Microsoft is betting the farm on its Windows 11 redesign. An interface option would have been a better idea.
Windows 11 is here. As with every previous mega-update to the desktop operating system of record over the years, the new interface has been met with dissent. It’s no surprise that Twitter is full of outrage over the redesign—and, it must be admitted, some praise, too. The record will show that I’ve never been a hater of new Windows features. I even found things to like in the disastrous Windows 8 release. I was an avid Cortana user, at least while she could still do useful things like shut down the PC or control music. But a significant difference is that, at least with Windows 8, Microsoft was creating something original and new. I know that software and all other forms of art borrow from others’ recent work, but the Windows 11 interface design is nearly a clone of Chrome OS rather than anything original. Don’t interpret that to mean that Windows 11 is a complete rip-off—Microsoft’s desktop OS has far more capabilities and even some slickness not found in Google’s OS. How We Got to Windows 11: A Theory This is my take on how we got here: Microsoft saw Google’s lightweight Chrome OS laptop and desktop operating system cutting into its market share. First, the company decided to create a new competitor to that OS favored by schools, which got us the ill-fated Windows 10X. At some point, people at Microsoft decided that everyone who uses Windows should get a Chrome OS-like interface, not just the markets the company was trying to win back from Chrome OS. There are a whole lot of Windows users who were perfectly happy with the Windows 10 interface, so it doesn’t seem to make any sense that they’d have the new one imposed on them.
