Metro is the most palpable example of user interface innovation that Microsoft built into Windows since the release of Windows 95.
A new platform as well as the medium facilitating a new interaction model for Windows users, Metro is much more than just UI.
It’s key to catalyzing new user experiences powered by immersive applications in the Redmond company’s chromeless next-generation Windows operating system.
And it’s critical in bringing tangible form to the marriage of concepts such as graphical user interface (GUI) and natural user interface (NUI), enabling users to interact with the Windows client like they have never done before.
I had the chance to play with the
Samsung Windows 8 Developer Preview PC, the device that Microsoft handed off to developers at BUILD, for over a day.
I’ll say this, it’s easy to fall in love with Windows 8 Metro, especially on such a powerful devices.
Yes,
Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 Milestone 3 is far from perfect, and I’d expect nothing else from an M3 release.
But when I say that Metro is still embryonic, I don’t necessarily refer to the stage it reached in the development process of Windows 8.
Let me put it this way. I see Metro much as the equivalent of the Windows 95 UI, since Microsoft itself invited this comparison.
It took the software giant a few years and a number of Windows releases to perfect the user interface to the level it reached in Windows 7. In fact, that old UI will continue to evolve, since the desktop still has an important role to play in Windows 8, as the company stressed at BUILD.
Windows 8 is Metro’s Windows 95, it will certainly bring it to life and support its future growth. And I’m as sure that the world has yet to see the full potential of Metro just as I’m sure that icons are dead and tiles are the future.
Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 Milestone 3 (M3) is available for download here.
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