New reports suggest that next year’s Windows 9 release will close the curtain on Microsoft’s controversial Metro user interface for desktop and laptop PCS, though less radical changes will be made to tablet PC and hybrid versions.
We’re heading into silly-season right now in terms of Windows 9 rumor-mongering, but the good news is that at least one repeat-offender delivers a message we’ve all been dying to hear:
Live Tiles are on borrowed time…at least as far as laptops and standard PCs are concerned.
Microsoft’s ‘Metro’ user interface has its perks and its fair share of supporters – millions have bought into the whole hybrid way of doing things. However, it became clear from the start that the radical pseudo-mobile makeover slapped on Windows represented a step forward the vast majority were either unready or unwilling to make.
And with sufficient time having passed to solidify such objections and please for a return to the Windows formula of old, it’s looking like Redmond has taken note.
However, what’s interesting about the latest reports on the subject is the prediction that Live Tiles will indeed be binned form standard computers, but will still play a role in tablet PCs, hybrids and largely any other such touchscreen devices. Each update to Windows 8 so far seems to have brought along another very slight nudge back to the prior winning formula and away from Metro – Windows 9 is now expected to take the final step.
In terms of when we’ll know for sure, the launch of Windows 9 isn’t likely to happen until the spring of next year, meaning Microsoft won’t lift the lid on any details for some months to come. Still, it’s all likely to come as good news to the masses hankering after the Start Menu and standard desktop of old, for whom the addition of Live Tiles represented nothing short of treason.