8 traits of great Metro style apps

thanks for the videos!  Its appreciated!  Sad I couldn't go.

That's a lot of new things to think about!  I'm impressed that Microsoft has decided to take this approach to reinvisioning Windows.  Contracts sound like a great idea.  Can't wait to learn more about that. 

Who still uses silverlight. puff

just play in Firefox instead of Chrome.

This guy should have done the keynote - he's so much more fluent at showing off the core UI concepts of the OS.

Full screen in the Silverlight player would be nice. I am forced to stream the WMV.

Regarding notifications, I hope they reconsider them. Only having them in tiles would be a big problem for me - there needs to be a central location for them.

Finally, 3 years after iOS was launched, Apple is challenged. This was about time.

I think metro is the way to go, please forget the standard windows interface.

I think Metro is too noisy and provides too much distraction. I don't like it. Neither for work, nor for amusement.

I'm playing this video on an iOS device through HTML5.

Very good presentation. I liked how Jensen focussed on fundamentals of Metro style apps. Windows 8 looks exciting.

Great for touch applications.

But for my productive Desktop: No, thanks (too much wasted space).

Excellent talk Jensen Harris.

Thank you.

8 great traits.
I hope the first one isn't a like the trait of this video ... it doesn't work

Guys.. I really need a 6th star to rate thi session.

How is it that Microsoft can screw up an HTML5 video? Fails to play on Chromebook. Can't believe I even wasted my time coming to a Microsoft site. Fail, fail, fail. Thanks for living up to my expectations of MS.

@Klaus:Are you sure you know what is "busy"?  It is clean and works great on the Metro user interface.

Great talk and a very well thought out OS.

My one gripe that I've had since I first saw Metro and was hilarious to me in the video was in the beginning, 3:21, when Jensen pulled away the apps and showed that the OS without apps is "nothing"... Well, nothing except the word "Start" in the corner and his login name and pic in the other corner. Why? I'm the only user of my devices and even if I had multiple accounts, I don't need a constant reminder of who is logged in. And that word Start just aggravates me. Start doesn't do anything and it doesn't tell me anything. Why is it there?

This looks cool! looking forward to using this in the future and yeah excellent speech.

salam salut hay

Absolute crap. It's just what people have being doing with the web for years.

..........Only with some useless, bloated and very expensive development tools sold by Microsoft.

This talk was inspiring. Microsoft saw the problems with Windows apps, addressed them with Win8 Metro apps, and Harris laid it all out for us. I am motivated to get Windows 8 and start writing some apps. In fact, I'm doing Hanselman's VHD install of Win8, I'm going to port my Silverlight app (chavah.codeplex.com) to be a Metro app, maybe write an article about it.

Thanks for this talk. Really inspiring.

@Robert MacEwan: Google removed H.264 codec for HTML5 video in Chrome a while back, in favor of their VP8 codec and Ogg Theora codec. If you are able to instill an H.264 codec for your Chromebook the video will play.

They should add tooltips on the icons as it's not always obvious to know what an icon means and actually in Windows 8 Dev Preview there's no tooltips at all.

The same problem with iPad from Apple. If for obvious reason like fingers can't hover over an icon is a barrier than maybe at least holding the icon for a few seconds indicates to the system to show a tooltips ? Anything is possible but we need tooltips to explain what things are. Or maybe a ToolTip Icons in which there's a legend explaining every icons...

Question :

When I start IE 10 from the Metro UI and try to reach my Silverlight site, I'm presented with the box to install SL

I did but it's always the box that pop from there. However, if I go on IE 10 from the desktop, it reaches the site all right. What is the different between IE 10 started from the Metro UI and the one started from the Desktop ?

Question #2 :

How do you CLOSE an app ? I never saw a close button and they stands there behind the scene. Is there a way to close the apps you don't want in memory anymore ?

Question #3 :

When I start Blend 5 the only language I have is JavaScript, Where is C# ?

