14 DAY TRIAL // One of the great features the Microsoft decided to include inside Windows 8 was the ability of Metro Applications to take advantage of the performance of Internet Explorer 10 when displaying web content.
Microsoft explains that web content will always be JIT compiled and hardware-accelerated when it comes to Metro style apps.
Windows 8 will be one of the few platforms that will offer a similar experience when viewing web content either in the browser or in other applications. Have a look at the chart below for more on the matter.
The testing was conducted on iPad: 1st Gen, iOS 5.0.1, Windows 8: Developer Preview, Dell Optiplex 745, 64-bit OS, and Kindle Fire v1. More on the testing configuration can be found here.
“Other platforms do not provide the same level of performance in apps. For example, Cocoa apps on iOS offer significantly worse JavaScript performance (via the UIWebView control) than the same content running in Safari,” Andy Zeigler, senior program manager, Internet Explorer, explains in a blog post.
“These Cocoa apps do not enjoy JIT compilation, and these apps cannot show and use Web content the same way the browser on the system can.”
There are applications that embed HTML in an attempt to deliver a richer and up to date experience for consumers, Andy Zeigler explains.
“For example, the developer of a restaurant guide app might want to include a live map showing the locations of the list of restaurants the user is choosing from. If you write an app on iOS, common actions like panning and zooming the map will run twice as slow in an app compared with Safari,” he says.
Web content can be easily included in a Metro app for Windows 8. All that a developer would need to do for that is to include an <iframe> element or a WebView control, and will then take advantage of the IE 10 performance.
“With Metro style apps, it’s easy to integrate many existing Web services seamlessly into your app. It’s also possible to build new services for your app that let you deliver dynamic HTML content without having to update your application,” Andy Zeigler continues.
All the benefits of IE10 will automatically arrive to an application that sports included Web content without the need to do extra work. JavaScript code remains fast with JIT compilation, and the app will use the GPU to accelerate HTML graphics.
You can download the Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 M3 from Softpedia via this link.
Internet Explorer 10 is available for download from Softpedia as well.
