Microsoft Previews Windows 8 with Cues from iPad and App Store

[iEvolution]

If that becomes the primary interface for desktop computers count me out, keyboard + mouse shortcuts will still beat the hell out of touching everything speed and productivity wise.

Though definitely looks like a good operating system for the tablet market.

 

[ademuth93]

I like the idea of the Tile-based UI for a mobile device, where the device's purpose is various quick-scan information-based apps.

I'm not sure I see where a Tile-based UI for a desktop environment makes any sense. My day-to-day computer usage is roughly divided between the following applications:

Textmate
XCode
Photoshop
Aperture
Email
MS Office
OmniGraffle
Web Browser (where I regularly browse between roughly a dozen different sites, plus occasional surfing).

Other than email, how are "Tiles" going to help me with any of those applications? What kind of "live information" would an "Aperture" or "Photoshop" tile usefully be able to tell me?

Granted, most of these are Mac applications, but substitute the above applications for Windows-centric apps, and I still fail to see how my work day is in any way improved by a "Live Tiles" UI.

Quoted because I fully agree. The interface is fine and dandy, but it doesn't seem to have much function. We'll see, and I'll stick with my W7 laptop and an iPad.

 

[brandnewfunk]

How? That looks nothing like OS X.

Exactly. Y'all act like some weak-minded religious zealots! Y'all act like a parent who always tells his child he's the best at everything, even on those occasions when he's not. Y'all own ZERO STOCK in Apple! GET. OFF. APPLE'S. D*CK! Y'all got this team mentality for a CORPORATION when the only "team" you should be on is THE BEST USER EXPERIENCE TEAM! In other words, be impartial! Hell, Apple doesn't give two *****s about you, but y'all fight tooth and nail for IT! a COMPANY! Somehow taking credit for your "son" (Apple, Inc.) when he loses and another child wins: "It's okay, Little Andy... Little Mike may have the built a nice new house, but he copied from your house because his has a roof, too!" GTFOH!

The impartial truth is: Apple makes SUPERIOR hardware (e.g., screens on iMac and iPhone kick as$!), but beginning with Windows PHONE 7 and ESPECIALLY NOW with this new Windows 8 OS... WINDOWS HAS RE-CAPTURED THE OS CROWN.

That said, I'll be Boot-Campin' Win8 on an iMac...

In the meantime, GROW. THE. *****. UP!

 

[Blakeco123]

i don't know, it looks like that would be a great tablet interface, but i like a desktop with icons and windows for a computer (the entire time im using that computer), however because it says you could turn the interface on and off, so you could go Tiles-> Aero, or something, that would be great! To be honest it looks like Microsoft did a real good job on this.

 

[Alphaeus47]

A good concept to be fair, but poorly executed.
It's like someone put windows 7 and windows phone 7 into a blender.
I mean others have said it, but I'm compelled to follow suit; It looks like something that could work on a tablet if cleaned up appropriately.

I liked XP, 7, and even a few things in vista… but for the most part this is hindering the functionality of the OS. In all honesty I'd rather be using windows 98 than this interface. (fyi, I still genuinely love windows 98).

The thing that irritates me the most is how rather than redesigning windows explorer (and other things) with the new interface, they just switch to using the old UI… It just seems so schizophrenic. If they integrated the 2 better then maybe I could like it… but as it is it all just looks so untidy.

 

[*LTD*]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Same old MS says hi @ 2:20.

Watch for it.

 

[twoodcc]

haha, so now m$ is admitting that they are copying apple. i must say that it does look interesting. lion better be good

 

[FlameofAnor]

As a designer, I'd have to grade their color and icon choices as a meh.

 

[erzhik]

This is for people who said that tiles look complicated and it would take time to find appropriate app to launch, compared to how easy it is to find an icon.

The reason why it is easy for you to find appropriate icon is because you are used to it. Every single iOS is the same, it's icons. Of course after 3 years of having same icons over and over the screen, you will get used to it. I am sure if you are to have tiles on a device for that long, it would be easy to located needed app too.

And where are the cues from ipad? There is nothing, absolutely nothing that is similar to the iPad. How the hell can tiles and icons look the same? I wish some people would just put their fanboyism aside and see that Microsoft did a fantastic job on it. And being able to snap on different windows to side of the screen is the best feature on Windows and absolutely blows away anything other companies offer. Win 8's type of snapping looks even more fantastic. I can't wait to try this one out, although I will replace my Xoom only after Win 8 and MeeGo hits tablets.

And it's pretty clear that this type of UI will be for tablets, while old school Win UI will stay on desktops. Why would a giant like Microsoft shoot themselves in the legs by substituting good old desktop UI for tiles on full machines.

 

[faroZ06]

And people were worried about Lion? Lol...

