor. I wonder what percentage of my day I use my fingers to point at something. One percent? Two? And yet I'm expected to point, tap and flick my heart out to get anything done on Windows 7 with touch, in a base imitation of the mouse.

Solution: webOS, Project Natal

Pinch to zoom is just one tiny little expression of what fingers can do. Fingers can grab, snap, smudge, toss and even kick paper footballs through your buddy's improvised uprights. Now, I can't pretend to know how all these things should be implemented in the desktop, but I think they can be made use of in really interesting ways if they're worked in at the OS level instead of consigned to some lame imitation of existing mouse and keyboard commands. After all, the mouse and keyboard already work great, why would I want to expend more energy just to fake what they can do so well? I'd rather use my hands in new ways to do new things.

Like I mentioned previously, webOS makes great use of the flick gesture (also the horizontal swipe), but I think there's also an opportunity for hand gestures away from the touchscreen. After all, on the desktop it hardly even makes sense for you to hold your arms all the way up to your screen to make something happen. Microsoft has shown off concepts (pictured above) of gestures in a 3D space in front of the computer which seem promising, and is doing similar things with Natal. If I'm just going to wave my arm to emulate a d-pad then I'm not interested, but if I can wave my arm and make something magic happen, then let's talk.

3. Lack of integration with browser, websites and webservices

Problem: Web apps make me find them, and that's too much work.

I'm gonna go a little crazy here and say that we're not necessarily going to leave the desktop behind and dive into some glorious world of just needing a web browser. In fact, when I think about some of my favorite applications, they're the exact reversal of that trend. Mailplane puts my Gmail in a familiar, functional desktop context, Tweetie makes managing Twitter a casual, persistent activity instead of a chore, and iPhoto manages my social photo sharing folders for me so I don't have to stare at endless web forms and upload dialogues to get stuff on Flickr.

Phones know this trend well (thanks in part to their sluggish web browsers), and with the advent of the iPhone and Android we've seen an endless stream of apps that pull data from the cloud and present it in friendly, powerful interfaces. Why would I want to go to the cloud in the browser when I can have the best elements of the internet in my comfy desktop apps?

Solution: iPhone

It's not hard to imagine how web applications should act: they should act exactly like desktop applications. You should be able to use them online or offline, drag and drop files between them, and have a universal set of key commands that make everything more badass. But at the some time, desktop applications need to wise up and learn how to act more like web apps. Storage in the cloud should be a default, not a special feature, updates should be continual and granular (we're already close on this front), and the splicing in of web streams of information should be leveraged as often as possible. Most of this is already the case in the best-of-breed apps, and Apple and Microsoft have already spearheaded some initiatives on this front, but there's still way too much of my operating system that seems hardly aware of the internet, and that's just so early 2000s.

4. Power management, graphical hardware management

Problem: I don't know if I'm going to get two hours or five hours off of this charge, or how to fix it.

If you plug a 3G card into your laptop, you're going to get less time off your current charge. But how much? The same goes for WiFi, Bluetooth, display brightness, spinning up the disc drive... I could go on. All of these items draw a pretty reliable amount of juice when in use, and can be disabled or avoided when an expert user wants to milk their battery for all it's worth. Unfortunately, most people don't have the know-how to disable this stuff, or just don't want to deal with the hassle, and it means a sub-optimum experience. Even if you do go through all the trouble of disabling every single power sucker, you don't know how much good you did yourself -- maybe you wasted more time shuffling around the Control Panel than you saved on juice? Luckily, the future is already here, just not evenly distributed.

Solution: Android, HP

Ever since Android 1.6, we've been able to easily and quickly toggle the various power drains on our Android phones from the home screen. Instead of diving into sub-menus, it's just a matter of toggling on and off 3G, Bluetooth and WiFi when it matters. I typically get double my battery life if I switch off WiFi and turn my phone onto Edge. This isn't at all rocket science, it just means Microsoft and Apple have to pull all the disparate controls for hardware into their Energy Saving panel and let people have at it.

The second part of this equation is more complicated, but not hardly out of reach. In fact, HP already has power usage software in place for some of its enterprise-class laptops, and this sort of software for IT has been available for a while. A perfect implementation in a consumer desktop operating system means providing estimates of how much power you'll really save by switching off WiFi or dimming the display, which lets users make informed decisions about power saving. Bonus points for a slider that lets someone just choose how long they need to use their laptop for and lets the software figure out the best way to accomplish this.

5. No unified notification tray

Problem: Useful notification is an afterthought in Windows and hacked on by a third party on the Mac.

Many people, myself included, are almost scarily dependent on Growl notifications. When the Snow Leopard upgrade broke Growl temporarily, it send shivers down many spines, but it also illustrated a real issue with Mac OS X: pushed, pop-over notifications shouldn't be some optional feature cobbled together by "the community," they should be deeply integrated into the OS. Windows has been much better about this, but it could be better. There's no true "problem" with the way Growl and Windows do notifications right now, but I think we've seen from mobile phones that the very concept could be rethought and revolutionized.

Solution: webOS and Android

You knew where this was going. Android and webOS have benefitted enormously through their respective notification "trays," with Android's up top as a virtual drawn, and the webOS version presented as a space that's quasi-off screen. The great thing about a desktop OS is that there's room to grow this formula. Instead of just popping up a notification and then hiding it in a drawer for perusal, that very drawer could become a powerful method for directly interacting with respective applications. Without requiring any surface change to existing applications, notifications and controls could be "pushed back."

