I love the new Max, but… (& speaking to BlogCamp in India)

no support for opml or the feed store that is built into ie7. resource hug. why does ms like using some much all the time. i do like the layout. i think if we give a good amount of feed back they could get on the right track. being that they are under the windows live branding then photo bloging or what every you would like to call it would be great. and since i am on such a tangent when is live going to feel like a web platform services isn’t that what web 2.0 is. it feels spread out maybe that why its slow. ajax platform with broken links. that sums it up.

Yeah, you’re seeing that Microsoft doesn’t run lock in step with other teams, even ones that do pretty strategic stuff. I’ve been playing more with it while waiting for my speech to start and it’s pretty cool, though.

And for some reason they disabled installation on Vista RC1 and Windows Server 2003. Will Microsoft ever let me think and be cautious by myself? I am a software developers, I use Windows Server 2003 as my primary operating system for convenience. On my second machine I have Vista RC1, to learn it and try some development with new toys. I had to install Max in virtual machine, even though it could easily run on my primary box.

Michal: that’s part of this team’s philosophy. Reduce the number of variables to ship faster and with more consistent quality.

Unfortunately very few computer users are as astute as you are, so if they let something go out there and it blew up machines it’d cause negative PR.

It also demands a bigger test team than this particular team has access to. Even Microsoft doesn’t have infinite resources.

I have not used Max yet, but I had a similar experience with OneNote. I use to use a Wiki for all of my note taking, but after a single day with OneNote I completely stopped using the Wiki. The speed and GUI of the local application was just so much better.

Microsoft has been pushing the SmartClient architecture for a while now and I am beginning to think that they are right.

By the way if you are still interested in doing a product launch video for PodTech with A7, just let me know.

Bryan: I certainly am, thanks!

A photo viewing/sharing application now includes an RSS reader? Why? Make it a separate application. It’s already a 54MB download!

Diego: because it’s not just a photo viewing/sharing app. And the 54MB download is because of the underlying Windows Presentation Foundation, not really because of the News Reader (the News Reader part only is probably a meg or so).

Robert: Fair point. But besides the WPF, the photo stuff with a news reader just doesn’t make sense to me. They should be separate apps.

I love the layout, but I really don’t see the connection between photos and news here.

The other thing is that while it may display things really nicely, it doesn’t do anything particularly interesting. It doesn’t even let me view fulltext content when it’s clearly downloaded it. No OPML/anything else import, and it’s slow. The only reason it gets the tag “cool” is because it looks nice — which is fair enough, but it’s not really anything special.

I am one of the attender of your session today at BlogCamp, India … your speech was really amazing… I just love it…. thanks for taking your precious time to give us the great experience… thanks

It’s a Preview Alphaish Microsoft typical bloatware…and the irony of it not working with Vista RC1 is just so so rich. But how come you didn’t mention INK works with Max? Odd that even the rabid Tablet users, never make must use of it’s features. But really isn’t this just a Vistaish WinFXy demo app?

And explain to me why I need a buggy-overhanded RSS Reader in a photo-sharing mixed-metaphor type of application, clinking in at 55 meg? And then with all the Frameworky glitches. Screw pretty, I want functional usability. I gave it another whirl, the beta lemming I am, but shrug…seems more an experiment or demo, over a real application. Photo tools, gawd, the industry is full of them, and far more time-tested, now if Microsoft clinks in iView Media Pro tech in here, ok. Why all these byzantine network of teams, that don’t work together well, and reinvent wheels constantly? Where’s the corporate guidance and goverance? You see that strategy handiwork ALL over Vista RC1. Microsoft will really have to be broken up to do more than tread water, I predict.

This is just some small team R&D’ing up some jazzy concept, flexing geeky muscles. But if this is any example or indicator of a larger trend, Microsoft should stick to growth by acquisition, the in-house projects are all geek-toys delights without much real use elsewhere.

In a word: Bleech. Real tech like iView Media Pro goes unnoticed, and slop like this brings out the blogger goose-bumps.

PS – How come no one is talking up OneNote 2? OneNote was the one app (limited market sure) but one that had some real juice behind it…so the new marketing thrust? Ignore the real stuff, play up the beta Web 2.0ish blogger-pimples to high-heaven?

The interface is quite stunning, beautiful even. But as a RSS reader, Max leaves much to be desired. No import of OMPL files and the inability to read whole posts. I would also like just a couple of options as to how to read the downloaded posts (2 or 3 pane, for instance). I would say that it’s beauty is only skin deep, but with the hude download file (and I realize much of it is the underlying framework), even this is not true. As eye candy, Max is stunning, as a functional RSS reader it ultimately leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Max is a weird app from a functional standpoint (photo organization/sharing plus RSS reader) but it’s main purpose is to show some stuff that can be done with WinFX (aka .NET 3.0). Max doesn’t run on Vista yet and doesn’t use Vista’s RSS Common Feed (I guess because the Common Feed is available on Vista and XP/IE7, but not XP w/o IE7), but that it runs on XP shows that MS was right to backport WinFX to XP.

MS was criticized (and indeed, mocked by slashdotters and the like) for that because it was felt that backporting WinFX to XP would lesson incentive to upgrade to Vista. But I don’t see it that way; by backporting WinFX to XP, devs can use WinFX while still catering to those that run XP rather than Vista. It’s to MS’s advantage to get devs to make WinFX apps because they can be quite beautiful, which would make MS’s OSes and frameworks look good compared with competing OSes (which also have pretty apps).

Hey Scoble
i was there on webcam as well. We should get together and comp[are flat-world-notes at some point.

I, too, don’t “get” why one would want to read RSS in a photo-management app.

It looks like a lightweight version of Picasa mixed up with a frothy, but not very functional, feed reader.

The best suggestion I’ve seen so far is that it’s just a technology demonstration vehicle, rather than an app with an actual, er, application!

Robert – re: Max being slow.
Your video drivers might be older on your laptop (i.e. pre Nov 2004). If this is the case WPF will render in software.

You can grab a copy of Perforator.exe to check on what WPF is doing.