- How can a music player work? If all goes to susspend, I can never hear music with Windows 8.

- How will my computer work without Internet if all the apps decide that they need "the cloud" (And I need a live account to log-int, and those out-of-thin-air notifications)? [In fact, I have connection problems here, intermittency to be accurate. And there are places where there is no connection but windows used to work well].

- What are the hardware requirements of the developer preview?

- Is there a better place to get answers on the subject?

http://www.yerliveri.com thanks

Exclamation #1 :

Tiles are very great. Lots of potential yet they are hurting me with their very sharp corner. Make at least a few pixels rounded in every corner as yes they are alive and good contents but they look like I want to go away from them. With just a bit of shadow not too aggresive then sudently, the interface would have been more attractive then just extreme rectangular figures. Don't see this as a bad comment but the feeling I have personnaly.

Exclamation #2 :

Groups are interesting. Would be way more interesting having them surounded by thin lines with rounded corder a bit of corse with a background for the title as I hope we can change the background of the interface which will make things a little harder to read and see.

Marc: no plugins are supported in IE 10 from Metro!
What this means: no Silverlight!!

I know it's crazy, there are lots of Silverlight components that would be VERY useful and even indispensible within a Metro app... try to convince Microsoft to reconsider!

I really like the spirit and attitude behind this talk haha i like this new direction

Sadly, this and the other Build videos do not appear to play in the Chrome browser.

I had to watch this video a second time. Truly inspiring. Microsoft ought to have Jensen do the keynotes. The man has vision, a software philosophy, he's articulate, he's inspiring.

Thanks again for this marvelous talk. Positively inspiring.

@Chris:This is because Google is pushing the VP8 coded by not supporting the h.264 codec, both of which are a part of the HTML5 spec. IIRC you can get a plugin for it... or use Safari or IE

I think Jensen will be wrong about his prediction that all monitors will be touch.  It's just not comfortable to reach over the mouse and keyboard.

I think the apple model of using a touchpad as to simulate touching the screen is correct.

Guess what, I watched this video while downloading the developer preview at the same time, and...get this - they both ended within 1 minute of each other!!! That's wild!! It was like unreal!!

I'm running a TWC Cable modem @3.87Mbps DL

james, im watching this on a Windows 8, (dev oreview)

I like pancakes when they are wet.

TWO THUMBS UP!!

anyone got transcripts of this presentation by chance? Thanks

The right click - properties - bottom panel should have a close function for every app. That's the only thing that is missing,
a close button, to close the app. RightClick-Close. Too easy.

Will next years event be held in Anaheim again? I hope to be back in the area by then.

A year from the official release and Windows 8 is already a great operating system.

It will be a smash hit in my opinion.

Start Menu is now Start Page, it's that easy.

And if you are installing the Windows 8 developer build on a Virtual Machine, don't even think about giving it a fair evaluation.  You have got to put it on hardware to see how it works.  I tried it on a Virtual Machine and was very disappointed.  I tried it on a laptop and was blown away.

Beautiful job on the operating system and the UI.

Jensen Harris' presentation was the best of the show. Very interesting look into the reasoning behind Metro and Win 8 UI decisions. One bit of the presentation that I found funny yet disappointing was the demonstration of a Tile being tediously dragged across the screen with a mouse. It exemplified how Win 8 is not being optimized for mouse use. More time has to be spent on improving Win 8 Start screen for mouse users.

Great stuff! Very good performance - Metro is much much more than only a new design! 

Applause.

Great stuff!   Trolls make me laugh.  They contribute absolutely nothing to any platform.   They are like little runts with a chip on their shoulder because their contribution is nill and they constantly seek to discredit other platforms because of what they can't accomplish on their preferred platform.  

