Microsoft Confirms Windows 8.1 Spring Update, To Focus On Non-touch Devices

SmartAboutThings writes "At a special event at the Mobile World Congress, Microsoft has announced the 'spring' update for Windows 8.1. Joe Belfiore, who is the head of platform at Microsoft for smartphones, tablets and desktop devices, said the Windows 8.1 update will come with improvements for non-touch devices. Belfiore also said the update will focus on bringing back some of the 'old' features to Windows 8.1, such as the much-hyped start button, but this won't have a negative impact on the touch experience."

Comments

99%

[Citizen of Earth]

said the Windows 8.1 update will come with improvements for non-touch devices

What a fantastic strategy -- to put a few afterthoughts into 99% of their market...

Re:99%

[chalkyj]

It'll be nice to use server 2013 without having to battle with a "touch screen optimised" interface. I guess they over estimated how many people are running server 2013 on tablets.

Re:99%

[ColdWetDog]

I suppose with the bad drought you all are having, it makes sense to avoid cloud-based solutions.

Re:99%

[Solandri]

It's really simple. The only way to install a Metro app is through Microsoft's Store. There are exceptions for developers and corporate in-house software. But for the traditional business model where Party A makes the software, Party B buys it and uses it, you can only do it by selling the software in the Store.

If you sell through the Store, Microsoft takes a 30% cut of all revenue.

That's what this is all about. Microsoft wants 30% of Adobe's, Intuit's, SAP's, Oracle's, etc's revenue. Their plan to make this happen is to get all users (including corporate ones) to use Metro apps. If the users accept it, then the developers will be forced to make Metro apps and sell it through the Store. And Microsoft gets a 30% cut. Of everything.

That's why they're forcing Metro down users' throats. That's why the "Start" button isn't really a start button but dumps you straight into Metro - it's a one-button access to where the Store is. That's why your Windows Server pushes Metro apps. It's all to get you to buy and use Metro apps, so developers will start selling Metro apps.

(And yes I realize this is Apple's walled garden model with iOS. I don't really have as much problem with it there because iOS devices are generally not productivity devices so most apps are priced $0 to $10. Not $100 to over $1000 like many Windows productivity apps. And no this is not Google's model. Yes Google takes a 30% cut of apps sold in the Play store, but they don't restrict where you get your apps from. It's easiest to get them from the Play store, but you can get them from any other store, or side-load them via microSD or USB or even directly from a website. Basically the current state of Windows software is like the Android environment where an optional store charges 30%, and Microsoft is trying to transition it to be like the iOS environment where the only store charges 30%.)

Start button?

[jones_supa]

The article talks about the "start button" making a comeback, but it obviously did in 8.1 already. Are they actually talking about Start Menu?

Re:Start button?

[gl4ss]

8.1 start button is just a link to the start screen.

if they really want to follow up on the ui designers bullshit line that they want to have the "power user"(someone who uses desktop, lol) interface as well.. then they have to get off their ass and do a proper start menu built in.

I use win8.1, I've seen the start screen maybe 2 weeks ago last time.. and then I was installing some unsigned drivers(for sanguinololu, and yeah.. you have to go through one step in metro to do that.. which makes no sense if you believe that the ui guys reddit comments weren't just total damage control grade A bullshit).

Re:Start button?

[_xeno_]

Do I really need to see my open windows and part of my desktop behind the start menu when I'm just clicking to start a program? Not really.

Actually... yes. You do. Believe it or not.

There's a concept called "doorway amnesia" where you'll tend to "forget" what it was you're doing when your surroundings change entirely. It's why everyone has experienced walking into a room and then forgetting why they went there in the first place. By entirely replacing the desktop and changing your context, it makes it harder to remember why you opened the Start Screen in the first place.

The rest of the complaints have to do with it being slower to use than the start menu thanks in part to the transition animations. My personal annoyance is that not everything you have installed shows up there, instead they're hidden behind the down arrow. Yes, yes, you can "pin them to start" but after installing a new app, it always initially confuses me when I go looking for it and it isn't on the Start Screen.

Windows renders everything to an off-screen 96dpi buffer, then just scales that up 200%.

Does Windows do the bilinear filtering thing that the Retinal MacBooks do? I saw one running in a store, and the way it handles non-DPI aware apps is bilinearly scaling it up. Made the entire thing look very blurry.

Best use for Windows 8..

[GrBear]

The best use of a Windows 8 license is to downgrade to Windows 7.

It's simple: provide a choice

[Anonymous Coward]

You put a gigantic switch in the Control Panel somewhere: "Enable touchscreen UI (recommended for tablet use) / Disable touchscreen UI (recommended for desktop use)". Throw the switch to the latter option and you get something that approximates the Windows 7 UI. You could even call it "Classic" mode, like has been done for the last 2 versions of Windows. Nobody liked the default Windows XP "Playschool" theme. Many people didn't like the default Windows 7 theme. They were no big deal. Make it easy for users to choose, and people will complain a lot less about the defaults. Give them no choice and, yeah, they're going to complain bitterly (Windows 8), until third-parties step in to fix the problem (e.g., Classic Shell).

Stick an "Advanced" button in there to allow tweaking of individual features.

Microsoft is the last one I would have thought needed to be schooled about the value of choice, but they made the same mistake with the recent versions of Office. Experiment, but please have some respect for what users of your product have already learned.

Re:Start Screen

[jones_supa]

It probably tells you about Win+X and all the other keyboard shortcuts in one of the tutorials or other junk at first boot that I didn't watch.

Well, it does not. It tells you this:

"Hi. While we're getting things ready, check out the new way to use Windows. After your PC is ready, move your mouse into any corner. Let's start."

Yes it is hard to press Win+X via RDP

[mimino]

Yes it is hard to press Win+X via a remote desktop connection to a server that got tablet-optimized interface with Windows Server 2012.

Continuity of context

[tepples]

It's like the mobile version of Slashdot. On the desktop computer version of classic Slashdot, clicking Reply to This adds a text area below the comment to which I am replying. Opening Reply to This in a new window shows just the comment to which I am replying and the text area. The important part is that some context remains visible, namely the comment to which I am replying. But when I try to reply to a comment on the mobile version of Slashdot, the comment to which I am replying disappears entirely, meaning I not only lose my train of thought but also can't even quote the parts of the comment to which I am replying.

Likewise, the full-screen Start Screen of Windows 8 hides context that the partial-screen Start Menu leaves visible, even with the option to use the same wallpaper introduced in Windows 8.1. That's why I use Classic Shell on my Windows 8.1 PC at work.

Are you asserting that continuity of context is unimportant?