Today in its Building Windows 8 conference Microsoft blowed off the next version of Windows. And it is Awesomely a Big thing i have never seen i any OS.
Steven Sinosky, Windows chief
Microsoft’s goal was to make an operating system that worked well on both tablets and traditional computers. In the past, it has tried to make the classic Windows desktop work with touch-based devices, with little success. With Windows 8, it adapted the interface first seen in Microsoft’s much-mocked Zune MP3 player and then its Windows Phone 7 smartphones. In other words, rather than going from a desktop interface to a mobile one, Microsoft has gone in the other direction
Highlights in Window8:
Metro UI. Upon bootup, you’re taken to a lock screen similar to those found on tablets and smartphones.
Swipe up to log in, and you’re taken immediately to the Start screen, which contains a series of tiles collected into groups. You can rename the groups, rearrange them and add other apps by pinning them to the Start screen.
The tiles are dynamic, particularly if the apps they represent pull in data from the Web. For example, a Facebook app might feature photos from your friends, an RSS reader shows headlines and images and a weather app has the latest forecast.
Native Windows 8 apps also use this tiled approach as part of their design. For example, there’s a traditional version of Internet Explorer available from the “classic” desktop, but if you launch IE from the Start screen, its Metro version appears.
In the image above, the thumbnails at the top of the screen are your open tabs. The buttons below let you go back, forward, pin a page to the Start screen, refresh the page and more. Tapping or clicking in the address bar at the bottom brings up the onscreen keyboard.
The Metro UI can also be used for very basic Windows tasks, including file management. For example, there’s a “light” file manager that’s great for working with documents and photos.
Applications can share data between each other. In the screen shot above, a user is selecting photos to be shared through a Twitter client. Selecting the photos in this picker passes it to the client, which accepts them and posts them to Twitter, using the app’s own interface.
The Metro interface, by the way, works very well with a mouse and keyboard, too. Windows knows when a mouse is connected and behaves accordingly. For example, moving a tile from one side of the Start screen to another requires that you hold the tile at the top of the screen with one finger, while using another finger to swipe sideways to the tile’s eventual destination. With a mouse, you can just drag the tile to the side of the screen and it scrolls along automatically.
Performance. Windows 8 boots up almost instantly on new hardware – the video featuring a quickly booting HP notebook is an accurate representation Microsoft executives say it’s also faster on older systems. It’s remarkably fluid, and even the traditional desktop feels faster than Windows 7′s, which is already pretty z.ippy. Among the handful of sample apps provided – many of which were coded in a few weeks by Microsoft interns – I’ve yet to find one that bogs down the system.
Gestures. Windows 8 uses gestures from all sides of the screen to accomplish tasks. For example, if you swipe from the top or bottom in most apps, a toolbar appears. Swipe from the right side to bring up what Microsoft calls the “charms”: icons for searching, sharing, getting to the Start screen, accessing devices and settings. Swipe from the right to switch between running apps.
Multitasking. This is Windows, and thus it multitasks quite well. Apps that are enabled can run in the background, and switch between them is a simple matter of dragging your finger from the left side, “pulling” the app to the foreground.
But if you slow down the swiping process, the running app then expands to only fill the left third of the screen. This takes a little practice. And while you can swap positions with the larger app, you can’t dictate on the Metro side the size of the lesser app’s display. It’s one-third and two-thirds, and that’s it.
Security. Windows Defender, the antimalware application that’s bundled with Windows 7 and Vista, has been upgraded in Windows 8 to cover more types of threats. It also now loads much earlier in the boot process, so it can monitor what’s happening as other programs load. And Windows 8 checks boot components for malware before they load. If it sees something malicious, it halts that program and prevents it from loading.
The Desktop. The notion of the desktop being just another app managed via the Metro interface may take some getting used to, but you’ll understand it once you start switching through apps. When you first drag the desktop out from the left side of the screen, you’ll understand how Microsoft is treading this venerable workspace. Basically, it’s deprecated, but still available to you.
Microsoft has made some changes to the traditional desktop and its apps. For example, there’s the controversial decision to put an Office-style ribbon across the top of Windows Explorer. There’s a lot more detail and data available in the Task Manager. Progress bars that display when transferring files contain more information about what’s going on. But for the most part, the desktop works and behaves much as it does in Windows 7.
This is a very early build of Windows 8 and more work needs to be done. There are quite a few irritating aspects, such as onscreen keyboards that cover up forms while you enter data; disappearing tiles from the Start screen; and some functions and applications that are just too hard to find. In fact, if I hadn’t been shown certain features and settings during a demo session Monday, I’m not sure how easy it would be to find them on my own. It makes sense once you see them, but whether the interface’s conventions are easily discoverable remains to be seen.
And I’m not convinced that Windows 8 is going to catch on with business. This is a very radical step, and I can see most companies waiting to see how this shakes out. Windows 8 could very well be an OS that consumers flock to, but businesses avoid like the plague.
But the foundation for a groundbreaking new way of computing has clearly been laid. Microsoft still needs to execute, and developers still have to respond with apps that take advantage of the platform. Still, the early signs are good. If you’re making bets, I’d double-down on Windows 8.
