Hopefully the reason for a lack of windows on mobile devices is because their screens are too small to manipulate them effectively with a finger.
Which is how most general users use windows on the desktop, so they're not losing much.
I've noticed this too, and it's puzzling - I've seen people maximise browsers on large monitors and end up with a narrow column of text surrounded by tons of blank space, or the more difficult-to-read extremely wide lines of text. Why don't they resize their windows to a comfortable width, and also gain the advantage of being able to interact with the other things outside the window?
I very rarely maximise any windows, but usually have several of them arranged such that I can see the important bits of each one and switch between them easily. One thing I do a lot is comparing the information in different windows, so perhaps it's entirely natural that I do this. It's definitely better than the alternative of switching repeatedly between full-screen windows and memorising their contents...
It depends a lot on your screen size. Below ~19" I just keep everything maximized and use hotkeys to rapidly switch between windows. I'm usually flipping between a text editor and web browser. On even a rather large laptop, 50% of the screen width is too small for web pages. Unless you're doing data entry I doubt you're memorizing the contents of one window to input it in another, and if you're doing that copy/paste exists.
> I've seen people maximise browsers on large monitors
I am guilty of this, but what's odd is that it is something I only do in a Windows environment. When I'm in gnome or other linux environment I don't tend to ever maximise windows, but when I'm in a Windows environment I almost never not maximise windows.
I don't know what it is, whether it is an aesthetic thing or other reason I've not yet worked out why I have such different modes of working.
I think it's a consequence of one of the points TFA brought up - WIMP systems were originally designed to approach modelessness, but users want modal interfaces. They want to go into the context of an application and then switch into a "mode" where they only need to know about the keyboard shortcuts, UI idioms, etc. of that one application.
Sometimes you can't accomplish a task like this, but on the frequent occasions when that happens I'm reminded of exactly how annoying it is to, for example, look at a screen that's split between browser and terminal and switch back and forth between the very different interaction paradigms the two require.
I maximise windows to eliminate distraction. I'd rather finish reading the article I'm reading, for example, and then Cmd-Tab to something else, rather than obsessively glancing at a Gmail window a dozen times through the article.
More the multitasking, the more stressed I get. One thing at a time is relaxing, and more productive. Feeling frantic doesn't result in any more work, or higher quality work, being done, after all.
I maximise windows even on my 30-inch monitor. Recently, I've switched to full-screen. I wish I could tell OS X to launch apps full-screen by default. Windows should, for me, be the exception, not the norm. This is one aspect where mobile OSs are superior, for me.
I seem to recall a old article that compared the usage of unix shell with that of ones daily life.
Could have been written by someone that trained older people on how to use computers.
This by showing how the shell task controls (ctrl-z, bg, fg) mapped to real life tasks.
Say you have a long running task, ctrl-z and bg makes it continue in the background. That i believe he likened to putting on a kettle in the morning. when either is done there will be someone sort of notification, and until then you don't really have to care about it.
Similarly you find something in the mail that you may want to deal with later. With physical mail you put it somewhere that you can see as you move around the home. With the shell you get the jobs command, and if you try to log out without ending them you get a warning.
I have a triple monitor setup, so almost everything is maximized and I do mobile like card flipping between them with alt-tab. I have a stack of browsers on one, a stack of IDEs on another, etc.
If things get out of hand I throw a bunch of windows in a separate activity.
Sometimes I turn on the KDE card flip effect to feel silly.
Which is how most general users use windows on the desktop, so they're not losing much.
I've noticed this too, and it's puzzling - I've seen people maximise browsers on large monitors and end up with a narrow column of text surrounded by tons of blank space, or the more difficult-to-read extremely wide lines of text. Why don't they resize their windows to a comfortable width, and also gain the advantage of being able to interact with the other things outside the window?
I very rarely maximise any windows, but usually have several of them arranged such that I can see the important bits of each one and switch between them easily. One thing I do a lot is comparing the information in different windows, so perhaps it's entirely natural that I do this. It's definitely better than the alternative of switching repeatedly between full-screen windows and memorising their contents...