IM and Email are shoe-ins. Merely provide an expandable text area below the message to enter in a quick response. If the conversation needs your full attention, just click it to view it in Adium or Pidgin, but the majority of conversations can be attended to with a quick reply.

Other applications could provide a set of "what would you like to do next?" buttons to let you deal with their accomplishments. That effects render all done? "Save, Export, or Save and Quit" could give you momentum going back into Final Cut. Like on webOS, a music player's controls could be persistent in the tray. Other apps, if they might be so daring, could also provide shortcuts to popular tasks where you could even drag and drop elements (like a URL or photo from an IM) from the tray to Mail or Chrome or Flickr.

Of course, if made too complicated, a notification tray starts to lose its charm, and there's always room for third party additions to a barebones implementation, but no matter what, I think the "tray" metaphor or something similar is absolutely essential for the future of the desktop OS. It wouldn't hurt the iPhone OS, either!

6. Lack of standardized hardware targets for gaming

Problem: I'm running a "pro" system that was built less than a year ago, and yet I have no idea which games (if any) are even worth installing

Another way to phrase this is "I'm a console gamer." I know plenty of people play some amazing games on the PC, and it's still the ideal system for a FPS, MMO or RTS. But it's a hassle. Services like Steam have made obtaining games easy and often cheap, but at the end of the day you have to be of above-average intelligence to get an appropriate game graphically for your mid-tier desktop or your high-end laptop, and a computer genius to tweak your system appropriately to run the game at its highest relevant settings to your machine.

Even when I've been presented with a best-case-scenario gaming PC, I still drop frames in the messy parts, or have to shut off a few of the fancy graphical touches that make the game look good at the high resolution PC games are known for. Or I drop the resolution and loathe myself for it. I know I'm doing something wrong, or not spending enough on gear, but I'd really rather just pay $60 for that console disc and enjoy a known quantity from my couch.

Solution: iPhone, prayer

If there was an easy solution for this, a steadily marginalized PC gaming industry would've come up with it by now. I certainly don't know the best way to proceed, but I think the contrast between Mac gaming and iPhone gaming is a good example of what it might take. The iPhone's solitary hardware target was obviously a dream come true for developers, who had previously known such joys only on the tightly-controlled handhelds from Sony and Nintendo. Even after introducing the 3GS we've seen games that run well on both tiers of iPhone hardware, with an easy to track differentiation between the two of them. The unitasking nature of the iPhone also lends itself to reliable performance -- you always know how much of the system's attention the app is going to get.

This doesn't help PCs much, however, since there are about as many currently available PC SKUs as there are iPhones in use. One potential help is AMD's new "VISION" branding for PCs. This is mostly useful for differentiating what sort of media handling capabilities a system has, and will obviously become much more of a moving target once a new generation of systems are introduced (you can't differentiate around 1080p forever). There's also a hope that DirectX 11 could take off in a way DirectX 10 never did, providing a new target for game developers: the lowest end DirectX 11 gaming card on the market. But I'm not holding my breath.

7. Cost

Problem: My netbook costs $50 more than it needs to and I can't change the desktop picture for some reason

While PC manufacturers are all busy one-upping each other in feature sets and blasting away at MSRP, Microsoft is in the enviable position of licensing software it's already built. Of course, Microsoft has to recoup its considerable development and support costs, but there's something that feels just a little "wrong" about stripping features out of an OS to sell it cheap to an OEM -- particularly when it's more expensive than Windows XP was. Windows 7 Starter usually amounts to a $50 bump over a comparable system with Linux or Windows XP. Microsoft isn't necessarily abusing a monopoly in this space -- there's nothing theoretically stopping anybody from pumping a couple billion dollars into Linux or some new brand of desktop OS and facing off with Microsoft head-on -- but since there isn't a true Windows alternative, I think Microsoft gets away with charging more than it should for all versions of its OS, and stripping too many features out of its "cheap" editions.

Apple isn't any better, since it simply doesn't give us any choice. Maybe Apple doesn't think people want something akin to an Apple-built netbook, but I'd say there are thousands of hackintoshes out there that would beg to differ. The fear of cannibalized sales is understandable, and so far Apple's choices are paying off just fine on the balance sheet, but it's hard to think of a desktop OS like Mac OS X as truly "current" of "of the times" when most people shopping for a laptop today aren't even planning on spending half the cost of the cheapest MacBook.

Solution: Linux (maybe)

While tablets outnumbered smartbooks by a wide margin at CES, I think the latter category has much more of an implication for Real Computing in the near term. Away from the Microsoft and Intel taxes, $200 ARM-based smartbooks running Linux could offer a new version of computing for the everyman. Google's Chrome OS gambit seems to think so. Intel's experiment with Moblin is also an indication of half of this trend. If an OS can be "good enough" without having to cost an OEM $100 for every PC it slaps it onto, or dictate exactly what sort of parts they can or can't use, then we could be looking at an incredibly different new era of computer. Of course, Linux has to get there first, and people have to overcome their fears of something that doesn't run MS Word and have a blue IE icon on the desktop.

A more expedient solution would be for Microsoft and Apple to slash their licensing costs and drop some of the restrictions. Perhaps it'll take a successful Linux to make that happen?

8. Complexity leading to click abundance

Problem: I can't remember that key command, but hunting through the menus with my mouse is too much work

This might come across as a little esoteric, but I think at some point we lost our way with key commands. Outside of simple things like ctrl+C, ctrl+V and ctrl+S, most key commands are designed for and typically used by experts. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm happy that experts are presented with a highly efficient method of using their application of choice, but for the rest of us, or for the expert that finds herself in a foreign app, there needs to be a better way to discover functionality than clicking like a maniac.

