So far, the most exciting piece of news at the All Things Digital (D9) conference is the announcement and demo of Windows 8. Steven Sinofsky went on stage to talk about Microsoft and Windows. Surely he told some interesting things, but what really caught our eyes was the Windows 8 demo. It’s a completely rework and doesn’t look like Windows at all (sort of… I’ll talk more about this later). Above is the first demo posted by Microsoft to the general public.
Impressed? I was a bit. Not entirely surprising, though. For me, it was clear that the Windows Phone 7 would dictate the ways in terms of UI design, app design and app integration. Apple is moving on the same direction with OS X Lion – there’s a kind of ‘iOS-ization’ of Mac OS X going on and I’m sure we’ll see more of that at the WWDC next Monday. Back to Microsoft, it was clear that the Windows product would have to reinvent itself at some point, and the best way to go was towards the mobile platform.
I’m kinda happy with the way things turned to be. I like the Windows Phone 7 Metro interface and the way it integrates things (see the demos on YouTube). For me, it’s by far the best mobile device OS out there now in many ways. Of course, Apple’s ecosystem is still the best (and probably will be for a long time), but Microsoft is going on the right direction in this game and Windows plays a big role here, since it’s the tool Microsoft is using for convergence.
Now, the bad stuff. First of all, why the hell is Microsoft using the old Windows under the hood? Sure, this means backward compatibility with your previous apps and games, but also brings together all the viruses, spyware, crapware, bloatware and other stupid things that we don’t want in our PCs. A compatibility mode (or even a VM) for the old apps would have been more than enough. Second, in order to make this new cool UI work, Microsoft must find a way to ‘force’ developers to use it. Otherwise this will end up as a luxury dashboard and that really isn’t the point. Same thing with the option of running it as an old-school desktop. For crying out loud, this ruins the purpose of this new thing. Okay, people usually don’t like change, but change is the only way to create progress. If there are some people who will use only a desktop-metaphor interface, let them rot in the dungeons of Windows 7 (or even XP!) and so be it. It’s a sacrifice that is worth making. Convergence and new UI paradigms are the future, and the desktop as we know it is already dead, just waiting for someone to bury it. Microsoft may be losing the chance of doing it.
Now, one thing that also caught my attention yesterday was a handful of articles saying that Microsoft shouldn’t call this new product ‘Windows’. I strongly disagree. For the good or for the bad, Windows is a brand too strong to just throw away. Microsoft has only to gain unifying its platforms under the Windows banner.
So, let’s wait for more demos and the developers conference in the fall to come to a final conclusion. For now, it’s looking good. And here’s an Apple fan telling you that!