The news might have been out in the wild for quite some time but today, it is finally official: Windows 8 is real. Previewed to the public for the first time ever, Microsoft earlier today has shed some light on the new operating system that are designed and optimized for touch-based devices.
As you can see, the existence of Start screen above is one of the major differences that separate the existing Windows 7 and the new Windows 8. The long-time Windows Start menu will soon be replaced by the screen which uses Live Tiles concept just like those on Windows Phone 7’s Metro UI. These tiles will provide users with notifications and up-to-date information from the apps that are installed in his or her device.
Microsoft also previewed couple of other features in the new operating system such as:
- Fluid, natural switching between running apps.
- Convenient ability to snap and resize an app to the side of the screen, so you can really multitask using the capabilities of Windows.
- Fully touch-optimized browsing, with all the power of hardware-accelerated Internet Explorer 10.
The Redmond giant has also confirmed that the new Windows 8 still works with traditional mouse and keyboard. Not to forget, existing features from Windows 7 like Windows Explorer and Desktop will still be around. Microsoft also stated that the new Windows 8 will be featuring a new development platform that runs on standard WebKit technology, so developers are able to create apps through HTML 5 and JavaScript. The new operating system works on both x86 and ARM-based architectures without the need to develop separate apps for each architectures.
All the excitement (or frowning...who knows?) aside, there is still no confirmed release date for the new Windows 8 which is pretty obvious from the amount of stuff that Microsoft revealed today. However, the company promised that there are still more to come in the near future.
No comments:
Post a Comment