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0 pointscom2kid4y ago0 comments

> "Flat design" is a disaster

The original flat designs, Zune HD and the Zune software, Windows Phone 7, Windows Media Center, was incredibly usable.

All those were produced by small design teams at Microsoft, and for, relative to an entire OS, small projects. (Settings aside Windows Phone 7 for a bit, which IMHO actually had very few distinct UI elements.)

Heck Windows Phone 7, to this day, is unlike anything else on the market, It is still going to be more responsive, and look cleaner, than almost anything else out there.

I am not sure why someone decided "flat" means "no button border", that is where I think it all went wrong.

Oh and also people who think flat means getting rid of text! Windows Phone 7 loved text, text was everywhere!

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shp0ngle4y ago

I always feel bad for Zune, because it honestly was not that bad to become a joke; on the other hand, it was crazy late - it debuted the same year as iPhone did!

iPhone (and iPod touch) had an actual WiFi and later apps, while Zune had... WiFi, where you could only connect two Zunes.

srvmshr4y ago

Windows Metro UI was not well received on the PC platform. But it was genuinely a leap forward in mobile space. It was very futuristic and ahead of its time.

com2kidOP4y ago

The Metro UI that debuted in Windows 8 was an abomination, it violated many of the design principles of the original Metro.

It was born out of Microsoft's fears that Tablets were going to take over everything, but at the same time Microsoft didn't want to invest 100% in a pure tablet experience, viewing the escape hatch to traditional Windows land as being a necessity. Win32 apps were going to be the advantage Windows tablets had over iPad!

So anyway that OS release was terrible.

To this day, Apple being the only company that was willing to go all in on tablets, is the only company with a successful tablet product and tablet software ecosystem.

pjmlp4y ago

No need for tablets when one can use a foldable laptop or 2-1 hybrids, which are quite successful in Europe, including the Surface models.

Now the Android tablets, that is another story altogether.

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