Finally after a few weeks of mulling over it, starting a full written review then binning it for a video review, recording that review only to find that it ended up being a screenshot of a mainly static desktop with me ranting in the background for 10 minutes, I’ve decided to write my opinions of Windows 8. Instead of doing a review of the pros and cons, which seems irrelevant cause the OS isn’t finished yet, I’ve decided to write about what I feel needs to change from the consumer preview to final release.
Now that I’ve had the Windows 8 Consumer preview running on my main system for just under a month, I’ve come up with 3 things that need to change in order for Windows 8 to not only be successful, but be truly revolutionary operating system.
1) Unify the Internet Explorer experience and only have one version
This is just one of the many areas where Windows 8 seems to have a personality disorder of appeasing traditional desktop users and trying to remain relevant in the post PC era. Launching Internet Explorer from the Metro UI will bring up the above version of the program, with a tablet friendly UI and no plugins available (I.E no Flash playback). However if you navigate through to the desktop, you get the standard Internet Explorer app link in the taskbar, which will bring up the traditional Internet Explorer that you’re used too.
The thing is, I would happily use the Metro version of IE on a desktop. It’s clean, simple, has great tab management and the UI disappears when you don’t need it, giving you a full screen browsing experience. I’m sure they can find a way for addons like flash to work with the experience for those who want that, however with many online content sites already migrating to HTML5, even this isn’t such a big deal as it was a few years ago.
2) Get a unified, simple multitasking system
For some reason, Microsoft has implemented a recent apps menu when you move your mouse to the top left of the screen. The biggest problem with this is that it only seems to list Metro apps you have opened, not any traditional desktop apps (like Chrome). In the same way, the traditional desktop taskbar won’t show Metro apps. Also one of the benefits of Metro is to pin your most used apps on the home screen, which renders a recently used list almost useless.
At this stage, the only ways to bring up a list of currently open Metro & desktop apps are via Alt + Tab or the new Task Manager, both of which haven't changed much looks wise since Windows XP and which can’t be quickly accessed via touch screen input.
I feel the recent apps view should be used as a task switching area for currently open Metro and desktop apps. It would be beneficial if it functions like Android’s multitasking menu where you could swipe icons left or right to close the apps, but there maybe some patent issues there.
Either way, they need a better multitasking system.
3) Get rid of the traditional desktop mode (..but not the backwards compatibility)
Obviously, the big change for Windows 8 is the Metro UI and the removal of the traditional start menu and button in desktop mode. But now that the start menu is gone, a majority of the reason to have the traditional desktop available is no longer present.
The taskbar is no longer efficient for managing open apps since it doesn’t show Metro apps at all and the time and notification areas icons can be accessed easily via the Metro Interface. Consistently I would find myself looking at the desktop interface and thinking to myself “what’s the point of having this here?”.
Now some of you may say this is crazy, but think about it cause you also probably think Metro as a whole is a big mistake and you’re going to stick with Windows 7. So why should Microsoft compromise the experience for everyone else to try and please those who aren’t going to use it anyway?
Right now Metro feels like a elaborate skin, which doesn’t give it the credit it deserves. There’s also no reason that they couldn’t keep backwards program compatibility, just hide the desktop.
So that’s my views on Windows 8 and what needs to change. Unfortunately, I don’t think Microsoft will implement most, if any of my suggestions here. Which is a shame. I want to like Windows 8 and it will be good on a tablet, but at the moment it just doesn’t work on a desktop. Which is why after I post this, I’ll be reinstalling Windows 7.