Surface Pro 3 Discussion Thread

I use it all the time, but this is on a touch tablet. Main uses are to adjust brightness and volume/mute, it's very nice to do that quickly. Secondarily I like the quick access to settings, not only windows settings but individual app settings as well. It also gives you a nice quick glance at the time, wifi strength, battery life, etc and doesn't kick you out of apps or whatever you were doing. I agree on a desktop it's pretty useless, but then the consumer simply doesn't have to use it.

 

I'm not defending the charms bar at all, I just don't understand what's so incredibly difficult and why that would cause a consumer to regret his purchase of Windows 8. I'm not attacking you personally, but it does irk me that there is this conceived notion in the press about the difficulty of the charms bar when it's exactly like the pull up/down bars of iOS, or how about iOS search page? All 3 of these have NO indicators, NONE.

Once again I apologize if you took my wording personally, I didn't mean it to be insulting. I'm just having a very tough time fathoming what the issue is with the charms bar.

Edit: On this video at 6:20 you see that in the windows installation it specifically shows how to use the charms bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzI8xh5XXnw What more should we expect Microsoft to do? Put a huge red arrow there? Blare a siren sound every 30 seconds? Pop up a screen every couple of minutes with a big green arrow pointing to the charms corner?

 

Oh, that's something else then. I would never be able to understand someone not using win 8 just because of that. That would be silly. Cutting off your nose to spite your face kind of thing. I just personally think there should be some we kind of guidance. I say this as someone who cannot for the life of him use iOS even simply because I only have one button. I understand making things streamline and minimalist but at times that can go too far. As you say, in essence, its nothing different to android pull down tabs, or apple, but from a windows viewpoint, these things are alien, and as such I just wasn't expecting there to be anything on each side of the screen. But it can certainly be argued that this is because I'm only experienced on a desktop, and have never tried a touch screen windows 8 device. If I was using metro as a touch interface without a mouse and keyboard, you would indeed expect something somewhere. But is that not part of Microsoft's issue at present, trying to integrate a desktop and mobile experience into one, and its been shown not to work. (Can't stand the alt tab text entry issues that occur when swapping between a metro app and a desktop app)

I forgive you sorry for getting emotional, its been a stressful week like I've never known.

 

To be fair, I honestly think that it's been removed from the Windows 8.1 "first time start up" tutorial/process. Or if it isn't, even I dont' remember going through that tutorial. (I've re-installed Win 8.1 a few times now, so I'm a bit numb to the tutorial screens).

Then again, I use the Charms menu all the time, just like you, for volume, brightness, quick switching to a different network (multiple wireless networks around here for different uses).

But I agree, people shouldn't be ribbing on Windows because they innocently/ignorantly/arrogantly don't know about certain features that's contained within. I'm not saying that one of you are these kinds of people, but they exist and it's simply not fair. Learn the technology, learn the platform. Then make an informed decision. Alas, that's just not how it works with technology, especially when it comes to people talking about the Big Bad RedGreenBlueYellow products.

 

Have you used this version?



But back to topic... Charms bar is also good to see the time (if you are too lazy to look at your watch, or a clock) when using apps.

And kind of to SpineDoc's point, it like if Apple does it, it brilliant. If MS does it, it's too complicated.

 

I've been called a heathen for saying that I like the touchscreen left/right swipe gestures in Windows 8/8.1.

vOv what can you do about it? It's the internet.

But I wholeheartedly agree that Microsoft really, really dropped the ball with regards to educating the users to the new features of Win 8. It's a stark difference from Windows 7 that it should have come with a small cheat sheet print out and a slap-you-in-the-face-obvious video saved to your desktop. While one could say that Windows Vista was a huge change over Windows XP, the difference between 8/8.1 and 7 is also greatly visual. There are fewer visual and interface changes between XP > Vista and Vista > 7 than there is from 7 > 8.

The other problem is that Microsoft's own products (Surface Pro and Surface product lines) don't help or educate users any more than products from Lenovo or Dell do. Matter of fact, OEM vendors are doing a better job of educating their users to gestures and charms than Microsoft is, IMO.

 

I'm really not sure what Microsoft is doing with their Tablet direction. Customizable touch buttons for the screen seems like the most obvious thing to add. Yet you have to go use autohotkey and other third party tools to get this basic functionality. It's like they are all "If you need more than a windows key button, you should plug in a keyboard". I.e. you can either play with apps, or in laptop mode like a real computer. No hybrid options at all.

Meanwhile we have that charm bar on the side, that is kind of like fixed extra buttons that are hidden. Why can't we choose our own buttons on that one? Either to programs or to actual key commands.

I'm really worried they'll screw up windows 9 with making it just two bad modes. One for only apps, and the other only for keyboards, and I'll never get my futuristic hybrid windows.

 

You hit the nail on the head I bet. It's a shame because if that happens they take away by far their BEST advantage of owning a windows tablet.

 

Yep I am trying to stay optimistic but I have a funny feeling some of the things which were good improvements for tablet usage are going to disappear. I like the charms bar as a nice touch friendly way to increase decrease volume, SB, projecting screen, connect to wifi etc. I think it could have been expanded for accessing system wide items. How are we going to do those things (in a touch friendly way) on our SP's if the charms bar becomes an in-modern-apps feature..

For me my usage of it in apps in pretty well limited to checking or setting their options and once that's done you don't need it. Bit like apps on the desktop (windowed apps), I can find zero use for such a feature on a surface device and I question if desktop users are really going to use such a feature too.

All rumours at the moment until the preview next month I guess.

 

Not to mention that hard split will probably be windows RT tablet and Windows Pro desktop, so you'll only get RT tablets in the future that can't run your programs. But that is usually how things go when you listen to bad advice from the masses instead of going with the superior products and education of people on how this is great stuff.