Microsoft Windows 8 Preview

It's been a busy couple of weeks inTECH. With Computex, D9 and a Microsoft Partner Preview event occurring simultaneously and set to start on Monday we have Apple's WWDC and the E3 Expo.

As it's impossible for me to cover all the announcements, I plan to focus on just the stuff that really interests me, for the rest I suggest you head over to the usual reliable sources such as Engadget and This is my next.

With that said, I was keen to post an article on Windows 8, which Microsoft officially previewed at the D9 conference and then demonstrated in more detail at their partner preview event. We have already seen a decent amount of Windows 8, through leaked builds and documents, however this was the first time Microsoft have officially demonstrated it (including the new UI) and they didn't disappoint.

The most noticeable new feature of Windows 8 is the immersive UI, designed from the ground up for touch, but which also works with the keyboard and mouse. As you can see from the image below the immersive UI takes many design cues from Windows Phone 7, offering tiles instead of icons that automatically populate with new information.

Although this new UI looks like it will be major leap forward for "post PC" devices (tablets, etc), Microsoft appreciate that Windows needs to run on a variety of platforms, including the traditional PC, with a standard keyboard and mouse. Therefore you can quickly escape the immersive UI and jump back to your traditional desktop (Aero Interface). However, the cool part is that the immersive UI is always running, therefore you can seamlessly jump between the two and even run them side by side. Microsoft hopes this will give the user the best of both worlds, from a single operating system.

So with that introduction, I think the best way to fully understand Windows 8 is to jump straight to the video demonstration, which was captured at the Windows 8 Partner Preview event.

This first official preview of Windows 8 certainly caught me by surprise. I didn't expect to see such a polished new UI being demonstrated at this early stage in development. I think Microsoft were keen to get people understanding the concept of the immersive UI as soon as possible, as this is being positioned at the default UI for all device types (tablets and traditional PC's).

I have attempted to bullet point the key features shown in the demonstration, for those who don't have access to watch the video:

• Fast launching of apps from a tile-based Start screen, which replaces the Windows Start menu with a customizable, scalable full-screen view of apps.
• Live tiles with notifications, showing always up-to-date information from your apps.
• Fluid, natural switching between running apps.
• Convenient ability to snap and resize an app to the side of the screen, so you can really multitask using the capabilities of Windows.
• Web-connected and Web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript that have access to the full power of the PC.
• Fully touch optimized browsing, with all the power of hardware-accelerated Internet Explorer 10.

Overall this looks like a bold and interesting direction for Microsoft, that I for one am impressed they are willing to take. I also think it's interesting that they have stood by their decision to have one operating system to rule both the tablet and PC markets, especially considering their main rival Apple have currently positioned two distinct operating systems, with Mac OS X and iOS (although the iOS core is actually built from Mac OS X).

Microsoft have said the next time we will see Windows 8 officially will be at their BUILD conference in September. I predict that this event will coincide with the first public beta, leading towards the late 2012 predicted release date. So now that Microsoft have shown their hand, let's see how Apple will respond with Mac OS X and iOS at WWDC. Bring on Monday!