Windows 8: Three tiles of improvement
When Microsoft showed off Windows Phone 7 I was extremely impressed with the metro interface. Simple, yet extremely effective. Microsoft decided to bring this same interface to their Windows line, a great idea if you ask me! With Windows 8 Microsoft is going to bring their metro interface to the desktop. Not only that, they are going to take a leap into a ‘post-pc’ world, as Apple did with Lion. Going touch-first by focusing on tablet-like devices and tailoring the UI accordingly. All in all Windows 8 sounds like an amazing new operating system.
A few days ago at Microsoft’s BUILD event, a developer preview of Windows 8 was released. I installed it as soon as I could, and played around with it. Their touch-first mentality was noticable at first glance. In the videos I saw on the web Windows 8 seemed to be a breeze to use on tablet-like devices, but Microsoft kept saying that it would still be usable with your mouse and keyboard setups. While you can use the operating system with your keyboard and mouse, to me the controls suck.
Windows 8 has a lot of potential, but some of the features just don’t work on desktops. I’ve made a video showcasing some of the improvements I would make to Windows 8, in order for it to work both on tablet-like devices and on desktops with a mouse and keyboard. Please check it out, and let me know what you think about Windows 8 and these improvements.