I want to see what a virus looks like on Windows 8

 

[faroZ06]

Exactly. Y'all act like some weak-minded religious zealots! Y'all act like a parent who always tells his child he's the best at everything, even on those occasions when he's not. Y'all own ZERO STOCK in Apple! GET. OFF. APPLE'S. D*CK! Y'all got this team mentality for a CORPORATION when the only "team" you should be on is THE BEST USER EXPERIENCE TEAM! In other words, be impartial! ****, Apple doesn't give two *****s about you, but y'all fight tooth and nail for IT! a COMPANY! Somehow taking credit for your "son" (Apple, Inc.) when he loses and another child wins: "It's okay, Little Andy... Little Mike may have the built a nice new house, but he copied from your house because his has a roof, too!" GTFOH!

The impartial truth is: Apple makes SUPERIOR hardware (e.g., screens on iMac and iPhone kick as$!), but beginning with Windows PHONE 7 and ESPECIALLY NOW with this new Windows 8 OS... WINDOWS HAS RE-CAPTURED THE OS CROWN.

That said, I'll be Boot-Campin' Win8 on an iMac...

In the meantime, GROW. THE. *****. UP!

You're right, I sold my AAPL stock a while back for a nice gain
loser
or troll?
As an owner of an iMac 2006 with a failing GPU, I cannot call Apple hardware "superior", at least under the hood. However, I'd take my computer with REALLY horrible parts if it can run the superior Mac OS.

 

[dustinsc]

This seems like a fundamental change in philosophy, and the first major UI change since Windows 95 made Windows so taskbar-centric. It also seems like a lot has changed under the hood as the demo implied that Windows 7 apps work differently. Maybe it's as fundamental a change as OS X was.

 

[boss.king]

I'd love to agree with you but I simply can't lol! Do you have any background knowledge of Microsoft and Windows and computing in the tech industry and how notorious Microsoft is to never ditch legacy because their users are so archaic?

Not quite sure what you mean with this.

Do you know how many people still use Windows XP or how many years Microsoft had to extend its existence because people still wanted to use what they were familiar with?

That's because Vista was a terrible operating system. It was bloated and demanding. Also, many of people who use XP do so at work, where it is not necessary to upgrade yet. You don't need Windows 7 to use excel and word. Lastly, Win7 is still very familiar and easy to use for XP users.

The biggest reason Windows 7 is starting to proliferate is because people have been forced into it when buying new PCs. Funny, that is the same way Windows got its monopoly and OEM lock-in to begin with lol!

People are not forced to buy it, it is already installed. Are you telling me Apple give's you the option of buying OS9? No? So you could say the same thing, people are being forced into buying that too. Your point is bad and you should feel bad for making it. Windows became a monopoly because it appealed to businesses could run on relatively cheap hardware, thus reducing cost.

Final tip: you don't need to double space after every sentence.

 

[faroZ06]

Not quite sure what you mean with this.



That's because Vista was a terrible operating system. It was bloated and demanding. Also, many of people who use XP do so at work, where it is not necessary to upgrade yet. You don't need Windows 7 to use excel and word. Lastly, Win7 is still very familiar and easy to use for XP users.



People are not forced to buy it, it is already installed. Are you telling me Apple give's you the option of buying OS9? No? So you could say the same thing, people are being forced into buying that too. Your point is bad and you should feel bad for making it. Windows became a monopoly because it appealed to businesses could run on relatively cheap hardware, thus reducing cost.

Final tip: you don't need to double space after every sentence.

Nice, I agree
I'd still take XP over 7 because everyone still supports it, and it demands way less RAM. MS hasn't really changed their OS much over the years, they only added more useless/buggy "features" like the information bar. Vista is just a piece of @#$%. I had a Vista that kept opening IE every 5 minutes and giving me a popup about the information bar. I was doing something on it, and a popup said that I needed to install updates, download? I said no, but it installed them anyway. 5 minutes later, it restarted immediately without saving my work. Well, I didn't let it restart, and I installed XP on it

 

[spotlight07]

Microsoft is basically repeating the same mistake they made with Windows Mobile. This is basically Windows Mobile 6.5 all over again. A really old, old legacy system with a “pretty” skin on top.

How can you run two UI subsystems on top of ARM? It needs to be featherweight, and this looks like it's heavier than what they already have with Windows 7.

I do think that the UI is very beautiful (but a little bit Fisherprice like XP was), just like I think that Windows Phone 7 UI is very nice. This will work fine on the tablet but I see no point for fancy tiles and touch UI in an office environment. I think going from a tablet UI to a spreadsheet is just too much of a shock to the system.

In the next year or two, Microsoft will probably have to start over again, from scratch this time. I wish they had started from scratch this time.

 

[Yamcha]

I actually really like what Microsoft came up with, I wouldn't mind using it with my mouse and keyboard either, although it is clearly optimized for touch, I think they did a great job..

