Win 8's Split Personality -- Redmondmag.com

Barney's Blog

Win 8's Split Personality

I was expecting Windows 8 to be a lot like Windows 7, which, quite frankly, was a lot like Vista -- minus the most glaring problems. But no, Windows 8 will have an interface much like a Windows Phone 7 and iPad. Scratch that. It will actually have two interfaces: that's akin to a mobile/tablet device OS and a second that is a more traditional interface.

The new GUI is cool, but I wonder how much it would clash with the older one. For instance, I once imagined blending the iPad with a Mac laptop. Then I realized they were two very different machines.

Maybe the same is true for Win 8. Will it feel odd to switch back and forth between two very different systems? I guess time will tell.

Here are a few more details of the upcoming OS, which emerged from a recent speech and demo: Win 8 will run across phones, tablets, laptops and mega PCs. When it runs on an ARM-based device it won't run older apps such as Win 7 and Vista programs, despite what a Microsoft exec recently argued.

Many of the ideas came from Apple such as selling Win 8 apps through an Apps Store and having a touch-driven interface.

Are you looking forward to the new OS? Lay it on us, string bean, at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on 06/03/2011 at 1:18 PM

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