It typically looks like this: I know what I want to accomplish in Photoshop, but I don't know how. So I start clicking. I click up in the menu bar and shuttle back and forth to see if something catches my eye. I right click on some aspects of the layers menu, I click into some of my tools, I tab through a few thousand pallets. What do I end up doing? I just run to Google. I'm sorry I'm not smart enough for you, Photoshop, but if I have to resort to a frantic Google search every time I want to get something complicated done, there's probably something wrong with at least one of us.

Solution: Spotlight

This is another case where I believe the solution has arrived, it's just not evenly distributed. Apple pushed a "Spotlight" search bar into System Preferences a little while back, and Microsoft has similar search capabilities in its Control Panel. I think those are both cases where a "simpler" clickable interface just wouldn't help much -- my mouse is powerless when faced with such a sprawling tree of controls and functions. In both cases search also do the job of training me where things are so the next time I can find them faster.

The big upside for me is that I love using my keyboard, and this gives my keyboard way more to do outside of text entry and painful key commands. While giving computers voice commands has never caught on for a multitude of reasons, it makes sense that I could tell my computer what I want to do using natural language in text form -- it worked so well for Matthew Broderick in WarGames! I'm sure there are plenty of other things we could learn from the command line interface that could make sense when implemented in a natural language, intuitive sort of way. This also could solve some of the abundant clicking of windows management: instead of dragging and dropping continually, I just "tell" my computer which two tasks I want to focus on right now.

9. Independence from mobile phones

Problem: I'm sitting at an all-powerful laptop, and yet I have to fish a tiny little computer out of my pocket to answer this phone call

I don't think this is complicated at all, but for whatever reason it's 2010 and I'm still routing most of my calls over a highly unreliable network of cell towers. Sure, phones are great, I love having a cellphone and can't even conceive of my life without it, but when I spend 12 hours a day in front of a computer that could handle my phone's tasks so much more effectively, it's almost a little silly to be holding up this hot slab of phone to my face, wondering if I'm going to drop a call.

Solution: Nokia, T-Mobile, common sense

Nokia has already done a lot of this work with its wide assortment of software (that's it's recently started to consolidate under the Nokia Ovi Suite moniker), and we've seen T-Mobile passing cell calls to VoIP with HotSpot @Home for ages, but there's a significant lack of integration and comprehensiveness to these services. The mere fact of being able to view and respond to text messages on Nokia is something I'd like to be able to take for granted -- particularly when some of the biggest phone OS manufacturers (Apple, Microsoft, Google) are intimately acquainted with my desktop.

In a perfect world, if my iPhone is plugged into my computer and I've toggled the related preference, a new SMS message would pop up in my iChat (or that fancy new notification tray I've been dreaming about). I could respond from right on my computer, or if that person happens to be on IM I could even push the conversation over to AIM or Gtalk. More complicated from a back-end point of view, but just as theoretically simple for a consumer would be doing the same thing for voice calls. I should be alerted to who is calling me right from my computer screen, and choose to pick the call up in any number of ways: on the handset, through a Bluetooth headset, or bumped over to VoIP and routed through my broadband connection. If on-television alerts to phonecalls are something that the cable companies can figure out, I'd think it's the least Apple and Microsoft could do on their desktops, if only to save some shred of geek dignity.

Sure, most of these things can already be done in some way or another with the right know how or hackery, but I don't want to spend an afternoon figuring it out and finagling it into my OS; I want it to Just Work like this out of the box.

10. Lack of purpose and excitement

Problem: What has my desktop OS done for me lately?

Somewhere in the last decade, desktop OS builders decided that they'd attained some sort of "good enough" plane. After that point, they merely needed to tweak and add on, but true revamps became rarer and fresh ideas were always wary of trampling on a proven usage mechanism. They became safe and usable and stable (and I love them for it), but they also became boring.

It's not like I don't want the spit and polish of a truly completed OS, and I do greatly appreciate the efforts on the part of Ubuntu to support more hardware, Microsoft to slim down its kernel in Windows 7 and Apple to build Grand Central Dispatch for Snow Leopard. I'm also certain that after releases more along the lines of "maintenance" in Windows 7 and Snow Leopard, Apple and Microsoft are working on big things for their next versions. Still, there's none of the excitement, pace or innovation on the desktop akin to what we're seeing on phones right now, and it's not like there's a lack of new technology or market demand to hold back innovation.

Solution: Try harder

A desktop OS is exponentially more complex than a phone OS, but that doesn't mean I'm happy with waiting a few years for each major update. In fact, with the powerful chips, large size and multitude of input methods at a "real" computer's disposal, I think there's actually more room for new thinking about usability. Phones have been benefitting from their limitations by the mere fact that software designers have to trim the fat and develop to a very simple (often one-handed) UI paradigm. They have to try harder, just to make a phone that wants to be a computer truly usable. Since I can already accomplish almost anything on my laptop with a keyboard and mouse, and I have 8GB of RAM for swallowing up as much wasteful code as you want to throw at me, there's no desperate need for functionality forcing anyone's hand. I can't force their hand with my wallet either, because I'm still buying their products and getting things done with them, but hopefully someone deep with in Cupertino, Redmond or their mom's basement is hard at work on something to take my desktop experience into the next generation of UI.