I don't think some of the comments made are fair, It's no secret a lot of people in Macrumors are hardcore Apple fans and so the comments will be fairly biased..

 

[Just "Vinnie"]

You know, it's really not bad however... MS can sugar coat their OS all they want but it will still be Windows architecture under the hood. Registries, DLL's, all kinds of crap peppered across your drive and you still won't be able to completely uninstall an application. Honestly, with all the file dependancies and legacy requirements Windows has I'm truly amazed that anything actually runs on it. (That's a testament to the coders, not sarcasm)

But oh the days of Windows...

I watch my colleagues at work use Win7 and whenever they have problems I am just so glad those times are over for me. I've had the family on OSX for 2 years now. They went kicking and screaming but I haven't had to nuke a virus laden machine since or clean out a startup registry that contains cryptic file names just so the damn thing will boot in under 3 minutes.

Like I said, It's not a bad strategy for MS and it really looks pretty good so if this attempt puts some pressure on OSX/iOS to be better then that's just fine. But I won't go back - can't go back.

 

[faroZ06]

I actually really like what Microsoft came up with, I wouldn't mind using it with my mouse and keyboard either, although it is clearly optimized for touch, I think they did a great job..

I don't think some of the comments made are fair, It's no secret a lot of people in Macrumors are hardcore Apple fans and so the comments will be fairly biased..

Yeah, there are a lot of annoying fanboys here. By the way, you have the developer release of Lion? How is it?

 

[boss.king]

I want to see what a virus looks like on Windows 8

I don't know why people bring up the virus thing over and over. It's a dumb argument. The last time I got a virus was on XP. As long as you don't go clicking on "Click h3ar 4 ur Free Ipod touch phone!!!11!1`!" links then it's actually pretty hard to get a virus on Windows.

 

[kikuchiyo]

Good for MS! This is the most original UI design I've seen from them since Microsoft BOB. While this isn't my cup of tea, it's a bold new direction for Windows and I'm glad Microsoft is innovating - hopefully it'll spur Apple on as well.

 

[faroZ06]

I don't know why people bring up the virus thing over and over. It's a dumb argument. The last time I got a virus was on XP. As long as you don't go clicking on "Click h3ar 4 ur Free Ipod touch phone!!!11!1`!" links then it's actually pretty hard to get a virus on Windows.

I know, I just wanted to see what one looked like, and I know it CAN get one. I don't really know how many viruses Windows gets at this moment since I dropped Windows a while ago, but Windows Vista Home Premium was worse than most viruses!

 

[Scarrus]

And I'm also interested in how each of your posts are voted up while virtually every person you attack is conveniently voted down. Coincidence? I think not.

This also caught my attention!

 

[jwhite878]

I actually really like Windows 8. Let's see what Lion looks like at WWDC.

 

[macdragonfl]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_7; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.21.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.5 Safari/533.21.1)

I think that Windows 8 is great! It is a fresh new look and concept. I have played with Windows phone 7 and was impressed with how easy it is to use and it is a true alternative to IOS. Sorry Android fanboys but Android is a piss poor copy with some gimmicks thrown in. The hardware is great. It the constant fixing and changing the stuff Google should have done before it was released. It's the OS itself that is flawed. The Android market should have sold music, video and movies and it should have all been in place for both the Mac and the PC users. Android does not offer a complete package and user experience. Microsoft has a winner here if it offers a ecosystem that works like Apples but in a different way. I am no fan of Microsoft but I think in the long run they may be able to deliver something that Android cannot. Most users want to take their device out of the box plug it in and have all work with the things they already have. Apple knows this, that is why they are the best at it. But it looks like Microsoft can and will deliver this to their users in a way Google seems not to understand.

 

[sketdansu]

Exactly. Y'all act like some weak-minded religious zealots! Y'all act like a parent who always tells his child he's the best at everything, even on those occasions when he's not. Y'all own ZERO STOCK in Apple! GET. OFF. APPLE'S. D*CK! Y'all got this team mentality for a CORPORATION when the only "team" you should be on is THE BEST USER EXPERIENCE TEAM! In other words, be impartial! Hell, Apple doesn't give two *****s about you, but y'all fight tooth and nail for IT! a COMPANY! Somehow taking credit for your "son" (Apple, Inc.) when he loses and another child wins: "It's okay, Little Andy... Little Mike may have the built a nice new house, but he copied from your house because his has a roof, too!" GTFOH!

The impartial truth is: Apple makes SUPERIOR hardware (e.g., screens on iMac and iPhone kick as$!), but beginning with Windows PHONE 7 and ESPECIALLY NOW with this new Windows 8 OS... WINDOWS HAS RE-CAPTURED THE OS CROWN.

That said, I'll be Boot-Campin' Win8 on an iMac...

In the meantime, GROW. THE. *****. UP!

umm...U Mad?