Posted: Friday, 17 July 2015 @ 14:44
At the mobile world congress in Barcelona Microsoft has been showing the latest version of windows 8, the consumer preview is the next stable release being offered after the developer preview in September last year. As the name suggests the developer builds have been to give software and hardware manufactures a chance get to grips with new APIs and other tools available. The customer preview gives interested members of the public a chance to see what’s new.
The user interface in windows 8 has been dramatically changed to incorporate the new metro system, touch interface friendly metro is a big change from all previous versions of windows. Its clear metro has been created from the ground up to be used on devices with touch interface, tablets are getting more and more popular and windows 8 will run natively on many when it launches. Touch screen monitors attached to standard desktops will also be supported although many are undecided how popular the idea will be, Windows 8 will also have a mobile version to replace Windows phone 7 which has been slowly growing in popularity.
Available for the first time is the windows store where users can download apps just like Apples iTunes store. Applications from both Microsoft and third parties are available for testing, all applications are being released as early “App previews” but are free to download and will continue to receive updates as they are improved. Microsoft have put a lot of work into the new store with many features we have come to expect such as personalised suggestions and a rating system.
Microsoft’s cloud service “SkyDrive” will be integrated directly into windows 8, the web based storage will show up like any normal hard drive and be available from within metro applications. Windows mobile 8 will have the same functionality so not only will apps work seamlessly across a desktop or smart phone but you can also access your personal files wherever you are.
Internet explorer 10 will launch exclusively on windows 8 in a similar way to IE 9 on Windows 7, early impressions have been poor as the user interface seems very unfinished. What’s more important is the new rendering engine behind IE10, it claims to have better support for new standards such as HTML5 and CSS3. The same rendering engine and high-performance script engine is available on the Windows desktop as well.
More details on how to try the consumer preview can be found here