If your platform is grand, then you wouldn't have to try and disparage other platforms...you would just be busy doing some fantastic things with your platform and ecosystem. 

i think microsft has come with a great opperating system called windows 8...i wish i could get my hands on such a system like windows 8...i think microsft has come up with a opperating system that has out done anything they have come up with yet...it would really be nice to have such a opperating system like windows 8...it is amazing to see vidoes on windows 8 and have them explain how it works...i think people will really enjoy having windows8...

this is amazing. a big welcome to Microsoft and all engineers. great job. all the apps are beautiful and incredible.    

hello, i have a problem, the apps in my PC doesn't open and i dont know the reason. Help!!!

The new looks show all the work they have done but to compete with android and ios devices...I don't think it's as attractive to many users like windows7 phones was! I was hoping to see something more attractive with more customization system like android and live panels but with a task bar and other neat features from windows 7! something more powerful and better then Samsung touchwize ux reminded me of pc windows with the mini apps parts but of course Microsoft could make use the basic idea from windows 7 and make it fit the touch! I really think android with touchwize us is more desktop like! Costumers like to see true and fast multi-tasking with a task manager! I'm a big pc user and I really hope Microsoft doesn't pull another vista again!

The new looks show all the work they have done but to compete with android and ios devices...I don't think it's as attractive to many users like windows7 phones wasn't! I was hoping to see something more attractive with more customization like android and live panels but with a task bar and other neat features from windows 7! something more powerful and better then Samsung touchwize ux which reminded me of pc windows (with the mini apps parts) But of course Microsoft could make use of the basic ideas from windows 7 and make it fit the touch with a new multi-desktop future and ....! I really think android with touchwize ux is more desktop like to usars then this! Consumers like to see true and fast multi-tasking and be able to close the extras while they are looking at the overlook! I'm a big pc user and I really hope Microsoft doesn't pull another vista again!

Awesome video...and I agree Jensen is a good speaker....five stars

Hey, thanks for this, great video! Any chance of a high-quality MP4 file like you have for the other keynotes and many of the sessions?

super nice presentation

One of the top 3 sessions of the conference for me.  Can you provide an HD MP4 encode?

Great session expaining design rationale behind Metro style. I downloaded as mp4 and watched on my iPad - quality was OK.

Hervorragend. Wann im Verkauf erhältlich ?

Touch considered harmful!

The ideas and design of Windows 8 seem great! I very like it. But it is not easy to imagine how functional rich applications like MS Word or Excel or imagine a big test environment for a satellite could be designed with the metro style in a way that is has a great usability.

Another point is that users working for many hours with a touch interface may get orthopedic problems with the arms or necks.

Just think about the two points!
Detlef

The videos are playing on my wp7 beautifully ... Good going guys

I have tried downloading this in a couple of ways, but it keeps failing at about 1 gigs and all the download managers, including IE9 states that resume is not supported.....

Any ideas on why the resume is not working?

@jlaforge:Now that's FUNNY TO ME!  Never heard a more polite response!  Could have easily said...man calm down, get your foot out of your mouth and fix your freakin browser... LOL

how is the windows 8 going to work for mouse an keyboard pcs

Interessant! Aber nicht schön und gleich gar nicht leicht zu bedienen. Eine Auflistung der Programme auf dem Desktop fehlt auch ein Anheften an die Taskleiste ist nur umständlich möglich. Bis jetzt ist es nur ein Zwitter aus einer Oberfläche für ein Mobile Fon und der gewohnten Windows Arbeitsplattform, es ergibt leider kein Ganzes. Ein paar Neuerungen wie z.B. im Explorer würde ich mir für win 7 wüschen.... aber sonst kann mich das noch nicht überzeugen.... mal sehnen wie die Entwicklung weiter geht :-)

Great presentation!

Windows 8 could be great for tablets, but it's not an OS for the PC. I don't see myself running this on my PCs. The Metro style start screen is awful for a PC. And all those colors... ouch..

Hi, i delete a icon of internet explorer 10 in metro-style, someone know how i put it again?

