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Comment by wbkang | Hacker News Reader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kownnnxs7eI There has been a pen input method since Vista at least.

Yes, this review was obviously written with very little research. On the one hand this, pen input works very nice since XP tablet edition. Even in windows phone 6, pen input was very advanced. On the other hand, the reviewer asks about how apps are closed. You can either swipe from top and drop it down, or on the left swipe you get open apps and can right-click/tap continuously to get contextual menu and close.

A review with not much research is still a valid review - namely on what even somewhat technically savvy users aren't able to intuitively find out about Windows 8 usage. See also the inability to close metro/new-style/whatever apps. I didn't find that out myself when I tried Win8 for 10min or so. And it's not like killing those apps isn't necessary like on iOS, since the behavior changes when they are open, i.e. Windows button doesn't switch to Desktop anymore.

Additionally, the non-techy user is most likely never going to research how to get around their frustrations. First impressions and all that.

Somewhat agree with that too. Actually the non-techy user is likely to flood the techy with questions, until they get to the speed of use they are used to. Some will never close their applications or will do it once in a while from task manager. But, as non-techies, they will not even consider downgrading back to windows 7, either.

I am not questioning the validity of the review. But it is a review that demonstrates how things look to a totally new user in her/his first hours with the OS. I am myself a somewhat technical savvy user and could not find these things out initially with Windows 8. I believe that it takes about one week to get used to. Not that bad. But if this one week is too much for the eventual adoption it remains to be seen. Not killing the apps still gets you to the start screen, though. It is only that if you press it twice it gets you back to the application. Some of these things seem intuitive (i.e. like clicking start twice in previous windows versions, or pressing the start button twice, was opening the start menu and closing it again.)

See, the root of the problem with the start screen behavior for me is that the desktop is treated like a metro app. It's true that you can get used to this, but I'm pretty sure it's one hell of a stretch for 'normal' users. It just looks and works too differently from metro apps and you don't get any kind of benefit, since for example the charms don't work and there is no additional touch integration.

Thank you for posting the video, wbkang. I'm going to give that a try.

As you can imagine, I jotted all of this down as a first-impressions stream of consciousness.

As a pen-input newbie, I wasn't even aware the virtual keyboard had a pen mode. That's close to what I had in mind. I still find it bizarre that it's not more integrated with Onenote.

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