14 DAY TRIAL // Interactive live tiles are a new concept presented by Microsoft Research last year, and they are expected to debut in Windows 10 or in a future version of Windows, but the software giant has until now preferred to avoid discussing this project pretty much because it was still in its early days.
But Jerry Nixon, the Microsoft developer evangelist who brought us the news about “the last version of Windows,” revealed at Ignite that interactive live tiles were at the time in the works at the company and should debut sometime in the near future.
The main phrase here is “still in development,” so Windows 10 could actually launch without this feature in the summer of 2015 but could get it in a later update, possibly through the so-called Autumn Update that might be introduced in October.
How interactive live tiles work
Interactive live tiles will allow users to perform a number of tasks straight from the tile and without opening the apps themselves. For instance, if you’re listening to music with an app that has interactive live tile support, you can pause, play, and stop music straight from its tile, so it’s all faster and easier because the app itself doesn’t need to be launched again.
“Interactive tiles are the idea where I can go into my Start screen, see a tile, tap it, let’s say it’s a calculator, and it expands and all the numbers are there, so I can make some calculation or whatever I need and see what the value is. Then I can collapse the tile again, never having to go into the application,” Nixon explained.
“They’re in development,” he continued, explaining that the Microsoft Research project that we saw last year was only a concept of what they could look like when hitting the market.
Needless to say, interactive live tiles would make the Start a lot more helpful on both PCs and phones, and would give live tiles a better chance to succeed, as many users still want to get rid of them and stick to the familiar Windows 7 Start menu with a cleaner layout.
You can watch the interactive live tile description in the video below starting at 14:00.