Screen is very dim Can you help me

Metro style UI seems to me too "flat". I'd prefer a more 3D style, with some shadows, etc. like iPad UI.
e.g. compare Win8 start button vs. Win7 start button: I do prefer Win7 one.

@Marius Bancila: what is important to realize it that this is just the dev preview version... more features and improvements are to be expected in the coming months as it moves to beta and beyond.

@eagleped: the dev preview version of win8 is still very early in the testing cycle, by the RTM release expect win8 to have a few optimizations, new features and more appealing look. After all, Microsoft is gonna want this one to steal a large portion of the market share.

@Detlef: you may consider touch harmful now but wait until newer versions of Microsoft Office come out and you may find touch to be helpful.

I actually liked the presentation, but i think people missed a few key things, the most important being that Metro doesn't replace the standard windows GUI, it completes it.
The purpose of Metro style apps is to allow consumption of information, be it web sites, music, video, whatever. The "old fashioned" Windows GUI will still fit better lots of productive tasks, like writing articles, writing code, office apps, Photoshop, you name it. That is not going to change any time soon. And that is OK. I don't intend to open Visual Studio or Photoshop on a tablet, those will stay on my laptop/PC for the foreseeable future. What I want to take with me on all the platforms is consumer apps, weather, news, books, social networking, and those fit perfectly with Metro. They fit so well with Metro that I would probably end viewing them in this way on all devices, including a PC with 27" screen.
I agree with many of you that Metro doesn't seem to have completely adapted to mouse usage. Some scenarios I think can be easily fixed, some not so much. I believe it's wrong to give up functionality because in a given circumstance it is difficult/impossible to implement. I would like to view tooltips when using a mouse, even if they are not there for touch. I can imagine starting to drag a tile with the mouse, use the scroll wheel to zoom in/out so I don't have to wait to automatically scroll a few screens left and right. So I think there are ways to improve the mouse usability, to keep all the mouse/keyboard functionality alive and still have a great touch interface.
I will end here and I hope this will give us real competition between the big players of today.

Ya.. I'm going to just run out and buy a touch screen PC so I can install Windows 8... NOT! I think this is a waste. Good for a phone/tablet maybe.. Not a PC.

The "Metro" design is such a step backwards in design, production, and usability.

waaaaaaaa its cool but so many apps to be learn

nice i tink its coll for touchscreen user :-)

i like it.

Can we get the slides for download?

gostei muinto pelomenos no meu pc fico bom pode manda fabrica que vai ser uma febre aprovado

@AngeloChiello: ha i need 10

Excellent presentation. The bit with the photos and two apps coordinating a workflow was AWESOME!

Hi peaple!
This Windows i´ts a new experience for me.
on Begin is dificul more before is very easy, i like!

Video doesn't work on windows 8 developer preview either lolz

Hi, 

          I also found this new Metro UI beautiful and awesome.

The concepts of charms is good . I wish if this concept can be introduced to Windows Phone.

The Chrome Less browsing of IE-10 looks cool. Still i am facing lot of issues in IE-9 but I hope they will get resolved in IE-10.

I am little afraid perhaps some naive users get confused between two UIs .Anyways all the best Windows 8 team.

cool ideas :-)
there are only a few things i would think about.
(1) I'm wondering where ads will really be displayed.
if apps are for free they tend to display ads.
if life-tiles will show ads ,this will be the end of ms8 before it even started. apps trying to do this should be banned from store.
(2) i'm not happy with a total all the time flickering desktop
(3) what about 'battery-consumption' if all these tiles are 'life'
(4) i'm not happy to save all my settings into the cloud

Would love to have the slide deck for this presentation ... in order to share this with my colleagues. Is it possible to get the .pptx?

IE-10 incredible windows 8 thank you so much developer and enginer thank you again i love you

IE-10 incredible windows 8 thank you so much developer and enginer thank you again i love you

Wow! Some radically new and powerful concepts! Truly revolutionary.

One Touch and it dead. FTW

Windows 8 is great. Keept up with the good work MS. Try to get more vendors as much as possible, great os need great hardware to excel.

