IMO, windows 8 is close, but it could be a lot better. I love the windows phone like UI **concept**, and I love the idea of the similarities between the different form factors, BUT the current release preview looks to me to be designed for content consumption not content creation. Where, for example, is My documents gone ?
There's some weird divides between "desktop" and "metro" that really only make sense to developer geeks who understand these are different runtime platforms: but forcing that differentiation onto consumers seems wrong to me. Why should they need to care if their app is "metro" or not? Why do running apps all appear when you hit alt+tab, but yet only one subset appears in the windows desktop taskbar, and another subset in the "metro" taskbar (nb the metro taskbar only shows one of the two apps that are running if one of them is docked) I think consumers' reaction will be mixed. Tablet users (especially those with windows phones) will like win 8. Existing users of win 7 that do a lot of content creation are more likely to have that initial negative reaction like Greg posted about, one that I've seen a lot of other people express too. I do believe it can be made a lot better. The problem to me seems it's more like running "metro" windows with traditional windows in a VM. There needs to be better integration.. I really strongly believe that with just a handful of changes the experience could be a lot better: 1. Make the start menu screen a pivot app with pivots that include "running" applications, "My Documents" . (maybe include recent, favourites etc). The "running" pivot pane would include all running apps as is currently in the ALT+TAB list. 2. Get rid of the metro left pane taskbar (no longer needed if (1) is implemented, and show all apps in the windows desktop taskbar 3. Allow metro apps to be run in windows !! That is, allow them to be run in a sizeable window alongside desktop apps. (via right click menu, and allow for that preference to be saved) 4. Allow for flexible docking. The current "docking" for metro apps is way too limited. 5. Include the start button on the desktop, and when pressed, show the metro start menu screen but show it as not quite full screen, so as it has the appearance of a window (eg top,left at 10, bottom and right in about 20 then add a bit of a drop shadow) There's probably more that could be done to improve integration eg why doesn't the DPI settings also update the metro settings instead today you have to change metro to "Large" separately and "Large" isn't the same slight magnification as 125% is; why isn't screen resolution in computer settings, instead you have to get to it via desktop or search for control panel etc. I like the idea of simplification but the current bits feel more like duplication. Anyway, I think win 8 is close, but all the good work done behind the scenes to make windows 7 better will be lost to negative reactions to the metro addition. I'm still hoping they will make some more changes but it doesn't look like it from the preview, instead it looks like they are rushing to market (realistically only four or so months left to make Christmas for retail devices). I haven't given up hope yet though; I'm hoping for a windows 8 mango release if worse comes to worse, but will still be sad to see so much negative reaction to the first release.