Wrap-up

What actually got me started on all of this is an editorial by John Gruber talking about what he thinks "The Tablet" project might mean from Apple: basically, a new sort of consumer "computer," a second coming of the Macintosh that rethinks what a personal computer should be, not a mere web-surfing-in-bed slate to keep us occupied for 10 minutes every night. My hope would be that Apple doesn't do away with interfaces like the QWERTY keyboard that have served us so well for so many years, but does present an OS that allows people to utilize their computers in new and exciting ways using touch and other interface innovations, while still accomplishing familiar tasks like updating Facebook, sorting photos and editing movies.

If what we've seen of Microsoft's Courier is legit, it too presents an opportunity to use computers in a new way -- though a total rethink of the primary consumer OS obviously presents more danger and risk to Microsoft. It's in Apple's best interest to get everyone to buy a new machine with a new operating metaphor, while a world where people can get 95% of everything done without Windows (the other 5% involves editing Excel spreadsheets) makes Microsoft surprisingly less vital to the consumer.

Even if I'm pitching it as "evolutionary," this sort of pie-in-the sky, redefined world is likely years away: Windows 7 and Snow Leopard just showed up, and they aren't likely to resign their position of dominance in the lives of productive, communicative people in the near term. But for the sake of my throbbing carpal tunnel, frazzled brain and fragmented UI expertise, I do hope we get there this decade.

Update: Wonderful feedback so far! A few takeaways:

• You have to check out this 10/GUI concept, I think it addresses a lot of this stuff I'm talking about, particularly windows management and a more appropriate use of touch.
• Gnome 3.0, while not as extensive or world shattering, is also doing some new UI things along these lines (and doing them right now, in a real OS). Will be interesting to watch it develop!
• I'm an incredibly lazy person.

[Fdo35 Posted Jan 21st 2010 9:51PM]

I think that the menu bar thing at the top of the screen on Macs should've been on the list (the thing that says File Edit Share and thing like that.

Also, windows management in Windows 7 isn't bad at all (I'm not saying Mac windows management is bad, I've barely ever used them so I wouldn't know).

[MidwestTechGuy Posted Jan 21st 2010 10:06PM]

I'm not going to pick on this whole rag, but #2 stood out to me as way off. First off touch is part opsys and a big part hardware implementation. But the bigger point is how to do touch right. I in no way enjoy having to lean forward in my chair and reach up to a desktop monitor to touch it. It is inconvenient. I would like to keep my hands on the keyboard to be the most efficient. Even reaching over to a mouse is often a waste of time. Those who bother to master keyboard shortcuts and use a mouse as little as possible work way faster. If anything I like Apple's approach with there new mouse. Instead of touching a screen, I can touch the mouse. While there new mouse only does the swipe and flick motions for now, it could do pinch,rotate, and other motions and I'm sure it will soon.

If the keys of a keyboard could be made touch sensitive so you could do all your gestures by lightly sliding my finger on the keys without pressing the keys down, they all our prayers are answered. Until that day, I'll take a multi-touch mouse over a desk top touch screen anyday.

[onlymyrailgun Posted Jan 21st 2010 10:13PM]

Bring back the pop-up/tabbed windows from OS 9!!

[onlymyrailgun Posted Jan 21st 2010 10:21PM]

@onlymyrailgun
Actually, just release OS 9 for PCs so every Windows machine can get an upgrade. Ooooh I didn't just say that, did I?

[Teslanaut Posted Jan 21st 2010 10:18PM]

Does Windows have nothing to contribute? :(

[Omoks Posted Jan 21st 2010 10:35PM]

If this isn't the most irrelevant article on Engadget I don't know what is! It's pretty much a gripe of the authors lack of patience or usage knowledge. Most of the comparisons relate to Mobile OS's. There's a reason why they are that.

[THJ Posted Jan 22nd 2010 12:25PM]

@(Unverified) If this isn't the most irrelevant comments on Engadget I don't know what is! It's pretty much a gripe of the authors lack of patience or usage knowledge. Most of the comparisons relate to Mobile OS's. There's a reason why they are that.

Fixed.

[nikster Posted Jan 21st 2010 10:46PM]

Jesus!!!! I didn't know about Mailplane, that's exactly exactly what I have been looking for. I can't read further into the article, I need to try it right away. Thanks for that tip!!!

[THJ Posted Jan 22nd 2010 4:09PM]

@nikster Haha, I did the same thing, been using for a few hours now, it's pretty darn slick.

[SpacedOut Posted Jan 21st 2010 11:57PM]

Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 actually addresses these fairly well. For number one (in KDE and Gnome) you place your cursor on the taskbar and scroll up and down to select different windows, which will bring the windows into focus in order. Very useful.

I don't know about two, and three, I just have to laugh at. Ubuntu Software Center is visible from the start menu equivalent (where you download software), and the notification area is much better than the wretched one in Windows (in both interfaces).

Number six (and number eight while I'm at it) are unanswered in Linux. However, most games provide above average ability to scale their requirements, and a few give suggestions and tips. All very helpful. Number 8 works below average in KDE, and HORRIBLY in Gnome.
This is the spot that needs improvement the most in Ubuntu.

Number 7 is the most obviously answered. Number nine is possible with bluetooth pairing and a microphone attached, especially with Palm-based devices.