This video was inspiring and shows the enormous potential of the platform. But I have doubts....

What concerns me is how you will get the enterprise to accept such a highly customized and personalised live experience. Big business locks-down end user desktops and limits personalisation now. There would have to be a major change in opinion as to the purpose of an end-user PC beyond business critical applications. Social networking is still all too often a no-go zone for most in the working day. If there isnt a siginificant advantage to running Metro apps over traditional desktop apps Metro may be turned off in the enterprise. This could be disasterous for Metro, where users are split between the old and new UI's. Delays in upgrading to touch hardware will also be a key issue here.

Windows Phone 7 could help alleviate this and should be extended to tablets as soon as possible, but sadly sales of WP7 handsets hasnt exactly been stellar. This may even cast doubt on the overall success of Metro.

MS has clearly thought a lot of this through, but personally I think Windows 8 (Metro) will prove to be successful with home consumers way before the enterprise. Unfortunately this will cause much more fragmentation than any previous Windows release.

Windows 8 surely looks very good to me, really excited to see how Microsoft would implement the Metro interface to counter the Mac OS and Linux destros..and the great thing about Metro would be that it'll be available for mobile devices too..which means seamless experience whether its on PC/laptop or mobile device.
Bravo Microsoft.
PS: nice presentation Jenses Harris.

is very good.

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@reply to comment: I agree. notifications should 'pile' - there should be a center where I can track down missed notifications. I think it should be the opposite of what is said at the moment: If a notification is important it should pile. If it is not, it should be on the tile.

Good job Microsoft Ive been a fan of Mac OS X for a long time and I live in Redmond WA LOL. Ive recently upgraded to OS X Lion and I think you might have some real competition this time!!! (I may even consider buying this and I already have the dev preview running on VMware Fusion and its almost as good as OS X and it might even become better in soon to come betas or maybe the final release)

Microsoft is really changing the game from what i have seen this os will be awsome

Avast antivirus is not installed on Windows 8

Sehr geehrte Damen u. Herren,

hiermit möchte ich meine entscheidung gerne Mitteilen. Es geht hier rum das wir beide geschieden sind und sie meine EXfrau ist. Und als acht Ender als Sanitäterin, eine Druckmittel für eine Brufssoldaten sein sollte ist. Dies finde ich unmöglich den Fehler kann jeder machen. wenn der dies nich begreift dan muss die Person was neues suchen und wenn es in der Privatwirdeschaft ist.
Bienenhonichfass und Goldmond

Mit freundlichen Gruß

Enriko kaja

Win8 is awesome, truly awesome and very well indeed. The videos are first rate, but where does one get a copy of the slide decks?

One comment however, in many cases it is tough enough convincing a customer to upgrade from say Vista to Win7, but now they are going to have to replace a lot of hardware and then spend time learning how to use a computer again. Unless, Win8 is good enough to slap a customer in the face and leave them gasping "I gotta have one of these" it could end up being a tough sell? Everything will depend on the apps. Any word on Office System Metro edition yet?

I think Microsoft is messing it up with this one...

One thing:

In his speech, Jensen Harris talks about how important it is to get rid of the "chrome", in order to free up the entire screen area for the content of the app itself.

But in their own tile-interface they're not abiding by this.

Instead of utilizing the whole screen, as he says people should do, they're wasting a good 40% of the screen, by making the "Start" label occupy 25% of the screen height, and by giving away another 15% at the bottom of the screen.

This is bad user interface design.

I think if this was a Steve Jobs product, this mistake would have been cleared out during one of the first product review meetings.

That it has been allowed to slip through to this late stage of the Windows 8 development cycle tells me that the user interface designers at Microsoft "suck", as Jobs probably would have put it.

Also, there is the issue of the visual appearance of the tiles themselves.

I agree with those who say that they look too plain, and too cheap. They should have considered rounding their corners, and they should have considered framing them in some kind of subtle way in order to make them stand out more than they currently do.

