Well, incompatible as they may be, I find that most of the apps I like and need exist on Windows Store as ARM and x86 compatible. I don't have a RT machine to try them, but assume that someone has already bothered to compile apps for both architectures, otherwise they wouldn't show on the Store as compatible.

It's a risky generalisation, but I think that right now what's missing from Windows Store is the kind of social networking apps that are IPO-oriented and exist by the dozens for iOS and Android. They are great for showing how popular and hot an app ecosystem is, but in general I don't see what they'll turn into once an investor demands that some sort of money will have to come out of the user base.

Hi, I'm not the OP, I'm one of the other 4 people outside of MS who likes Metro.
I find it much more elegant than what I used before, which was a start menu with too many icons, leading me to have a dozen usual shortcuts on the desktop itself. That "desktop" way of using the computer also lead me to keeping a bunch of current documents on the desktop folder, which required regularly cleaning up. Soon enough I fall behind on those tidying up chores and start dropping everything in a folder just to hide the mess when I present at customers.

With Windows 8 Metro, I just store everything in the right library folders and it gets indexed for quick finding and retrieving. The Start screen shows me useful stuff before I start any application. The UI guidelines for Metro are suitable for simplified apps, which are a welcome improvement over having everything and the kitchen sink on the main screen, plus an Advanced Settings tab. Programmers can dislike web designers as much as they like, but the fact is that "Apps", Apple style, did offer improvement over what is still common in the "PC" world.

In parallel, I find it that the Windows Store is a good replacement for relying on Google search results to decide what to install on my PC when I need something new. Do a search for [some application name] APK and see the same old crap happening with Android apps. On balance, I think app stores are a good thing.

I got Windows 8.0 soon after it was released, as a cheap upgrade to Windows 7. I think it compares well to what Apple did with OS X and iLife a few years ago. It works fine and the account sync across devices is a really nice to have. So much, that Firefox had it before for a much smaller scope of use.

Recently, I asked my company to upgrade W7 to W8 on my work laptop (Mods: "+ 1, Funny"). Since there are work-related restrictions in relation to the use of MS accounts, I find tha I'm using only part of what W8 offers. Unsurprisingly, I have to fight MS apps on occasion and it is kind of accomodating in relation to signing on to separate applications with or without the Windows account. On my home PC, I leave more settings with their defaults on and overall it's more comfortable to use.

The key thing is that Windows is no longer just an OS that sits in your PC. It is an OS + applications + a bunch of online services so that it competes with the equivalent from Apple and Google. I understand that /.rs would like stuff to be like in the old days, but that's not what the market says: PC sales are dropping and tablets/smartphones are selling more in its place. Folks at Microsoft would be stupid to drop Windows Metro + online services just to please the "desktop" users. I think that it won't take long until we accept that the "PC market" is not separate from the smartdevice market, leading to about 25% of PCs sold being OS X/iOS; 25% with Android/Chrome and Wintel devices will have something like 40%, with a tendency to go down.

1) no problem, I'll set up a reminder for December 2014 and check if my prediction is right.
2) and 3) I have the impression that everything that is pointed out as being bad about Windows 8 and RT is what people like about iOS and Android (it boils down to simplicity and low price tags on apps and subscriptions). Hence my prediction that if (or when) Apple makes an "iPad Pro" to go along the Air; it will run iOS; it will be built for touch first; it will have an app store as the only way to add software and it will be "DRM-compliant" in a variety of ways. Today, you can get the Surface RT with that kind of features but people dislike it because it's not sufficiently alike the PC they already have.

As of January 3rd they do not, but I predict that throughout 2014 they will.

here goes:

1) /.rs will moan about Windows 8 Start Screen even with the majority of sold laptops carrying a touch screen
2) /.rs will dismiss Windows RT as being worse than all Windows and mobile OSs put together
3) Apple releases a 12" iPad (iOS, not OS X), buyers will get keyboards for it and everyone will say it is the best PC ever.

I believe that this needs to be supported by the people in general, rather than Snowden single-handedly having to provide that incentive. I think Snowden needs to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize or something similar.

exactly. Another reasons is because parents and teachers have made twitter and facebook too mainstream for teenage taste.