And, with number 10, the newest, beta Gnome setup looks amazing, unique, and there are new releases of Ubuntu every 6 months. Waiting about a week or two for the bug patches is an important tip, but other than that, Ubuntu is covered there, too.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2010 12:01AM]

yawn

[UnnDunn Posted Jan 22nd 2010 1:37AM]

Re #4: Windows Vista and Windows 7 have a thing called the "Windows Mobility Center", accessible on portable computers by hitting Windows+X. It provides a one-stop shop to manage power and presentation options for your portable computer.

Re #6: The Start Menu Search feature in Windows 7 is just all sorts of delicious. If you can name a Windows feature or installed app, you can search for it in the Start Menu.

[Karl Posted Jan 22nd 2010 7:58AM]

@UnnDunn

Yes the WindowsKey + Type + Enterkey will get you that far in Windows,

But Paul was talking about applications like Word, Photoshop, 3dsMax, Visual Basic, etc that have standard Help entries but don't really help you familiarise yourself with the layout of the software or where features are located.

and some form of visual breadcrumb or highlight so you can find the feature again, if need be, without the use of a search.

[Darkviscosity Posted Jan 22nd 2010 2:04AM]

Really excellent article. I was reading some of the other commenters and it seems they don't quite grasp what Paul is getting at. For one thing, it is true that you can find applications for Windows, Snow Leopard, etc, that do nearly everything he mentioned. However, the core of the problem is not that there aren't ways to get by, the problem is the fundamental and universally accepted concepts of desktop computer interaction and integration.

I believe Apple Inc. is on their way to redefining the computing experience, and in doing so will allow for an entirely new interaction model to invade the minds of manufacturers worldwide.

Hail the future, as it is nearly upon us!
Cheers

[mclark2145 Posted Jan 22nd 2010 3:09AM]

Most of this article's points to me smack of a lazy user mentality with which I really have no sympathy.

[crescentdavid Posted Jan 22nd 2010 3:21AM]

I'm actually shocked. I never would have expected so much experience to have so little a grasp of some really basic technologies in the contemporary UI. I can only assume, as the text and many readers have already pointed out, Paul spends way too much time on phones and way too little time on real computers.

You want to know the real usability bottleneck Paul? Lack of screen real estate. Get yourself a 24-30 inch monitor and then talk about UI's. Let me know how cut and paste between apps works on a 3" screen. Let me know how design works on a 3" screen. You want dumbed down because your paradigm is a smart phone screen.

Hardware standards for games. Tell me Paul, would you prosecute companies like the Wi, which destroyed the prevailing paradigm of "hardware standards?" Rather than knowing a game can support multiple display standards all the way to 2560x1600, Paul is much more comfortable with a screen which has a 480x320 display. Yeah, Paul ... quite a "solution." I'd go with prayer if I were you ... it has a greater chance of coming through than a minuscule screen with anemic graphics power.

[Cronjo Posted Jan 22nd 2010 3:51AM]

A lot of what you bring up is true, but I can not agree with a webOS being a viable solution in reality. It's fine for most things but they really don't cut it for Gamers. PC Games were a $538 Billion dollar market in 2009. webOS being linux based cannot support that unless you get major development studios on board, including Microsoft.

I'd love to see Linux really gain so market, but to do so would require removing much of it's individuality and customization. I'm not talking things like Compiz, or Beryl, I mean the sometimes subtle, other times not so subtle differences between Distros. Gnome, or KDE one would have to become standard, cross Distro compatibility standards would have to go into place meaning, no more Debian, RedHat or Fedora or what every your preferred flavor as a basis for a distro they would all need to have the same foundation or developers would simply not get on board and Linux wouldn't become mainstream.

There is hope, with ChromeOS coming and Google being the powerhouse it is, maybe there will be development in Linux by third parties and a Compatibility standard put into place by many of the better distributions to make their OS compatible with innovations designed for ChormeOS. Yes I know ChromeOS is largely Web Based Apps from what we know but I don't think it will ever catch on unless it's a) Has ability to run locally install applications or b) comes installed on incredibly Cheap NetBooks and I'm talking $100 - $150 range.

[cocopuffz Posted Jan 22nd 2010 4:04AM]

Hmm. I can't say I agree with anything in this article. I'm on Linux running compiz so windows management is a delight. As for all the other points I'd say that a PC is whatever you want it to be. It's a tool. If they are having challenges figuring out what to do with it... maybe they don't need one.

[Kazan22 Posted Jan 22nd 2010 4:06AM]

Windows has a nice little feature some people refer to as "God Mode"
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10423985-56.html?tag=digg2
It's a big help with settings

[Karl Posted Jan 22nd 2010 7:42AM]

@Kazan22

THAT

IS

BLOODY AWESOME! thanks for the heads up ;D

[berkus Posted Jan 22nd 2010 4:08AM]

For #9 – just use Skype!

[Larz Posted Jan 22nd 2010 5:17AM]

Interesting editorial at least.

I kind of wish the "solutions" weren't there because many I disagree with, proving that the solutions subjective.


Here's my thoughts:
1. completely agree that this has been a problem. Whenever I use Windows or MacOS I feel claustrophobic because I'm used to having 4 desktops on which I group related content. For example, text editing is always on desktop 1, code on desktop 2, email on all desktops, IM on all desktops and always on top, etc. (I'm usually using Linux btw).

2. don't know that I've seen a good solution yet. I'm certain that project natal is NOT the solution I want, having experimented a lot with mo cap / control.

3. smartphones have started to tackle this issue, but again I don't think I've seen it done well enough. I think it would be better if you visit a website, they detect what OS / device you're using and say "hey, why not try our app?" Or maybe the device itself can search the market for a related app when you visit a site.

