A screenshot of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 at Microsoft's 2011 BUILD Conference. Image: Microsoft
We’ve been hearing about Windows 8 for months, and today we can finally tell you it’s got a smart tile-based user interface, robust developer options and what is essentially a complete revamp of Windows 7 to bring Microsoft’s new OS into the mobile era.
Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 during the keynote at its BUILD developer conference Tuesday morning. Executives showed off the operating system’s versatility on a variety of mobile and desktop platforms, pointing out features like cloud-based photo sharing, streamlined contact management and the Metro UI overhaul. The OS is Microsoft’s first earnest push into the tablet space and it looks, at first glance, anyway, like it’s a true competitor to mobile operating systems like Android and iOS.
We got an early preview of Windows 8 earlier this summer. The OS is designed for PCs and tablets and uses a live tile-based touch UI with multitasking capabilities. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hinted that we’d be getting Windows 8 tablets next year. As promised, everyone attending BUILD got a free tablet.
Microsoft has until recently been tentative about entering the mobile space, and not without warrant — Microsoft’s legacy is software built specifically for the PC. Whereas iOS burst on the scene in 2007, followed a short time later by Android, Windows Phone 7 arrived in late 2010. Microsoft’s last OS,Windows 7, was clearly designed for the PC experience rather than the tablet experience.
So far, it looks like Windows 8 is making a big splash, particularly with developers. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve learned Windows 8 offers.
Overview and Hardware
Two major changes have been made to Windows 8: it improves on Windows 7 directly (which means that anything that runs on Windows 7 will be compatible with Windows 8), and the company has rethought what Windows can be.
One of the central themes of today’s keynote announcements was Windows 8 is a reimagining of Windows, from the user experience all the way down to the chipset.
Developers at the conference received one of 5,000 Samsung Windows 8 tablets. The tablet includes an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer, as well as NFC and built-in AT&T 3G. It’s also got a tool that shows you how much data your using, which is pretty cool. The slate pairs with a docking station and a wireless keyboard. From close-ups and screenshots during the presentation, it appears to have a 120 gig Intel G2 solid state drive. (Also noteworthy is that the developer tablet is basically a Windows 7 slate skinned to run Windows 8 — it’s not actually the first ‘Windows 8 device.’)
Windows 8 can run on ARM or x86 architecture, and Microsoft showed off its OS running on multiple devices including ASUS and Acer ultrabooks, an Intel tablet and a Toshiba all-in-one setup. It’s interesting that Microsoft would choose to allow its OS to port to so many different devices, on different chipsets, with different screen sizes, particularly when we’ve watched Google struggle with Android’s ability to do that. But it looks like its user interface may be better suited to that task than Android’s.
Mark Rendle, principal software architect at Dot Net Solutions, really likes Microsoft’s Metro UI.
“It looks like they’ve scaled it up really well, and I like the way it fits to different screen sizes,” he said.