Apart from the exit strategy lottery thing, there is the issue of ongoing costs.
Since the app is free, the users don't pay per use or as subscription and there's no sponsor... who's paying for Snapchat to exist? At some point the investors will want their money back. As it is today, I don't even see how they cover running costs.

I agree, at least in part. I don't know about Vista being generally unstable, but I remember it felt slow. I remember that when XP was released, it was common for PCs to have 256MB or less of RAM. When people stopped moaning about how bloated XP was, it was because they already had replaced their PCs of 2000/01 with something that had 1 or 2GB or RAM, as well as CPUs and graphics cards that were much better. SATA interfaces for their HDD also pushed the performance up considerably. With XP "surviving" 1 or 2 hardware upgrades, it's only natural that it felt super-fast.
With whatever optimisation and bug fixing they did at MS, W7 was indeed faster than Vista. However, the perceived performance gains were certainly affected by having more RAM, which had become significantly cheaper. I'd be surprised to hear about people buying computers in 2009 that had W7 running on 1GB (or less).

Aero was eye candy and a very much needed update at a time when Windows UI was looking tremendously dated compared to OS X and a variety of Linux distros. If they had not made Aero, they would have had to make something else to replace the UI of the 90's.

This is such bullshit! In the alternative universe where Windows 7 was ready on the day Vista came out, software drivers for W7 would have been as unavailable as they were for Vista. All sorts of software that required users to have full admin permissions would have been broken by W7 UAC as it was by Vista's UAC. All PCs sold with 512MB or 1GB RAM would have still be slow compared to XP.

Only 1 or 2 years down the line when OEMs had caught up and released proper drivers, when PCs were being sold with 2GB+ RAM and when people learned to separate normal from admin users did Windows Vista/7/8 become less of a nuisance. It had very little to do with Windows 7 being so awesome.

OK, so I could buy a Roku device and hope that the functionality they added remains active;
or I can buy an Android-based media box and just get media apps from the different TV channels/netflix/whatever.

I still may get shafted but the general rule is that if it runs on Android, it should run on my box, right? For everything else on the LAN, XBMC runs on Android.

Other than avoiding dodgy power supplies from nameless manufacturers, I don't see why I should get a Roku instead of a nameless Android media box.

My mouses (sic) tend to last a couple of years. Main reasons are that I buy them on the cheap rather than the proper choice of Logitech/MS product. I'd go for more expensive stuff but then I see the wife clicking with increasing violence and with her indicator finger reaching considerable height before slamming on the buttons when things don't quite work as she expects. Can't wait to get a laptop with a touchscreen to see her punch that Start screen.

My first mouse cost me EUR35, had a huge rubber ball and worked better to move the cursor to the right and down than in other directions.

I had a A4Tech mouse that was wireless but had a very weak sensor at the end of a long USB cable. That setup was clunky as hell under the desk. It worked fine with line of sight, not so great otherwise.

I once had a mouse branded Trust which outlasted the keyboard that was part of the set. I bought another set hoping I could mix and match. mix and fail was more like it.

I used a Microsoft optical mouse with a Mac and I think this was the one that lasted the longer, despite being used by everyone back at home, including 4 year old kids.

I currently have a Logitech mouse and keyboard combo and the mouse scroll wheel is becoming too old to register middle-clicks.

With my work laptop (HP Elitebook) I sometimes use a HP bluetooth mouse which loses signal every now and then. The same mouse worked fine with a Dell laptop but seems to dislike being paired with a HP machine.

I see them on sale in the UK and they are sold as smartphones in general, rather than cheap but respectable. I think sometimes people don't notice that this is a market that is growing a lot, has a lot of potential for more people to buy devices and apps and the market can still change radically from one year to the next.
Just because Nokia and Microsoft were late to launch something that compares well to iPhones does not mean that as of 2013 it's all hopeless for them. There's plenty of people in the whole world who are in the market their 1st or 2nd smartphone and/or are not deeply committed to iOS or Android.

Now if Apple decided to go loco and sell a truly low end device, similar to what they did with the 5c but for £200 unlocked, then it would turn the market upside down... again.

On the upside they will all become really good at playing tennis!