Windows 8 Blue leaked

[theefman]

Someone has leaked an early version of Windows 8 Blue and its looking good.

Story Windows Blue build 9364 leaked to the internet - Neowin

Screenshots Microsoft Collection Book • Screenshot Gallery

Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KAxXX0m-P_0#!

What do you think?

 

[ryan.kruger]

Re: Windows 8 Blue leak

Its cool, I'm excited to see what WP8 changes are coming. Looks like they're trying pretty hard. If anyone here installs blue, you should post here

 

[theefman]

Multitasking on steroids!

 

[jasqid]

Thurrott just listed the changes. More customs tiles,simpler start screen personalization, new snap view 50/50, more PC settings in metro, ie 11.

 

[KingCrimson]

How about swiping from the bottom gets you to All Apps instead of having to tap the "all apps" button that comes up from that gesture. Just eliminate the middle tap!

 

[abel920]

I hope they bring back the traditional Start button. If not, I'll just keep using Start8.

 

[ChMar]

I hope they bring back the traditional Start button. If not, I'll just keep using Start8.

They won't for sure . I don't know about the start button but I never missed it. I'm a keyboard kind of person so I mostly use keyboard shortcuts to do my stuff and I hear so much about people missing the start button and I wonder why. In windows 8 it's easy to access the all app screen and so I don't quite see the need for a start button. Considering the blue allows for a simple gesture to get to the all aps screen I think everyone should not be missing the start button anymore

 

[Mystictrust]

I hope they bring back the traditional Start button. If not, I'll just keep using Start8.

It won't happen - 99.9% positive, they're trying to get people used to their brand new interface and get people off the old school start menu and eventually away from the desktop. I'm using StartMenu8 myself... and I still have all hot corners enabled, swap between using both the metro start screen and the old school desktop start menu, and have it boot straight to desktop. For me, I found using both metro start screen and desktop start menu in tandem are extremely useful - each brings their own advantages.

Looking forward to these Blue updates, looks pretty nice. I like the tile coloring system they're bringing... I can see that happening on WP8. I hope it gets brought to WP8 anyway

 

[KingCrimson]

Microsoft needs to keep iterating the Modern UI until nobody needs the Win7 UI anymore. That means creating a Modern file manager, task manager, Office, Adobe suite, MatLab and many others. Already VLC has a kickstarter for creating the Modern edition.

 

[ChMar]

Microsoft needs to keep iterating the Modern UI until nobody needs the Win7 UI anymore. That means creating a Modern file manager, task manager, Office, Adobe suite, MatLab and many others. Already VLC has a kickstarter for creating the Modern edition.

While I agree with you that the old desktop paradigm is not suiting anymore even Microsoft states that this metro looks is not suited for all kind of apps(this is why they didn't migrate office to metro yet). Metro language was design for showing information in a more beautiful and accessible way it is not suited for action intensive applications. So I don't see Photoshop or Matlab going Metro. As for a modern file manager I think the way we understand files should change too. Windows 8 allowed any app to become a file provider. This also means files stored on disk become less important and operations like deleting, renaming or copying files(when they come from other apps through extensions) has no meaning so that Modern file manager is something of a problematic idea. As for task manager that is OS job not user job. As stated many times in the industry if an OS needs a task manager then it is not working properly.

 

[kerryprsp]

Someone has leaked an early version of Windows 8 Blue and its looking good.

Story Windows Blue build 9364 leaked to the internet - Neowin

Screenshots Microsoft Collection Book • Screenshot Gallery

Video First Look: Windows Blue Build 9364 - Tile Sizes, Apps, Settings + MORE - YouTube#!

What do you think?

From what I've seen so far I'm excited about the improvements and I'm looking forward to the release of Windows Blue. Then again, I am a sucker for OS and UI upgrades.

 

[jhoff80]

Something that I found very intriguing:



I assume that's for VOIP / Skype... but it'd be very interesting if it meant further unification of the phone and tablet...

 

[Abdul Rahman Noor]

So is this how it's going to be?
Windows 8 Blue and Windows Phone 8 Blue?

I thought Blue was supposed to be the unifying OS - like what Honeycomb was supposed to be.

 

[link68759]

As for task manager that is OS job not user job. As stated many times in the industry if an OS needs a task manager then it is not working properly.

