The History of Operating Systems, Charted

Horace Dediu of Asymco has tried to quantify and chart how fast Windows is evolving compared to other operating systems. I could write hundreds of words quibbling with his methodology–for one thing, Windows 3.1 wasn’t the first stand-alone version of Windows and, in fact, required that you buy and install a separate copy of DOS–but his thoughts are interesting and his commenters have lots of smart things to say.

The contrast is then striking: Consumerized devices with over-the-air updates on a 12 month cycle are five times more agile than a traditional corporate Windows desktop. Another way to look at this is that for every change in a corporate desktop environment, the average user will change their device experience five times. Although Microsoft might find comfort in Enterprises’ leisurely pace of change[2], those are the wrong customers to keep happy going forward.

Dediu says he’s glad that Windows 8 is named Windows 8. It’s worth reminding ourselves that it’s only a code name at this point–and that “Windows 8″ is the first version of Windows in Windows history that might plausibly be called something other than Windows, since the Metro interface lacks windows as we knew them. (That said, I hope that Microsoft does indeed call it Windows 8.)

Is the Touch-Enabled PC a Keeper or a Fad?

Over at my new Challengers blog on Cnet, I wrote about Windows 8′s “touch-first” interface–and whether it’ll lead to touch becoming a standard feature on new PCs. (I think the odds are good…or at least higher than they were for the Tablet PC…but it’s not going to happen instantly the moment Windows 8 ships.)

Sony Outlaws Class Action Lawsuits by PSN Users; Thank the Supreme Court

Playstation Network users may no longer file class action lawsuits against Sony, under a new user agreement that players must agree to before signing into the network. Now, PS3 and PSP owners will have to sue individually or seek arbitration for issues like security breaches or the removal of advertised features.

And guess what? The policy change is probably legal thanks to the Supreme Court.

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PlayBooks for Cheap

RIM’s PlayBook isn’t selling well–which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s used one. So the price is coming down. Unfortunately, that doesn’t solve anything: the problem with the PlayBook is that it’s broken, not that it’s too expensive.

RIM says it’s going to fix the most glaring issue–the lack of built-in e-mail–and with any luck, it’ll have more to say at its developer conference next month, which I’ll be attending. I hope it doesn’t do an HP and kill the product. For everything that’s so very wrong about the PlayBook, its problems are ones of execution–and I still think that it’s possible to build a great mobile platform using the PlayBook’s QNX operating system.

The Name’s the Same

Too many services from too many big Web sites have the same monikers.

Apple “iPad 3″ Prototype May Be Circulating, But Don’t Look For It This Year

It sounds like prototypes (yes, plural) of Apple’s iPad 3 may be floating around the “supply chain” already, but don’t look for the next-gen tablet this year, because…why, right? If you were sitting on 68.3% of the tablet market (according to the latest 2Q 2011 IDC report) and your nearest competitor (that would be Google’s Android) fell from 34% to 26.8% market share during the same period, where’s the fire?

That’s J.P. morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz’s reasoning, anyway. He’s just told Apple Insider that—not really a surprise here—his “conversations with industry insiders” indicate Apple’s third-generation iPad won’t arrive until sometime, 2012.

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Windows 8 Continues the Cheery Error Message Tradition, Unfortunately

(Image borrowed from Geek.com)

Software developers have a strange attitude towards notifying their customers of product error. They rarely just explain what happened, and apologize. Well, sometimes they do try, but with an explanation so technical that it’s pointless for us normal human beings. (That may or may not be better than providing an error code rather than actual information on what went wrong.)

There’s also a long-standing tradition of error messages being accompanied by humorous visuals, dating back at least to the Mac’s Bomb and Sad Mac icons, and probably much further than that. And now Geek.com is reporting that Windows 8 has a new sort of Blue Screen of Death that sports an oversized frowny face emoticon. (The developer preview of Windows 8 is buggy, but I haven’t run into any catastrophic errors that trigger this screen myself.)

I don’t get it. Are there any other industries that see failure as an occasion for merriment? I love Chrome, but its suffering browser tab and messages such as “Aw, Snap!” always leave me slightly more irritated than if I’d just gotten a straightforward alert that something had gone awry.

