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Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC

By | June 1, 2011, 5:30pm PDT

Microsoft showed off a first public glimpse of the planned user interface for its Windows 8 operating system at the AllThingsD conference on June 1. Here’s what it looks like:

There were some surprises in Windows President Steven Sinofsky’s demo tonight. And there were some confirmations of previously leaked information — including the Windows 8 codename (which Sinofsky finally used, rather than “Windows Next.”)

Microsoft showed a demo of what’s been called the “immersive UI.” It looks like the Windows Phone UI and uses the live tile metaphor to display applications and make the underlying Windows operating system touch-centric. But this UI isn’t going to be the interface only on tablets (from what I could tell from the live blogs I was reading from the event, which wasn’t streamed or broadcast). Instead, this immersive UI is the new start screen for all versions of Windows 8: The tablet versions, the laptop/notebook/netbook versions and the desktop PC versions. Users will be able to switch between this UI and a more conventional Windows Aero type interface, it seems.

Microsoft execs said tonight that Microsoft is going to provide developers with application programming interfaces (APIs) and a software development kit (SDK) that will allow them to create Windows 8 tablet applications in HTML and/or JavaScript. Sinofsky and others didn’t mention Silverlight or XNA at all, other than to say (when asked) that the Internet Explorer 10 browser that will be part of Windows 8 will support the Silverlight plug-in.

Sinofsky didn’t differentiate in his demo tonight any differences between applications that will be supported on Intel x86 or ARM versions of Windows 8 PCs and tablets. He did reiterate that Microsoft doesn’t plan to add any kind of compatibility layer to enable legacy Windows apps to run on ARM-based PCs and tablets, however. He also didn’t volunteer information on any of the other new features beyond the UI that will be part of Windows 8.

Sinofsky also didn’t share any update on the delivery target for Windows 8. CEO Steve Ballmer indicated last week that Microsoft was planning to release the next version of Windows in 2012. Nor did anyone ask whether Microsoft plans to deliver Windows 8 ARM-based tablets before (or after) x86-based Windows 8 PCs. (I am assuming he wouldn’t have answered if anyone did.)

Microsoft also opened up registration for its renamed Professional Developers Conference, now known as Build, as of June 1. The Build conference, slated for September 13 to 16 in Anaheim, Calif., will be focused primarily (though not exclusively) around Windows 8.

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Topics

Phone, PC, Microsoft Windows Phone, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Tablets, Operating Systems, Notebooks, Software, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.

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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
makrekwe92-24353651768719183073778865341807 10th Nov
doahoc,good post!
View in thread
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
vhaakmat 1st Jun
Mary Jo, according to one transcript, he did say that Silverlight would be supported on the desktop
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Contributr
Silverlight
Mary Jo Foley 1st Jun
Yes... The question is whether and how apps developed using Silverlight (like WP7 apps) will run on Win8. That is still unanswered... leaving many SL devs very uneasy. Thanks. MJ
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I'd rather see a push to HTML5/JavaScript than Flash or Silverlight. [nt]
olePigeon 1st Jun
[nt]
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They'd need a browser with HTML5/JS support
Richard Flude 1st Jun
quite frankly IE's the only browser we aren't developing in HTML5 for, it's support being so poor.

Surprising they'd be pushing it at all, expect when you read the articles than they're nothing more than press releases and thought bubbles. MS must be becoming desperate, it's so far off the pace.
  • Flagged
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Rich Miles 1st Jun
@Mary Jo Foley

Why would a Silverlight dev be uneasy? Worst case scenario it works just like it does on Windows 7. The probable scenario given Windows Phone is that it will work better.

In fact, .NET developers -- unless they use massive amounts of "unsafe" code -- should not suffer from the same legacy issues described in the ARM vs. x86 discussion.

Frankly, the HTML5 tooling in Visual Studio/Expression doesn't hold a candle to Silverlight tooling. When it does, Silverlight devs won't care.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
tonymcs@... 1st Jun
@Richard Flude

Perhaps you would be better trying it than theorising Richard. We've had no trouble with HTML 5 in IE 9. The same cannot be said about FF, Chrome etc as their HTML5 support is patchy at best. Apple's however, is a standing joke as they didn't implement the autoplay for the audio and video tags, probably to restrict Web app developement.