4. Android does tackle this well, and regular OS's kind of have too by turning off the monitor automatically, or sleeping automatically, etc. But I also see this as a hardware issue. There should be more low-power PC options, such as XO.

5. As a programmer, I agree. Notifications on Android are super-easy. Not so much on anything else.

6. iPhone? Did you make a typo? Making one set of hardware and not incrementing it is hardly an option. One of the easiest solutions is free trials. Or even better, Android, how it lets you buy a game, and if you don't like it or it doesn't work, then you can get a refund within 24 hours.
I would like to see services like steam check your hardware and give you some kind of gauge on how games will run. As in will not run, will run sluggishly, will run fair, will be smooth, etc. But yeah, I kind of see your point a bit as game consoles basically are the solution right now.

7. agree with all of this

8. I hate this. It's a problem in Windows, and it's just plain offensive in MacOS. Guess I'm old-school, but I find myself being a lot more productive the less I have to grab the mouse. Ubuntu gives me easy access to re-define keyboard shortcuts as I see fit, and I use the hell out of it.

9. Solution: SIP ...or Skype. Especially when we start seeing more open net access promoted by city govt.

10. I'm always playing with new OS's, so I always feel excited about something. I definitely see your point with Windows. It hasn't changed much, and the changes it's gone through aren't necessarily one's that I want. Ubuntu certainly keeps me on my toes with major revisions every 6 months.

[MikeZ Posted Jan 22nd 2010 5:49AM]

So the author doesn't have a problem with being confined to a single desktop?
One of many shortcomings which will annoy you once you're worked with Linux on a regular basis.

[THJ Posted Jan 22nd 2010 12:22PM]

@MikeZ Not sure about multiple/virtual desktops in windows, but Spaces on Mac OS X allows you to configure up to 16 desktops.

Not as flashy as compiz, but a bit easier to set up, in my experience.

[grahamj Posted Jan 23rd 2010 11:12AM]

@MikeZ Why switch between more desktops when you can just buy more monitors?

[MikeZ Posted Jan 23rd 2010 11:43AM]

@grahamj Because a normal 3 monitor setup should be more than enough.

For professional use it's usually more efficient to structure your work into different desktops.
Simplified example in software development: 1) code & database 2) documentations, API manuals and the like 3) research 4) email & work-related IRC channels 5) material related to other projects 6) server maintenance consoles / log scrollers 7) Personal interest (e.g. company intranet)

[Karl Posted Jan 22nd 2010 7:32AM]

A great article that was inspiring to read.

It pretty much outlined most issues that bug me about modern tech.

i.e. there have been are huge leaps and bounds in speed and processing power, but each element i.e. phone, os, hardware, internet, internet apps, apps feel like disconnected separate objects from each other.


The 10GUI was an interesting video with some really nice thoughts about OS interaction,

on a light critical note: there must be more elegant methods of touch commands than (x number of finger)+swipe or pinch.


In response to the "Irrelevant article… lack of merits… etc"
This article contains thinking, dreaming and critical analysis of how we react with, and to, technology. It's intent (I think) is to plant seeds of progress and spark intelligent discussion with the readers of Engadget.

[rdhir Posted Jan 22nd 2010 8:12AM]

1) "Lazy User" is a bad phrase. I want efficient interaction with my computer. That means an interface that has a good learning curve, is logically consistent and will grow with the user. In general games provide good examples of how this works, and how much effort and imagination it needs. Very few games succeed but those that do are revolutionary eg Zelda, Super Mario (some but not all versions) and of course the Wii.

What is important is that the computer learns to automate the task presenting me with the key interactions in an easy to learn way, that neither gets in my way for a complex task nor leaves me stranded for a simple task.

This will always annoy the hard core off who think that pain and suffering should be enjoyed. What they miss is that the new interaction will stimulate new ideas.

Hardcore examples exist in science where sometimes people invent new languages (formal systems) which allow new ideas to be expressed easily which then lead to unexpected discoveriies. For example differential calculus allowed whole new classes of problems to be solved, and now we take it for granted.

2) You've missed one huge thing though, and so has 10 GUI although its certainly along the right lines.

Who needs apps? I think one could look at a web page and say here is a useful compound document. Now consider how painful it is to construct? The same goes for office.

When performing a real world task I need to create a document to communicate my thoughts and act as a vehicle for the task. Today that is still horribly painful. If I'm lucky I can create a word document and an excel spreadsheet, them embed them all or put them together in a PDF, really are we still stuck with this.

It also begs the question as to how many apps would I need open in this case, and help some of the interactions around a GUI.

The paradigm of the web is to some extent that I have created a compound document and the URLs effectively encode the class of application needed to display it. The browser sorts all this out for me.

3) The cloud and all that. What is still missing from Desktop OSs is some infrastructure, and its all to do with automatic scaling. Generally people choose their apps based in features around processing the data, rather than the infrastructure, and people in IT then grow their own.

In reality one shouldn't need to care. If Software As A Service (SAAS), is to truly work then I should no longer care about infrastructure. This should apply to consumers as well corporations.

I should be able to access my stuff on any computing device I choose phone, slate, netbook, laptop, desktop. It should be reliably backed up and versioned somwehere without further interaction. I should be able to go back to a version three years ago. It should be scured in a reasonable manner. If its locked its locked to casual users, sure a determined theif with enough resources can break in but this is true for my home too. Sure I'll have to pay for this, but really storage is cheap now. is there any reason this is not possible.