It looks too raw the way it is now, and it looks as if it's not completely thought through.

Look, I'm a power user, I don't want my PC to look like something designed by Toys R' Us.

Metro is brilliant and beautiful and will be great for a tablet. For a power user on a PC it's completely mental!

The example of the RSS reader at the beginning is a great example. In the Win32 I can get to the feed I want to really quickly by clicking on them in the tree view. In the Metro example I have 6 big tiles with pictures which while "beautiful" (in the eye of the beholder) is totally useless.

Can't wait to see a Pensions App written in Metro LOL.

This new Metro UI looks great for Tablet PCs, but it looks horrible for PCs! It's complicating every single simple operation with standart PCs. I really hope that there's a single visible checkbox to disable Metro entirely if the user wants to... if not this Windows 8 can be a fail, no-one wants to have Metro running in the background consuming processing and battery power if unused.

It seems the HTML5/CSS3 Future is bright and hopefully IE9 support all features of HTML5. Indeed the Microsoft took the UI of the Smart Devices capability again and bit more its an awakening of the Windows App. Microsoft Store is a hope for new Entrepreneur get their good future in Microsoft Technologies.
Its my 9th Year in Microsoft Technologies. i wish if Microsoft could get to run the similar paths that help the development entrepreneur to could grow as well in Open Source Development. i am saying because Developer get more deficit than Microsoft when an Employer(Business Man) plans to choose Open Source than Microsoft.

I think metrotizing everything from Microsoft Security Essentials (the new Beta version), and Windows 8, down to Microsoft's own website is very stupid. I think seeing the same all white icons (charms or whatever the 1134 they're called) all the time, no matter how cool the font is, is going to bleed peoples eyes out with plain, ugly,white-on-green, boredom. Even the Weather app is unimpressive because I'm using a 1080p monitor (ASUS VH242H 23.6" to be exact) and the moving clouds (and water in another image) are very blurry. I may just be gifted with very good eye sight, but If so the developers at Microsoft need to eat some more carrots because they're definitely not getting enough vitamin A or Beta Carotene. To top it all off this new Metro crap replaces the extremely useful Start Menu (used to access most programs on a PC) with the plain, green start screen. and replaces the near perfect, start button orb (found in Windows 7), with a dark-gray flat P.O.S. Microsoft definitely needs to get their act together because this Metro crap (as is) is not going to cut it, and is going to only serve to boost Mac sales in the future.

Fez a diferença .Muito obrigado a todos que trabalham no software metro. .

As far as tablet operating systems go, I think Windows 8 will blow iPad out of the water. So, I am not worried about making apps that sell. That being said, app developers ought to keep in mind tablet users. For business applications, interoperability with other existing Windows platforms, particularly Windows 7 and XP would be essential. I could see a tablet being part of things like a doctor's office slate replacing all the paperwork and files that he/she must carry from patient to patient. It would have a camera for documenation of progression of illness added to the database as well, and a microphone for speech to text dictation. Or, imagine a lawyer having a complete compendium of laws, and a research team of paralegals and legal assitants at ready hand online and walking into a courtroom prepared for just about anything the opposing lawyer could throw at them? The business applications are immense! Use your imaginations! An app, well researched and developed could fetch a boatload of cash for each license. Speaking of which, how are individual license fees handled?

I checked out , Windows is completely reinventing the pc platform,
But I feel this Metro style Apps Irrelevant for a normal Pc,
It would Rock on Touch Enabled Desktops

i cannot open my app store

hi i am form india and i love windows 8 Windows Developer Preview i am download and using since October 1011 and fell its great and very easy to use and lots of thing i am very happy to use and waiting final windows 8

test , sorry

It it just me, or does this look really awesome! So much opportunity for us developers and nice clean consistent layout for the users :)

　上的才

@Klaus: Metro is the future of UI, you keep doing WinForms apps.

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