Windows 8 Previewed At D9

theodp writes "Mum's still the word on a shipping date for its new OS for laptops, desktops, and tablets ('touch slates' in MS-speak), but Microsoft on Wednesday gave the world a first look at the touch-friendly 'Windows 8' user interface, which sports a live tile-based Start screen reminiscent of the company's Windows Phone 7 interface. Also prominent in the demo was a large 'Store' tile, suggesting that Microsoft plans to offer Windows apps through a marketplace. A Microsoft video offers an overview of the interface, showcasing Win 8's multi-tasking capabilities and some other interesting features, including a virtual keyboard that can be switched from full-screen to a more ergonomic split-screen thumbs layout."

Comments

Full circle

[Anonymous Coward]

...and we're back to the Windows 1.0 tiled window interface. Touch sensitivity corresponds to ye good ol' light pen interface.

Only took 30+ yrs to dump all progress, or is that bloat? No, the bloat is still there.

Runs on everything

[mwvdlee]

You've got to love this quote from TFA:

“This is the new version of Windows. It’s going to run on laptops, it’s going to run on desktops, it’s going to run on PCs with mouse and keyboard, it’s going to run on everything,”

Which is basically saying:

“This is the new version of Windows. It’s going to run on PCs with trackpad and keyboard, it’s going to run on PCs with mouse and keyboard, it’s going to run on PCs with mouse and keyboard, it’s going to run on PCs with mouse and keyboard,”

I have no doubt it'll also run on mobiles, tablets, TV's and indeed pretty much everything, but they might have thought about that sentence a bit more.

Phone UIs everywhere

[David Gerard]

I was interested to see that the Engadget story is filled with pretty much the same complaints about this new Windows interface that the Linux world is making about GNOME 3 and Ubuntu Unity - that is, people (e.g. me, I'll note) are annoyed at the prospect of the desktop as they know it being made into a big phone.

Re:I lost count...

[uncanny]

According to an update in TFA, that WP7-like tile interface is non-optional.

So I think we should rejoice, because if it continues to be non-optional, it will effectively kill Windows on the Desktop in favour of systems that actually allow their users to, you know, *do* stuff with their computer.

keep reading

. As shown in the Microsoft video below, users will be able to switch to a more traditional Windows desktop,

Adding Comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Adding comments has been disabled for this video."
"Ratings have been disabled for this video."

...pussies

Deja Moo

[lennier1]

So, we're back to the Vista days where the old version will retain a huge market share because the new one is such a piece of shit?

Pretty but not productive

[Enderandrew]

I don't want to touch my monitor on my desktop and get fingerprints all over it. This is great for tablets and phones, but making this the default UI for your desktop is nothing short of asinine.

This is a pretty interface, but most real work will require skipping this whole Start grid and going to the desktop tile. Why force hundreds of millions of PC users to jump through extra hoops to perform the same tasks? Wait, Vista did that as well, and they refused to revert any of those usability regressions with Windows 7.

A pretty interface isn't necessarily a productive one.

And Windows 8 ARM might as well be dead on arrival given that it can't run x86 apps.

First Unity, now Windows...

[Bloodwine77]

The idiot generation seems to be the target of the new OS UIs.

I guess menus are hard.

I am a cynical person, but even I didn't see the day where the desktop would be treated as oversized mobile devices with respect to interface and functionality.

I think there is too much hype behind the desktop-is-dying phenomenon.

It looks like they will provide optional toggle to switch to a more traditional desktop ... for now.

I think Microsoft is seriously underestimating how this is going to hurt their upgrade sales in the corporate world. It is hard enough to get people off of XP to 7, I can't imagine what this will do for people resisting upgrading from Windows 7. Of course Microsoft will pull, "Latest version of X only works on Windows 8 or higher shenanigans", to try to force people to upgrade.

Re:First Unity, now Windows...

[FreonTrip]

The desktop isn't dying - the market's mature, but people are still replacing their desktops. Because the market's founded on a manic pace of consumption and disposal - remember the late '90s? - the fact that it isn't growing at the velocity of the lifestyle appliance / portable tablet and phone market sector means that people are panicking. I can picture a business strategy meeting where someone says, "People are buying smart phones and tablets. Because this is a growth market and they are computing devices, it therefore follows that usability paradigms applicable to those devices will be EVEN BETTER on other devices!" Unfortunately, this isn't so - not by any stretch of the imagination - and I think we're in for a bumpy ride as Gnome, Microsoft, and other people in The Biz* realize that "one interface for all" doesn't actually fit.

* Yes, even the sainted Apple. Trying to converge iOS and OS X isn't going to go anywhere that's good for UI flexibility or getting under the hood, let me tell you.

Re:Very good for computer novices.

[Ziran]

I think that this kind of interface is very good for computer novices. I've seen many computer-illiterate people to struggle with the WIMP interface; this interface feels a lot more natural to them.

I don't see this as very good for novices. I'd hate to have to give phone support for people using this UI.

Re:I lost count...

[oakgrove]

there are a lot of people who like the Metro look.

If people like it, why aren't the devices featuring it selling?

We develop WPF / Silverlight applications

[Chitlenz]

I like the Metro style MS has going on here, but there seems to be a lot of concern in the .NET community that they are tossing the "traditional" developers overboard to chase HTML5 over Js. We have been working with WPF/XAML/C# for the last year, and it's not even entirely baked yet, so I just don't understand why they feel the need to start bolting new shit onto it. They SERIOUSLY need to fix VS2010 before doing anything radical like this, or who the hell is going to develop for this thing... and with what? Right now, XAML is non-debuggable, takes twice as much time as forms did to develop with, is SLOW, doesn't deploy well, is incomplete (even after you add all the codeplex add-ons and toolkits), and WPF and Silverlight are nowhere near as "interchangable" as MS marketing wants everyone to believe. And javascript/HTML? Apparently we should all throw out VS2010 and start working with Eclipse?

I guess Apple has them so scared that they are in danger of hopping on trends to try to catch up, and that's going to be a MAJOR PROBLEM if they screw all the .NET developers along the way.

I mean, look, touch is cool and all, and we have been able to make some really cool interfaces on early windows tablets, but I have to agree with Enderandrew above that turning the OS into a giant phone is a bad idea. Sheesh, one would think that MS, one of the largest software shops IN THE WORLD, could do both at the same time, but it appears not ....

Consequently... fingerprints are a huge problem for us (we make medical workstations where smudges can screw up diagnostic quality), so I wonder if anyone is out there working on a smudge-less touch interface? Maybe self-cleaning? Too much to hope for?...