Of course, Windows 8 is merely a developer preview, so its error messages are presumably subject to further tweaking. How about dumping the frowny, Microsoft?

(Side note: The one cheery error message I like is Twitter’s Failwhale, in part because it was designed by my friend Yiying Lu. In fact, I’m almost sorry I rarely see it these days…)

Did Case-Mate Just Reveal The iPhone 5 Design?

What’s a day without an iPhone 5 rumor? What your looking at here is one of the images of apparent iPhone 5 cases that was posted to accessory maker Case-Mate’s site briefly on Thursday before being pulled.

The company says its “inside resources” claim Apple would indeed be launching two phones in early October, the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5. I don’t know why Case-Mate is jumping into the rumors game, as that’s our job, but I do digress…

BGR reports though that the page we’ve linked to here is different from a page they saw, which included a gallery of case images that has since disappeared. Either way, the now ever-more rumored tapered design akin to the iPad 2 seems to what Case-Mate is basing their case designs on, and it does appear noticeably wider.

Now this just could be Case-Mate reacting to the increasingly more frequent rumors of a wider and thinner iPhone 5, or they actually could have inside information. Personally, I’m hoping that either way, they’re right.

I’m no fan of the iPhone 4 design, and I remember in the days after that infamous Gizmodo leak saying “I hope this isn’t it.” But alas it was, despite my (and some others’) belief that this was way too utilitarian in design to come out of Apple. Thus, I’m happy to see Apple return to a sleeker design with the iPhone 5.

Either way Apple, could you hurry up? This iPhone 3GS is getting long in the tooth, and I’m getting impatient. If I have to wait any longer I may have to go to the dark side (Android, that is)! Perish the thought.

Please, PC Makers, Don’t Ruin Windows 8

Who says you can’t teach an old operating system new tricks? For years, Windows was the world’s most annoying piece of software. It would blithely interrupt your work to tell you that there were unused icons on your desktop. Its search feature–even in the Professional version–inexplicably involved a puppy dog. It made paying customers jump through hoops to prove they hadn’t pirated the software, and sometimes accused them of stealing it anyhow. It rebooted itself to install updates when it felt like it, regardless of what you might be doing at the moment. I get irritated just thinking about it.

With Windows 7, Microsoft took a major step in the right direction: The best thing about the upgrade was that it stayed out of your face. And now Windows 8 promises to go even further, with a new interface, Metro, that’s remarkably tasteful and pleasant. If Microsoft delivers on Win 8′s potential when it ships it next year, you might forget you’re using Windows at all.

But I’m already nervous that PC markers will sabotage Microsoft’s good work by layering on junkware that makes the operating system slower, less reliable, and more aggravating.

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U.S. Moviegoers Lose Interest in 3D

I don’t mean to suggest that I know more about the movie business than Jeffrey Katzenberg. But I’m relieved to see that the gut instinct I had all along seems to be fact: 3D movies were, are, and always will be a fad.

I wonder how long it’ll take until Hollywood and consumer-electronics companies conclude that the magic of 3D isn’t that magical at home, either?

The Beginning of the End of The Plug-in

When the modern World Wide Web first came to be in the mid 1990s, there was no such thing as a plug-in. The Web was a basic place, and function was more important than flashiness.

Times changed and so did developers’ preferences.

Soon, sites wanted to enhance the web experience beyond what HTML alone could provide, and Java, Flash, and other technologies were brought to the Web. Overall it worked as intended and made the Web more lively, but there were issues.

First off, plug-ins led to a more uneven browsing experience than issues surrounding how different browsers render pages ever did. If you didn’t have the plug-in or couldn’t install it, pages did not appear as intended. Look at devices that don’t support Flash (iOS, I’m talking about you): their users are locked out of a significant portion of the Web.

Moreover, these plug ins opened up our computers to additional security issues. Most security issues on the Web come as a result of the attacker making his or her way into your computer through an exploit found in a plug-in. Think about it: a significant number of major security flaws have been found here.