A great example today is that webOS devices automatically back up your stuff. So lose the phone who cares from a data point of view. Even better I think it can wipe the old one. How many readers have lost their address book on their lost or stolen phone? That's a big shift that phones have been crying out for ages and now it just works.

[easpc72 Posted Jan 22nd 2010 9:26AM]

The pc Gamming problem is a time bomb. I have been a gamer since wolfenstein 3d and doom games. The struggle between new hardware requirements and my wallet has taken a huge toll on my finances and I always found out that doesn't matter how much I will spend this year, there would be a game with a new engine that will make my machine crawl just to play the game in the basic settings.
You don't have that in a console, yes the controls are too slow, the enemies are not as clever, but you have the warranty that it will work as the designer intended. I just bought mine after years of delaying such decision but my wallet could not take buying another computer again.
The real solution is to establish a minimum for games and that every game producer agrees to make the game really enjoyable at such hardware requirements, also we need help from Microsoft. Windows should have a gamming mode, that only essential services and programs that will be used by the games would be working so those precious cpu cycles won’t be wasted by obscure services that only microsoft know why they are there.

[ror Posted Jan 22nd 2010 10:04AM]

there's a lot one could nitpick over, but all you have to look at is the pitiful selection of widgets available for Windows to see that desktops (and laptops) do need to borrow, and showcase, some features from smartphones

I think window management is fine (for mouse usage, touch requires new OS's imo) and the amount of "clicking" required has already been reduced; I'd like to see more intuitive/comprehensive notifications; better development/integration of web apps--similar to what's being done with netbooks (e.g. Jolicloud); and better power management--which isn't reliant on a 3rd party

[Nate Posted Jan 22nd 2010 10:07AM]

Great editorial. I agree 150%! I am an avid spotlight user on my mac and would love for spotlight to get some quicksilver functionality... and cards instead of windows... what a great thought!

[hulahoophugs Posted Jan 22nd 2010 10:13AM]

Great article! But I think I have a solution for the "click abundance."
It's kind of hidden, but in Leopard if you click on the Help menu bar Spotlight is right there to search menu items! It's fantastic! And as far as having something teach you where it is so you can find it faster, when you hover over the item you want (that it finds) it opens up the menu that it's in and shows a floating arrow that points at what you want, exactly where it is!
Maybe i'm not explaining myself totally clearly but the best way to see it is just do it for yourself. It is one of the greatest unsung additions to Leopard in my opinion.

Hope this helps!

[GenKhan2 Posted Jan 22nd 2010 10:41AM]

Strongly disagree on all counts. Whether you want a phone for a desktop or a desktop that works like a phone there is only one conclusion: You are "Bad and Wrong"© on both counts.

[grumbles Posted Jan 22nd 2010 11:19AM]

mac/iphone gaming? are you serious?

what the hell, engadget

[THJ Posted Jan 22nd 2010 12:18PM]

@grumbles Check out Touch arcade. iPod/iPhone gaming has a pretty substantial audience and quite a few heavyweight developers.

I agree on Mac gaming though. Besides Blizzard, nearly all the 'A list' releases are kludgy cider/transgaming ports, a year or two late, and are orders of magnitude less efficient than their Windows counterparts.

[grahamj Posted Jan 23rd 2010 11:19AM]

@grumbles There are tons of games for the iPhone and Macs also run Windows. What's the problem?

[THJ Posted Jan 22nd 2010 12:19PM]

@Kbalz And this is a consumer tech blog, not an enterprise tech blog.

[jecks Posted Jan 22nd 2010 12:22PM]

i'm not sure how the iphone counts as a gaming solution, merely because it offers a unified hardware. you can basically say the solution is a console in that case. but if that logic follows, then the mac would be pretty close as anything to a unified hardware system in the computer market, even though no one wants to develop for it.

my only guess (which you hinted at) is some sort of comphrehensive grading solution (maybe a la the windows vista grading) just for 3D gaming.

[THJ Posted Jan 22nd 2010 4:20PM]

@jecks Agreed, there should be more standards when it comes to games - give them a 'netbook' or integrated graphics mode, a laptop mode (for discrete gpu), a desktop mode, and an 'ultimate' mode or something like that.

Much easier to deal with than 12 sliders and 6 drop-down menus, not having any idea which sliders will kill the FPS if maxed and which ones will make little/no difference.

Another idea- a 'target fps' setting, where one selects the minimum FPS they want to have, and the game makes adjustments accordingly (or maybe even on-the-fly, if you enter an area in the game with lots of action).

[IncredibleMouse Posted Jan 22nd 2010 12:41PM]

Who cares if you like or dislike the wishing thinking of the author. Who cares if you think he's lazy or misguided. The point is, it's his opinons.

Whether I agree or not aside, the article was an excellent and well-written read! Kudos.

[airmikee Posted Jan 22nd 2010 2:01PM]

Can't remember keyboard commands? Don't know what games will run on your PC? Too lazy to answer the phone while you're using a computer?

The problem isn't the OS. It's PEBKAC.

[fraank Posted Jan 22nd 2010 3:18PM]

This is the dumbest article I've ever read on computing. "I like my phone, make my PC more like my phone"
Contrast this article with someone who know what they're talking about:

http://bit.ly/8o38C2

[izikavazo Posted Jan 22nd 2010 3:54PM]

I don't see how the iPhone is the solution to number 6. Consoles are the solution. The iPhone is half a solution (and half a problem too). It doesn't solve the problem becaue we all know the hardware will change this year. That negates all the hard work developers put into 3Gs. They'll have to change their games again for the fourth iPhone and then they'll have to keep making games for the other versions. It's a total mess.
That's why I hate it when people talk about the iPhone or the iPod Touch as if they're consoles. Just because they're very popular doesn't make them a standard.

