Here’s my a bit over a week Windows 8 start menu. I use it on a 12” laptop with trackpad and mouse. It’s great. No, really.
It’s a lot of change too. I like change now. When I was a kid, I did not. I remember seeing Windows 3.1 and being like, “this is lame. What’s the point. Command line or GTFO”. I grew up and I no longer hate something right before really trying whatever I read hear see. In my experience the big changes with Win8 are:
– Focus on full screen
Very destabilizing for someone used to have 20+ tabs open and a dozen apps running front and back. I know it’s not healthy or that efficient. I know I procrastinate a lot with all these windows, one click away from a lot of distraction. The focus on full screen is just that, killing this procrastination of wandering between icons, browsing between apps. In Windows 8, you do what the app launched does and then you press the win key to go back to the start screen, open another and do something else. There’s an implacable efficiency, no “dead time” in the way you move around these tiles with information/full screen apps. Very weird but good. It feels less stressful. No “notification hamster” feeling.
– Horizontal scrolling
After years and years of reading lists like in our browsers, it is awkward. Lists are great to scan rapidly and I excel at that so when apps push for horizontal scrolling a lot, I’m no big fan. It might be better with a touch screen though. The interesting part is that I take more time to read this way and if I’m not in search mode it’s more pleasant, no doubt. Like reading a magazine. But when searching for immediate info, I’m too used to lists (I’m using ClassicRSS for a reason). No biggie though, there are apps for all tastes. I expect different apps to aim at trackpad/mouse and touch.
– Internet Explorer 10
I swear, I used Chrome from day one when it came out and never looked back (well, I did use another Chromium based one with no Google tracking). So many habits and shortcuts. Well IE 10 is good enough to make me want to open links in it. with the charm bar, sharing is easier and more fluid than ever. IE 10 is indeed fast and the rendering has something, not that Chrome’s rendering is bad but IE has a little something more, sharper. I’m still switching on/off with my desktop one but IE 10 is gaining on me. Proof is I installed some ad blocking rules and can’t wait for an AdBlock add-on. A webkit, non-tracking my ass browser in the store would be nice though. Let’s keep the competition on.
– Apps
They kind of replace web sites a lot. To search something on Wikipedia I was used to open a new tab and directly use Wikipedia’s search engine with a shortcut. Extremely efficient. Now I can go back to the start screen, click on the Wikipedia app and use win + q to search within. Not as fast but not slow, definitely more “natural”, less “program-y” I don’t know. With Reddit though, way better to use an app (dark theme, fetching faster than in one of way too many Chrome tabs). The look and feel in apps are usually awesome and slick. Sometimes it’s too much. There’s a lot of design work to be done in win 8 apps and it’s exciting. The so called modern UI is three years old now and still feels like the future more than anything I’ve seen around. So readable and clean.
There are some stupid things like not having a consistent “going back” esc button experience. It drives me crazy. Or the new file explorer with its weird arrow to go up the hierarchy, which does the same thing than clicking on the folder’s name but it made a lot of people happy because it’s “like XP”.
It must be really hard to make something to both attract people ready to change and get better workflows and people who don’t want to change, even if it was making their lives a little better/easier.
I think Microsoft did well looking at the challenge’s size. Also, Surface -even RT- makes a lot, a lot more sense to me now. I can’t wait for these Win8 20” tablets and my favorite audio apps on them. My almost carpal tunnel’d right wrist using the mouse would appreciate.
TL;DR: Get it while it’s cheap, at least for performance enhancements if learning new, cool ways to do things is like punching yourself in the crotch area.