It shouldn’t be a surprise then that Microsoft is following Apple’s lead in moving away from Flash, and plug-ins generally. IE10 for Windows 8 will come in two flavors — one for Microsoft’s new Metro interface, and another for the desktop. Metro won’t support plug-ins and will instead support HTML5 as well as possible, says Windows chief Steven Sinofsky.

“Running Metro style IE plug-in free improves battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers,” he argues. “Providing compatibility with legacy plug-in technologies would detract from, rather than improve, the consumer experience of browsing in the Metro style UI.”

I have to applaud Microsoft here. Plug-ins, in this day and age, are outdated and unnecessary. Some have criticized Apple’s stance on this, but lets face it: modern Web technologies can provide nearly the same experience.

To me, the most attractive part of this switch is the additional security benefits. I’m hoping that this change spurs developers to wean themselves off of these unnecessary technologies, making the Web safer for all of us. Bad news for Adobe? Maybe, but hey even they are preparing for a life without Flash.

Phone Case That Doubles as a Wallet Could Have Unintended Benefit

[A note from Harry: We're delighted to welcome CBS News's Larry Magid as a Technologizer contributor--we'll be borrowing occasional posts from his Larry's World site.]

When a PR guy pitched me on the Callet, a $19.99 smartphone case that can also store your driver’s license and credit cards, my first reaction was to pass on it. It struck me as a solution in search of a problem.  I actually prefer having my wallet separate from my phone so if I’m missing my phone, at least I might have a chance of finding my wallet.

But that got me thinking about an actual benefit to the product.  If my wallet and phone were one in the same, I could find my wallet by calling it from another phone.  Of course, I’d still have to remember to charge the phone so I could hear it ring or buzz, but at least there’d be a chance of finding it.

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MOG Goes Free to Fight Spotify, but With a Twist

If Spotify proved one thing with its U.S. launch, it’s that people will go nuts for free music. So now MOG, one of my favorite paid streaming music services, is getting a free version of its own.

Like Spotify, MOG lets you listen to any song or album you want from a library of about 11 million tracks. But unlike Spotify, MOG’s free service isn’t strictly time-limited. (Spotify users get six months of unrestricted listening, followed by 10 hours per month and five plays per track.) Instead, MOG uses a game-like system that rewards certain actions with more free listening. Refer some friends, get some free time. Recommend a playlist, get more free time. Click on an ad, get more free time.

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The 24-Hour Notebook

I still can’t figure out why Microsoft and Intel are holding their annual developer confences at the same time in different parts of California. I chose to attend Microsoft’s BUILD. But interesting stuff is being shown at Intel’s IDF, too–including an upcoming processor that will supposedly be capable of powering a laptop for 24 hours on a charge, not to mention being able to run off solar power.

Needed: A Great Office for Windows 8

My friend Jeremy Toeman says that it’s imperative that Microsoft come up with a great version of Office that uses Windows 8′s new Metro interface. He’s right, of course–without one, there’s little reason for any business to consider an upgrade, and a really good one could be a major selling point. And I’ll eat a Windows 8 tablet if Microsoft doesn’t have a pretty ambitious one ready by the time Windows 8 PCs go on sale.

I will quibble with one point in Jeremy’s post: He says that early demos of Windows Vista were “awesome.” I remember spending what seemed like eons running early versions of Vista and being briefed by Microsoft on them, and being consistently underwhelmed. I expressed some guardedVista skepticism well before the OS shipped, but to this day I wish I’d been even more skeptical even earlier. Then I could say “I told you so…”

Windows 8: The Verdict Isn’t In!

My lousy photo of two of the devices I'm carrying around at the moment.

On Monday, the day before Microsoft formally unveiled Windows 8 at its BUILD conference here in Anaheim, it held a event for the press. Tech journalists from around the world (including me) got a preview of the news that would break a day later, and we went back to our hotel rooms with loaner Samsung tablets loaded with the developer preview of Windows 8. We agreed to a Microsoft embargo that said we could publish our stories at 9:05am on Tuesday, once the BUILD keynote was underway.

On Monday night, I frantically put the Samsung through its paces and hurriedly began to write, knowing that my first-impressions piece would be one of dozens that would hit the next morning.

And then I thought to myself: What’s the rush?

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