Again, I use professional applications. What is Metro going to do in a real workflow environment with real applications? How is it going to help me multi-task in the Creative Suite? Sure, it may work like widgets for crap like email or Twitter (even then, I need dedicated Twitter software to handle multiple accounts) but for real productivity, Metro is just going to get in the way. I don't need to download it to find that out. When Win8 was announced, I was thrilled at the idea and watched more demo videos than I can count and at the end of the day, it's still a hodge-podge of two user interfaces that doesn't improve the experience for people like me.

Again, I like the idea. I do not like the implementation in a real working environment because, for me, it serves no real purpose. I'm just going to spend 99% of my time in the desktop anyway. It reminds me of a lot of the stuff added to OS X over the past few versions. Multiple desktops, Launch Pad, Expose, blah blah blah. At the end of the day, just a bunch more crap I don't need or use (though I use Launchpad occasionally because of its trackpad shortcut... it actually IS easier to access).

Just a small correction, many iOS apps are packaged with both an iPad and iPhone UI. They're called universal apps, and they've been a development option since the iPad was introduced.

Many developers do choose to publish distinct iPad and iPhone apps, but they generally do it for the money, not due to any technical limitation. Either they feel that if you're using an app on two devices you should buy it twice, or they feel they should get paid for the non-trivial task of redesigning the UI, or they just want to take advantage of the generally higher ASP of apps for iPad while remaining competitive in the iPhone software market.

But you're right, designing two UIs is a much simpler task than trying to support all the diverse screens of Android devices. Do you have any screenshot examples of an app built before and after 4.0 and how the UI actually changes? I'm curious.

Thanks for the info on iOS. Not owning one often leads to 2nd hand information being gathered.

ICS is still very new and only legitimately on one phone and I think two tablets, however, all of the Google related applications have undergone big facelifts to take ICS into account. In every case its simply a better utilization of the bigger space. So with Gmail, on a phone it shows something like this in ICS:

On a tablet with the older Gingerbread (Honeycomb was only on tablets and it started the transition) it looked very much the same to this above layout with tons of wasted space. Notice you can only see one label at a time and must use multiple clicks to get to other items etc.

Now in ICS the exact same app is deployed, but it can dynamically choose its view to be more space friendly like this:

Far better utilization with quick access to full labels, all emails, and editing based on a more tabbed type approach.

Other apps will do the same. Twitter on Android tablets is horrible while its iPad cousin is very well layed out, almost identical to a regular desktop browser version. I suspect that within the next few months we'll see upgrades to all Android apps to utilize ICS APKs better so Android tablets will begin to provide a user experience already common on the iPad.

That's really been the deciding factor for most people. You go into a store and play with the iPad and the biggest or most widely used apps simply look FAR better as they were actually redesigned for the 10" screen. Where as Android had Gingerbread out first which was never meant to be on a phone, then Honeycomb that was a branched version of the OS and required wholly different apps, and now finally a true bridge OS that is one and the same between the two environments.

This just shows how much Google was taken off guard by Apple and its iPad. They clearly missed the transition and up until this year, have had to play catch up on the OS side. Now ICS easily matches and beats anything iOS offers for phone/tablet crossover and simplicity. Just have to wait for the devs to utilize it and that will take the better part of this year probably. But with Kindle having a ICS backbone now and its popularity along with the rumored Nexus style tablet launching at a sub-$200 price point... it will rapidly move forward.

Okay, I get it. Basically the same as iOS in that data on a phone will be nested in columns and lists whereas on a tablet more is data is laid out with entire phone screens appearing in popover windows. I guess Google just had to hammer out the APIs in their dev kit to make it easy for devs. 

Kindle has an ICS backbone? Last I heard, Amazon's Android fork was based on 2.3. Googling "kindle ice cream sandwich" only shows hacks.

Kindle was first Gingerbread based, however, I just read stuff that showed ICS look/feel on certain things after an update. So I'm thinking its beign updated to be ICS based... maybe I'm a little premature though.

Talk about a ridiculous deal... Amazon is offering refurbished Kindle Fires for $139. Even though I own an iPad, I'm tempted to snatch this sucker up (though I won't, just spend several hundred dollars on a new professional-grade inkjet printer and still have to buy paper and a CISS system for the thing).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0051VVOB2/ref=as_li_ss_sm_fb_us_ndp_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=kneotranshout-20&linkCode=shr&camp=213733&creative=399841&qid=1327619743&sr=8-1&condition=refurbished

Amazing how complicated and technical the replies got to my original simple question!

I'm still no closer to deciding, although the Blackberry playbook seems like a great deal and I don't need many apps really...does anyone know if I can stream movies from my network on it?

Buy a Kindle Fire TODAY. Seriously. If you don't like it, you'll be able to sell it for more than the $139 you paid. I'm sure they're going to run out quickly at that price.

Looking at all this from a pure desktop point of view, then yeah, the new Metro start screen will seem odd or out of place to some. But Microsoft's policy on this whole ordeal is that touch users are now as high a priority as mouse and keyboard users, and for touch, both the old start menu and a tray/docking system would be unacceptable.

Microsoft's solution is to replace the start menu with something that may not be much of an upgrade for mouse users, but makes a world of difference to touch users. I personally think the new start screen works really well (as a mouse user) and I rather enjoy using it, but having the tray-thing is still important, which is why it's still here; Microsoft knows it's important to power users.

But while mouse users aren't getting a huge upgrade, keyboard users are going to thrive on W8. Microsoft has littered W8 with keyboard shortcuts, so navigating your system should be getting a whole lot easier from that point of view. Unless you prefer command line navigation, in which case you're back to only having a small upgrade.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking Metro as a touch interface at all. I think it's a great tablet interface. I simply don't like it for standard desktop work and after seeing it in action, it's pretty easy to see why Apple has kept OS X and iOS at arm's length from one another. Right now, the two interfaces don't play well together, though I think Apple is on to something with their Magic Mouse/trackpad gestures for the desktop. Once you get used to using the surface of a mouse as a second input level for gesturing, you feel really slighted and out of sorts when you're using a traditional mouse.