is it possible that Microsoft's products are now so weird because it
signed a patent license agreement with Apple and promised not to copy anything
exactly?
No, I think it's due to them following a different
strategy due to having missed the market. They are in a panic over this and so
need to come up with a quick solution. As for "now so weird", I think you mean
"now so bad". Well, I don't think good interface design was ever one of
Microsoft's fortes.
The different strategy is that they want phones,
tablets, and PCs to have a common interface. This is actually their original
strategy from long before Apple got into phones or tablets. In Microsoft's case,
they tried to put the Windows PC desktop on phones and tablets. The result of
that was a miserable failure. They've now reversed that by coming up with a
phone interface, and then are trying to put that on tablets and PCs. The
fundamental idea is to try to use their traditional monopoly on PC desktops to
extend their market into phones and tablets.
I don't think the
strategy is fundamentally unworkable. The problem is that it is poorly thought
out and implemented. The phone interface was designed as a purely phone
interface, and it is probably much better than anything that Microsoft has
previously attempted in that area (although I'm not claiming that it's better
than iOS or Android). I don't think the concept extends well to PC desktops
however. The dual Metro/classic interface on the PC (and x86 tablets) looks like
something that was bodged together in a hurry. Instead of coming up with a
compromise that works well with both keyboard/mouse and touch, they just crammed
two different interfaces in and let them fight with each other (you'll know what
I mean if you've ever used Windows 8 on a PC).
Balmer rather famously
openly laughed at the iPhone when it came out. The Nokia partnership however is
sinking. The new tablet strategy looks like an attempt to salvage something from
the wreckage of the phone effort. I don't think there is any deeply laid long
range plan however. Microsoft is just flailing about blindly at the moment
hoping to find something that works. Apple and Google both started with phones,
built those up gradually, and then expanded into tablets. Microsoft is throwing
handfuls of darts at the board, trying to hit multiple targets at once.
In contrast, Ubuntu Unity is taking the approach of trying to come up
with a compromise that works for both keyboard/mouse and touch interfaces
without just having two different interfaces. Ubuntu has the advantage however
of a faster release cycle which allows for some experimentation. They can also
if necessary directly patch the UI on the more popular packages to take
advantage of Unity features so they have less of a "legacy UI" issue. However,
Ubuntu isn't trying to cover phones. They would be happy to cover PCs to
tablets, as well as any hybrid devices. Microsoft could have taken a similar
approach, but they would have needed to start on this around the time that Vista
came out, and they would have had to come up with a solution to the "legacy
apps" problem.
I think that we will also see Apple trying to bring
their "Mac" and "i" product lines closer together. However, they can afford to
do it more gradually and they won't need to completely merge the two. They could
simply let some phone apps (like games) run on Macs, and your App Store account
would let you have the same app on your phone, tablet, and PC with a single
purchase. ARM versus Intel won't be a problem here by the way, as the Apple
compiler could simply compile for both architectures and the App Store would
provide the appropriate one to the user.
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