Microsoft has a new slogan to go with their upcoming operating system: “Windows reimagined.” After watching Steven Sinofsky’s keynote address at the BUILD developer conference held last week, all I can say is “WOW!”
During the address, viewers got to witness Windows 8 in action (an early developer build, anyway). If Microsoft did nothing else to improve Windows 8 and launched this developer build tomorrow, it would probably be an instant success. If you’ve ever used the Windows Phone 7, the UI will be very familiar. The live tiles are back, and better than ever. Very modern and sleek, the interface provides the user with all their important apps, photos, and more within a simple swipe or tap of the finger. Not a fan of the billboard-style flood of information? Windows 8 is fully customizable to mimic the more static Windows 7 design.
Whatever your choice of layout may be, one of the greatest feats the Windows team has accomplished is what happens behind the scene. Windows 7 is powerful but also requires a lot of power to run smoothly. Windows 8 boasts the same power and performance with a fraction of the resource gulping. “So what?” you may ask. “My iPad runs smoother than a greased up baby sliding down a butter slide on the back of a wet seal.” Ahh, but iOS isn’t a full operating system. You can’t just run the same full-blown Apple apps on your iPad. A Windows 8 tablet, however, will be able to run all the same apps a Windows desktop can.
Many other features can be seen in the full BUILD conference Keynote address. Also, it’s still very early in the development stage, and Microsoft is sure to have several surprise features up their sleeve. For those who are a little more daring and merely watching someone play around with new technology isn’t exciting enough, Windows has released the Windows 8 developer preview for the public to download and try out first-hand. I can’t wait to download it myself!
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