Since I have to make sure our web apps function in all browsers and OSs, Richard, my experience tells me IE is the best.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Futurix 2nd Jun
@Mary Jo Foley
A major new feature in Silverlight 5 is the ability to have nearly all of the functionality that was previously only available out-of-browser actually inside the browser - I can imagine that was added in anticipation of Windows 8.
Add to that nearly 100% compatibility of Silverlight on WP7 and desktop (I already have an app that runs nearly unchanged on WP7 and desktop Windows) and it does not sound bad anymore.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
jessiethe3rd 2nd Jun
@Mary Jo Foley //Build - that's when things will become clear. This is a preview not a deep dive.
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Silverlight is dead in Windows 8
gjafg 1st Jun
It's obvious from Sinofsky's evasive answer that Silverlight apps won't run in Windows 8 (apart from simple browser support).

All those apps people developed for Windows Phone 7 will now be junked. Why?

Every person and their dog knows that Microsoft is moving to a 'unified core'. That is, the same OS core for Desktop PC, Tablet and Phone. Windows 8 will replace the stop-gap Windows Phone 7, but those Silverlight apps won't carry across.

Sorry guys, all that wasted time with Windows Phone 7. Oh well, it didn't sell anyway.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Futurix 2nd Jun
@gjafg He clearly said "it will still run on the desktop" in addition to the browser part.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
rmark@... 2nd Jun
@gjafg You are totally wrong, they will carry across. That is why they run on top of .NET.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
vhaakmat 2nd Jun
@gjafg
I can see that yo're not a dev. You should know better that Silverlight is based on .NET. And that makes it portable to whatever platform MS decides to run next. Unlike Apple or Google, who's iPad/Android tablet doesn't run even 1 MacOS/Win32 app, at least MS is showing us a way how we can achieve maximum portability without too much rewrite. .NET is 10 years old (or older) and if you still build your recent app purely using C or C++, yes, then you have a lot of retooling to do. Not so if it is a Silverlight, WPF or .NET app. So please go and check your facts first, before posting comments that just doesn't make sense.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
xnederlandx 3rd Jun
@gjafg
IMO, why get Windows Phone 7 apps to run on a desktop?
One's a phone, the other's a PC.
Don't try making a phone app run on a PC (like making an iOS app run on Mac OSX).
They should keep development seperated or else you might end up with a big mess. (And how will Windows Phone apps appear on one of these different screen sizes?)
The people developing for Windows Phone 7 are not junked... I expect silverlight support to continue, and a similiar platform to be also available for Windows 8 app development (XAML with C#/C++, perhaps?).
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
upinson 28th Sep
@gjafg
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
upinson 11th Oct
@vhaakmat Pulauweb Web Hosting Murah Indonesia
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Luddite24 1st Jun
Windows 8 is just more junk and a another fine example of how to waste your time
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
pinkfloydhighhopes 2nd Jun
@Luddite24
Yup so right u r
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
jessiethe3rd 2nd Jun
@Luddite24 LONG LIVE THE ABACUS!
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
vhaakmat 2nd Jun
@jessiethe3rd
I couldn't answer that bone-headed remark any better happy
@Luddite24, now go back to your DR-DOS game....
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
rshol Updated - 1st Jun
That UI is as crappy on the desktop as Gnome 3 or Unity. Why are developers insisting that desktops/laptops have the same interface as phones/tablets? That's as bad as insisting the reverse. So I guess we can expect the same crap from Lion. Its mass lunacy.

Looks sorta like LCARS.
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I would not say is a crappy as Unity
wackoae 1st Jun
@rshol Sorry, but Unity is garbage. Even if I don't like the UI, I still can't claim that is as crappy as Unity.

No matter how "ugly" anybody can make a window manager, I don't think it can ever get as crappy as Unity and Gnome 3.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
jf79 1st Jun
@rshol Nah, Lion won't be going to the tablet UI extreme like Win8 is. Thank god!
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
jeremychappell 2nd Jun
@rshol I totally agree with you (as far a s Windows goes, while I don't like Unity, I'm still agnostic about GNOME 3 - it's so different I'm still not sure if I like it or not, even after a week).

This is exactly what I was afraid Microsoft would do. The baby seems to have gone with the bath water.

The multicolour tiles are hard to glance, and I think on large displays the effect will be overpowering.

In the commentary the man calls the new chromeless applications "Windows 8 Applications", and the applications running in the Aero UI "Windows 7 Applications" - does he mean that Aero is some kind of "compatibility mode"? Will we see Aero "go away" over time?!

No matter what the effect of these radically different UIs butted up against each other is horribly jarring.

Now technically, it's clever - the animations are "wicked smooth", there are some nice graphical flourishes. On a smaller display maybe parts even make sense. But no matter what the man says, on a desktop, with a mouse, this is going to be miserable, making big sweeping mouse gestures all day is going to get old in a hurry. Can anyone really imagine using this on a system with a nice 30" panel, keyboard and mouse?

