Re: If I were MS, I would be much bolder and replace icons with tiles.
You are clearly not a developer. Perhaps a manager? Or a barrista? Maybe a troll... *Live* tiles? Of all apps? ...
I'm glad we have this chance because I am quite a fan of Microsoft and I have to rant and shout and foam-at-the mouth at this piece of shit that is Windows 8.x Just what the fuck were they thinking? Its a mixed up unusable hybrid where even simple things are difficult to impossible to do, and 20 year power-users of Windows are stopped dead in their tracks by the shitty OS's insistence on sometimes switching to "tile" mode, with no option to fucking switch it off.
Some tasks which should be easy and perhaps even fun (change your login avatar/icon) become 'hmm let me google this' difficult. My gf struggled to do this until I decided to help out. Nothing new there. Except I couldn't either.
Looking deeper, Microsoft seems to really have some internal cultural problems, with overpowered idiot managers, and I suspect that an engineer in Microsoft is putting his/her career on the line by speaking sense. Its the only explanation for the persistence in so many fuck-ups recently (see also 'XBox One', from its fucking stupid name to its stupid management team, now gone, to its arrogant approach to its own customer base. See also Sony kicking MS ass this console generation...).
Early on it must have been clear as day that the missing start menu was going to be commercial suicide. *Every* tester must have commented on how difficult the OS was to use without it, and how shit and schizophrenic the tile parts seemed. But MS chose to ignore this. The popularity of the now ubiquitous start menu replacement app should have been a killer indication to MS that they fucked up, but still 8.1 they didnt put it back. Internally not admitting mistakes is more important than losing market share.
Its not hard Microsoft. You have the talent internally. Just start listening to your own customers, stop trying to be a shittier version of Apple and Google. Let them do their own thing. Play to your strengths.
Also, ffs, pay attention to games. Its the last area Windows pwns at ('PC' gaming) but fuck you idiots will throw that away too.
End rant, thanks.