Matias Duarte, Google’s vice president of design, is convinced that Windows 10 is not more that a flat designed Windows XP.
Google’s design VP is not having Windows 10
While many, if you look at the Internet and social media, believe Windows 10 to be something revolutionary this does not apply to Matias Duerte, Google’s vice president of design. Duarte recently took to Twitter to call Microsoft’s Windows 10 a mediocre step-up from software given to us at the turn of the millennium.
Full disclosure, I’ve not touched a PC that I’ve owned in over 20 years. I’m an Apple fanboy or just prefer to spend too much money on the rare occasion that I’ve outgrown my last Mac. However, Duarte has a voice given his position at Google and he’s not afraid of getting on his Android smartphone (presumably running Android) and letting the world know how he feels.
Let’s not put things out of context, he wasn’t a raving drunk Taco Bell exec that felt the need to assault his Uber driver only to receive a proper peppering (spray) in the gob. Rather, the VP used 140 characters or less on three separate occasions to give voice to his displeasure.
Duarte is a fan of Duarte
Duarte holds himself in fairly high regard so criticisms of others must come reasonable easy. He’s a man who once described his design work at Google as close to magic.
“It is a sufficiently advanced form of paper as to be indistinguishable from magic,” he told The Verge in 2014.
Duarte is credited with the (undeniable?) reworking of the look and feel of Google’s Android OS. He’s a proponent of thinking of software in physical terms and he’s not afraid to pull your ear if you’re unfortunate enough to get caught listening.
His Material Design is present in each and every Google property from Chrome to Android Wear and the much maligned (or simply unused) Inbox email app.
At the end of the day, Windows 10 isn’t that bad, and Duarte agrees. Duarte says he’s “always liked (what) Microsoft was attempting to do with Windows 8 — change the paradigm.” That said, Windows 8 was nothing less than a failure by any yardstick used to measure. While Windows 10 wasn’t a game changer, it did replace the aforementioned train wreck that was Windows 8.