Yeah.... That's what jobs said about ios I'm pretty sure, not an "industry" saying. Task managers will always be relevant.
Sent from my RM-824_nam_att_101 using Board Express

 

[Robert Carpenter]

While I agree with you that the old desktop paradigm is not suiting anymore even Microsoft states that this metro looks is not suited for all kind of apps(this is why they didn't migrate office to metro yet). Metro language was design for showing information in a more beautiful and accessible way it is not suited for action intensive applications. So I don't see Photoshop or Matlab going Metro.

This will change over time. As the OS evolves, so will the API. They didn't migrate those applications because the Metro API is not ready for them yet and doesn't support all the functionality they needed. Once the API evolves and supports the functionality, these apps will get converted. Then that also means the API will be ready for other big apps like Photoshop and Matlab to be converted. This will all happen along with phasing out the desktop, but it's a little further down the road.

And remember, not EVERYTHING will be cross platform. There will be metro apps that only work on desktops and not on tablets or phones.

 

[ChMar]

This will change over time. As the OS evolves, so will the API. They didn't migrate those applications because the Metro API is not ready for them yet and doesn't support all the functionality they needed. Once the API evolves and supports the functionality, these apps will get converted. Then that also means the API will be ready for other big apps like Photoshop and Matlab to be converted. This will all happen along with phasing out the desktop, but it's a little further down the road.

And remember, not EVERYTHING will be cross platform. There will be metro apps that only work on desktops and not on tablets or phones.

It's not an API problem or cross platform problem it's a philosophy thing. The API allows you to build photoshop or matlab apps it's just the Metro language for UX is not suited for such apps. Metro is about simplification and content without chrome(lot of buttons, switches and options lying on the screen along with the content). The ribbon introduced in office 2003 was supposed to help simplify the UX for apps with lots of commands. It somehow succeeded but it's not enough for apps like photoshop or matlab or mathematica. I can't imagine myself writing a notebook in mathematica without having the buttons on the screen an cluttering my content. To be productive in such apps you need 1 click access to commands and options and this means lots of buttons on the app. And this is opposed to metro language which tries to get rid of any commands and present as few as possible only when needed.

 

[a5cent]

So is this how it's going to be?
Windows 8 Blue and Windows Phone 8 Blue?

I thought Blue was supposed to be the unifying OS - like what Honeycomb was supposed to be.

Windows Blue is a version of the OS with unifying properties. The term 'unifying' just doesn't mean what many thought it meant (although I've seen a lot of the software guys in these forums correctly explaining it):

What is MS unifying? The metro UI paradigms, runtime environments, and APIs. That doesn't mean that MS is rolling WP8 and W8 into one... nor should they.

In the leaked demo, we can see that a swipe from the W8 start screen brings us to the apps list, just as it always has for WP. That is an example of UI paradigm unification.

 

[Robert Carpenter]

It's not an API problem or cross platform problem it's a philosophy thing. The API allows you to build photoshop or matlab apps it's just the Metro language for UX is not suited for such apps. Metro is about simplification and content without chrome(lot of buttons, switches and options lying on the screen along with the content). The ribbon introduced in office 2003 was supposed to help simplify the UX for apps with lots of commands. It somehow succeeded but it's not enough for apps like photoshop or matlab or mathematica. I can't imagine myself writing a notebook in mathematica without having the buttons on the screen an cluttering my content. To be productive in such apps you need 1 click access to commands and options and this means lots of buttons on the app. And this is opposed to metro language which tries to get rid of any commands and present as few as possible only when needed.

Office 2013 is a productivity app like Photoshop, and yet it still follows the Metro design guidelines. Visual Studio 2012 also follows the Metro design guidelines.

They are referred to as "guidelines" for a reason, instead of "rules" or "requirements". You can have a complex app like Visual Studio and still follow the Metro guidelines.

 

[link68759]

Office 2013 is a productivity app like Photoshop, and yet it still follows the Metro design guidelines. Visual Studio 2012 also follows the Metro design guidelines.

They are referred to as "guidelines" for a reason, instead of "rules" or "requirements". You can have a complex app like Visual Studio and still follow the Metro guidelines.

Not really, office 2013 got a superficial skin to match the rest of 8, it doesn't particularly follow any of the modernui guidelines otherwise.
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[gpstrucker]

I'm looking forward to the evaluation release. Still don't understand why some people are so addicted to that stupid start button, but different strokes for different folks. I find the start screen much more efficient once it's arranged to my liking.