It kinda looks like a "cartoon computer" - fun for all of about 10 minutes. Let's hope you can stick in Aero - don't mind the login/lock screen being like this (one soon gets past that - and widgets there are fine) but having "cartoon IE" next to Aero Word (living in fear of the new "cartoon Word" being put on the machine) makes me feel quite unwell.

Can't talk about Lion - under NDA.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Theseus 1st Jun
I'm no Microsoft basher or anything, but man, that UI would look awful on a desktop or laptop screen.

I mean, giant colored boxes, with Twitter and Facebook updates, a giant weather box, and a big-ass 'Store' icon?

WTH did Microsoft just do to Windows???

This seems like a terribly flawed idea.....
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Pete "athynz" Athens 1st Jun
@Theseus I would hope that this would be something that could be turned off in the settings and allow the user to run the Aero or Classic GUIs... otherwise I think I'll stick with Windows 7.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
rumad4it 1st Jun
@Theseus
The tiles can all be resized. I enjoy live tiles. And you can turn it off, so what's the complaint?
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I hope MSFT is not missing the point -- again.
voltrarian Updated - 2nd Jun
@Theseus
I agree.
One UI does not fit all. Or: Their idea of what a good UI is, does not fit all. Therefore, the implicit solution is to allow for SKINNING the UI to allow manufacturers the ability to uniquely optimize Windows for their particular device.

If MSFT thinks it will go ahead and again impose its idea of a great new, singular UI on the world and that this is essence of their solution -- they are missing the point -- again.

It wasn't the UI that MSFT got wrong. It was their obsessive imposition of a UI which overshadowed the fixing the annoyances of slow performance (in Vista). It wasn't that the hardware wasn't ready for Windows tablets. It was their bloating of the OS (as well as anti-virus/scans/IO access inefficiencies/too many processes running all at once, etc...), which caused higher than necessary CPU requirements, and massive drags on battery life.

The internals of the OS are one of the reasons why MSFT has lagged behind the more efficient OS behind the iPad. Windows is a resource hog, and automatically eats up any gains in hardware such that responsiveness gains from hardware/CPU are soaked up by ever increasing complexity and more background processes and IO access from the Windows OS.

Low power CPUs from Intel will again struggle in next gen devices causing sluggish responsiveness, as the Windows OS will hog resources of the low power hardware, while making the product more expensive for consumers by requiring higher priced hardware resources.

Microsoft should repeat to themselves "Do more with less."
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UI
jetsethi 1st Jun
I'm seeing a lot of complaints about the UI. But I don't see what's so bad about it. It's a tablet focused thing, no? Don't tables have big touch screens? Also, on a desktop there is also the option to switch between it and the Aero UI. So what was the problem again?
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
FlatbushE21 1st Jun
@jetsethi
No problem just the usual Microsoft hate.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
jeremychappell 2nd Jun
@jetsethi In the commentary the man described the Tiled (Metro - right?) applications as "Windows 8 Applications" and the Aero applications as "Windows 7 Applications", so a reasonable conclusion is that we're moving from Aero to this Tiled (Metro?) UI...

Now this is just a demo, and he might not have meant that, but IF he meant that, then I'm quite worried.

This isn't "Microsoft hate", I jut hope we've reached the wrong conclusion.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Grayson Peddie 1st Jun
I would love to have the Immersive/Aero kind of Windows shell-- something that is more Aero-like, or maybe KDE4-ish with a Glassified/Auro-G theme applied to it (not for QT applications, but for panels and widgets, even Search and Launch containment. Speaking of Search and Launch, I'd like a combination of the three. Sure, I won't be able to have a global menu bar that takes the place of the task bar, but I can dream, can I?

Of course, I do care more about applications and I care second for the operating system. I mean, I really prefer a ribbon bar of Office 2007, regardless of an operating system that I currently use, whether it be Windows or Kubuntu.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Grayson Peddie 1st Jun
Does Microsoft have anything for Assistive Technology/Accessibility department? Windows 7's Zoom feature is an improvement of Windows Vista, but in KDE 4.6 of Kubuntu, I can switch from propertional to centered to make it easier to navigate around my desktop.

It'd be nice for Windows 8 keyboard to have intelligence when the zoom feature is used for tablets so that a visually impaired user can type using a touchscreen in a tablet.

In the "Immersive" UI shell, can a visually impaired user choose to display less, but bigger tiles shown on the screen?

In my personal opinion, I think that Windows users will be confused by Windows 8 having two versions: a tablet and a netbook/notebook/desktop version. This is just me, since I am very tech-savvy when it comes to computers, Windows, Linux, etc. To me, I really think it makes sense to just have one edition of Windows for home/mobile users, one edition of Windows for businesses, AND an "Ultimate" edition of Windows which includes Home and Business features of Windows.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Alan Smithie Updated - 2nd Jun
@Grayson Peddie

Looks like Unity, but aimed at children.