[Fri13 Posted Jan 22nd 2010 4:06PM]

This article mentioned many times the operating systems, how they are not well designed and are outdated on these days.

But the article does not make any point because it is not about operating systems what are outdated, but user interfaces, application programs and web services and none of those are part of the operating system itself.

We are haunting wrong tree here now.

The operating system is lowest layere on the software system top of the hardware and under all other software on the stack. Usually the operating system is the monolithic kernel, or then the microkernel + modules.
So please, if we want to talk about operating systems, then lets talk about operating systems but we should never blame them from things what is not part of them.

And the article was very much about user interface on touchscreens.

When using Exposé on Mac OS X or Presenter on KDE SC 4.4, you only notice that not even Gnome 3.0 will come near that feature. Mac OS X Spaces was great thing what was added, even it was copied from Unix desktops what have had that functionality now over decade. The KDE SC 4.4 "Desktop Grid" has better functionality than Mac OS X Spaces has. And KDE SC 4.4 has the same function as Windows 7 side/top tagging. But sad thing is, the Windows 7 feature was ripoff from KDE SC 3.x features.

I can very well ran single application by time when needed. Thats why I have virtualdesktops and great KWin windowmanager. I can just let it to take care about managing windows and I can only focus to tasks. That is something what Windows is always missing, it is so file oriented desktop, while KDE SC is more task oriented while Mac OS X is almost totally task oriented desktop.

And speaking about Canonical, it does not work with upstream. It does not develop the Linux operating system, basic system software, desktop environments and application programs. It just use the software what the community developes and brands it under their own Ubuntu brand and the Ubuntu community builds up a pure hype how "canonical did it". When wathing the amoung of patches what Canonical sends to upstreams, it is sad to see that it is usually under 0.5% what even avarage distribution sends.

[THJ Posted Jan 22nd 2010 4:12PM]

@Kbalz Speaking as an IT tech: Not if I can help it :)

[addicuss Posted Jan 22nd 2010 4:37PM]

Good article but I do have to disagree with some of it.

First it seems like the authors solution to most of the problems is throw some sort of multitouch on it. I think multitouch might help some of these problems..but I fail to see how it would help with others. Nevermind the fact that if we truly had to use multitouch for a lot of desktop computing situations, it would be slower than a mouse and keyboard and (please don't flame me for this) tiring. Honestly Think about an 8 hour work day where you lift your arms moving windows around and tapping them and highlighting text. Something that works great in one format oesn't necessarily make it good, or even feasible on all formats.

Windows management for example. A card swipe system on a phone is great. On a desktop it would be kind of ridiculous. Moving your hands to the screen and bringing up a card system and swiping through 13 apps you have open to find the one you need and then selecting that app is in no way faster than alt tabbing through a bunch of open programs. I do think being able to use both hands to move windows around on a screen would be somewhat easier.. but then you run into two problems. First off, exactly how often do you spend moving windows around a screen? Second, how much faster is multitouching windows into place than just using your mouse? How much productivity do you really gain with that solution? using a segway from here to the bathroom down the hall might theoretically be faster.. but is it really worth the negligible amount of time you save?


The whole webapps part bugged me.The solutions section you credit microsoft and apple for things neither really do, or did well after others. If anything Google is spearheading the "webapps as desktop app equivalents" front. If not with their many webapps (offline gmail, docs, reader etc, than definitely with their entire os dedicated to the philosophy of cloud computing. I'm just surprised they only got a brief mention in android. But I guess this was an article about phone features that could change desktop computing so I suppose that might be why.

[riskable Posted Jan 22nd 2010 5:02PM]

I just want to point out that 5 of your 10 "solutions" are just iterations of "Linux".

WebOS == Linux
Android == Linux
Linux == Linux

...and I'd argue that your lack of experience with Linux desktop environments is why you have item #10 at all.

-Riskable
"Those who choose proprietary software will pay for their decision."

[grahamj Posted Jan 23rd 2010 11:17AM]

@Kbalz I use a MacBook for work therefore your assertion is false.

[Skeldanqua Posted Jan 24th 2010 11:55PM]

For the windows management system, i would propose a 'duck-hunt'-like system where a bunch of files automatically 'parade' across the screen and the user has to select the file he/she seeks as it passes.

[razorstitch Posted Feb 12th 2010 3:44AM]

Did you want to showcase how much Ubuntu progressed lately?

Ad. 1. Please check out gnome-shell! http://mairin.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/gnome-shell-usability-test-plan/
Ad. 4. Symbian had it long ago...
Ad. 5. Notification pop-ups and tray are separate and integrated in Ubuntu. By design.
I agree, would be nice to have a split of permanent and non-permanent notifications, but I'd rather see tray (for hardware management, say) separate from permanent notifications after all?

Ad. 9. Yeah, would be nice if a sim-card in your laptop would seamlessly integrate/replace that of your mobile phone, while the laptop is on.

Ad. 10. Upgrade to Karmic Koala, and you'll see that power of desktop is not in doing things for you, but avoiding to get in the way of your work. Look out! We want to work on our computers, too complex desktop would be a distraction, wouldn't it?