Z/Web

Last week Microsoft unveiled a preview of their next operating system (Windows 8) to developers at a conference and people are commenting. This means we now have a lot more details about how W8 will or won’t work. We can now see that Microsoft wants W8 to be an “everything” operating system. It will run on regular PCs as well as tablets, and those tablets will run both on Intel and ARM hardware (ARM is what iPad and other super-efficient tablets have been using for long battery life).

It’s still confusing about which will run what software, though: it sounds like ARM devices won’t run existing Windows applications which is puzzling, since I thought the whole point of Windows 8 was to give you access to legacy applications while allowing new touch apps. That sounds to me like a real mess brewing: consumers won’t have a clue which devices do what.

But Microsoft’s strategy is interesting. It’s the opposite of Apple’s approach, which is that tablet apps only run on the tablet and computer apps only run on full computers. Apple thinks that tablets need software optimized for the device. Microsoft thinks people don’t want “compromises” and want to run traditional computer applications on tablets.

I’m leaning toward Apple on this one. If you’ve every used an iPad to remotely control a regular computer, you know that the regular computer interface is really difficult to use with a finger. I’m also skeptical that Microsoft can get a “full” computer running on a tablet similar to an iPad: thin tablets have hardware compromises that even Microsoft can’t ignore. A thicker slab with a fan and a few hours of battery life seems to negate most of the advantage of tablets to me.

But hardware does improve remarkably fast. Windows 8 won’t be shipping for a year, and may not be mainstream on tablets for a year after that. By that time, perhaps tablet tech will be sufficient to run a desktop-like OS in a handheld device. Yet I still wonder if Apple’s simpler approach isn’t better even in the long-run.

Is Microsoft right? Do people want to run their traditional desktops on a lightweight tablet?

I was thinking about this while preparing dinner the other night. I was making an omelet. Now the thing about a lot of dishes — omelets, sitr-fries, even breakfast cereal — is that anything goes. You can pile as much stuff as you’d like on the food. Make an omelet with just cheese and ham, or throw in the kitchen sink and put in onions, mushrooms, bacon, broccoli, shrimp, salsa, cheese, olives, zucchini, and tomatoes. It’s a free-for-all. There are no right or wrong ways to make an omelet.

When I first started cooking I used to take advantage of that freedom and make some ungodly concoctions. Frankly, the food wasn’t that great. With so many ingredients, nothing stood out. All the individual tastes blurred into nothing. I’d make a shrimp omelet where I could’t taste the shrimp. It might as well not have had any! Another thing was that all my omelets tasted the same no matter what the ingredients.

Over time I have learned to control my “throw in everything” instinct. Now I make omelets that feature, at most, 3-4 ingredients. They are delicious. The flavors compliment each other instead of overwhelming one another. Everything is enhanced. It was a hard lessom for me to learn, but the bottom line is less is more.

Ask any chef and they’ll tell you this is true. It’s also Apple’s minimalist approach to computing. Apple is famous (or infamous) for not including (or even removing) features. But while some greedy people see this as delicious ingredients being taken away from them, the wise know that this just makes the whole meal taste far better.

Only time will prove if Apple or Microsoft’s approach is the right one. But my cooking instincts tell me that Microsoft is throwing everything into the pot and the result is going to be a tasteless mess.