I'm with you on KDE, it's the best desktop UI at the moment.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
xnederlandx 3rd Jun
@Grayson Peddie
But there is only one version (or did you say that)?
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WTF?
xp-client 1st Jun
So the powerful shell metaphor (taskbar, Start menu and desktop) is reduced to this tile ****???????????????????? Unbelievably bad for the larger desktop screen.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
bitcrazed 2nd Jun
@anonymuos - "Unbelievably bad for the larger desktop screen" ... in which case you can choose to turn off the new tile UI.
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Just think where we would be..
sismoc 1st Jun
Just think where we would be if Windows 8 had been released instead of Vista! Making the jump from XP to the immersive UI would have put the softies ahead of the curve instead of behind the eight ball.

There is nothing technologically difficult about the immersive UI that could not have been done 5 years ago. Hardware manufacturers would have quickly build devices to take advantage of the features in the new O/S.

So much time protecting the Windows/Office legacy product line. So little time being an industry leader.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Earthling2 1st Jun
@sismoc 5 years ago CPUs were power-hungry, LCD monitors were more expensive than CRTs, touch screens were non-existent. There were no netbooks and no iPhones. MacBook Pros with Intel CPUs appeared in 2006. Many PCs and laptops were incapable of running Windows Aero UI becaouse of poor integrated GPUs.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
sismoc 2nd Jun
@Earthling2

The iPhone was introduced on January 9, 2007.
Vista was released on On January 30, 2007.

The hardware was ready. Microsoft wasn't.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
csifreak 1st Jun
You people are dumb asses! Did you actually watch the video and understand it? You can switch back to Aero theme. Those were just apps used for tablets.
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Tiles OK but
Nihon8888 1st Jun
What happens when you drill into the underlying app? Did they show any apps supporting a touch interface? It would be good for example to see a prototype of OneNote working with a touch interface. If tiles are just a shell for supporting a touch friendlier desktop and MS doesn't bring a touch friendly Office at the same time then MS will miss the boat on Tablets again and will definitely struggle to keep up. Touch friendly Office for the Tab could really push MS to a leadership position.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
rumad4it 1st Jun
@PedroTabs
Onenote already works with touch interfaces. All windows phones of course, and it was working on my old Toshiba tablet I purchased 5 years ago.
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This looks awesome.
MSFTWorshipper 1st Jun
No one can accuse MSFT of copying iOS! Since Windows 8 is going to be a full OS, I wonder how it can possibly have the same power draw as an iPad.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
StandardPerson 2nd Jun
@MSFTWorshipper: Oh no, there's no similarity between Windows 8 and OS X at all. Windows 8 will finally have HTML5/JS apps, which is nothing like the OS X Dashboard!

A Windows version of the Mac's long-reviled (at ZDnet) app store will appear on Windows 8. Will you hate it on Windows too?

Sadly, MS are too thick to understand that you cannot run the same, full-strength OS on tablets and smaller devices and on the desktop. Apple clearly understand the need for two OSes for these two, very different environments.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
Cylon Centurion 1st Jun
That. Was. Awesome! shocked
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
kenosha77a 1st Jun
@Cylon Centurion

It did look impressive.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
pinkfloydhighhopes 2nd Jun
@Cylon Centurion
Can you explain me how.. it is so ugly
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
windowseat Updated - 1st Jun
Certainly, parts of the Windows 8 demo looked very impressive. But it raises a lot of questions that I kept waiting for Walt to ask:

Where's the middle ground? Large screen devices with OTA connectivity and all day battery life? Are we to believe that Windows8 battery management will be so good and adaptable that it can handle such a range of devices?

What about instant-on and resume? Six seconds just doesn't seem good enough for some type of devices.

That large thump you heard eariler today was the jaw dropping of Silverlight and WP7 developers. Because obvious HTML5 + JS is the future cross-platform play for browser, Windows 8 and WP7 or WP8?
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
tonymcs@... 1st Jun
@windowseat

I own a Acer Aspire over a year old convertible tablet with Win 7 - 7-8 hours battery life.

Don't think it will be any problem for Win 8.
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
pinkfloydhighhopes 2nd Jun
@tonymcs@...
What a fool use a Windows tablet (what tablet). Have u lost ur mind.. no one wants blue screen of death on his fancy device..
  • Flagged
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RE: Windows 8: More than just Windows Phone on your PC
makrekwe92-24353651768719183073778865341807 10th Nov
doahoc,good post!

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