I feel like I am no longer on the cool team. It used to be cool to build your own PC, get a nice mouse and keyboard, and round out the system with three beautiful, large monitors. But today, and especially after the Windows 8 promotional video, all the cool kids are reporting the death of the PC (Apple's post-PC world), the mouse, and Windows itself. It's beginning to appear that anybody who knows anything about technology has to love touch, trackpads, and intuitive UIs. If you want to be current, forward looking, and relevant, then it is time to abandon the PC.
As I sit here using a quad-core processor with copious amounts of memory, typing on a keyboard and using a mouse while looking at my sources stretched across three screens -- I feel like a Luddite. I have no screens to touch, no zooms to pinch, and no apps to swipe away. I am using the web, but apparently I am not doing it correctly because I am still working with a PC paradigm. If only I had an app to tell me how to be technologically cool again.
I agree we are in a non-PC world for mobile devices, but really, there was never a PC world there to begin with. Touch and intuitive UIs have been great developments in the mobile space (phones and tablets). But for my everyday workhorse computer, I just can't get excited about the touching, swiping, and trackpading. With this in mind, the Windows 8 video did intrigue me in some ways. Obviously Microsoft is trying to combine these two paradigms, and it seems they might be successful in part. I especially liked the move from lifeless icons to smart tiles, making the desktop environment more interactive and useful. Some of the other new features that lean towards a touch interface could be interesting from a mouse/keyboard perspective, but I will have to see how they feel when I can test them. Overall, Microsoft came out with an impressive peek into the future of Windows 8, a future that tries to combine the best of their Metro interface with the familiarity of Windows, the keyboard, and the good old mouse. As one who hasn't yet accepted the rule of touch for my everyday computing, I thank them. And who knows, maybe the touch aspects will grow on me.
