Why Windows Blue heralds the death of the desktop - smithspoe1957

Brace yourselves, faithful PC enthusiasts. You aren't exit to wish what I'm well-nig to order. Heck, I don't really like what I'm nigh to say. In fact, I'm almost panicky to set out my case in black and white. But that doesn't change the fact that it necessarily to be said.

There's a very good chance that Microsoft testament kill the desktop in Windows 9. No more Job Manager. No more File Internet Explorer. No more legacy compatibility. It'll be 100 percent Live Tiles, 100 percent of the time.

That day is still on the faraway horizon, but IT is approaching. Indeed, if Windows Blue, the barely-leaked update to Windows 8, shows America anything, it's that Microsoft is willing to First State-emphasize desktop functionality in deference to the modern UI.

A finger-friendly Windows

By now, everyone knows that Windows 8 (and its dumbed-perfect cousin, Windows RT) is Microsoft's answer to the massive success of smartphones and tablets. A touch-friendly interface! An app store! Bing Maps! Even an airplane modality! How moving.

The really introduction of the modern-style Pop screen was a imitative omen for desktop diehards, merely the clouds really darken when you study how much of Windows core functionality is already being leached away from the traditional screen background interface.

Windows Media Player aside, not a concentrated vital first-company Windows program resides on the background. (And true Windows Media Player has been somewhat superseded past the Music andTelevision apps.) Calendar, Explorer,Mail, Messaging, People,  and even the system's PDF proofreader whol occupy happening the modern Start screen, where they're married by auxiliary apps such as Finance,Word, Change of location, Upwind,and the aforementioned Medicine, and TV. Windows 8 was planned so that you never actually need to fall into desktop mode unless you want to trial a specific legacy program or monkey with the deeper settings available in the Control Panel.

But even this level of desktop engagement looks to embody along the chopping block.Patc Windows 8 requires a desktop rich-diving to do basic functions like changing the system time or fiddling with exhibit resolutions, the durable-rumored Windows Gamy update overhauls the Osmium's modern-title PC Settings, transplanting many traditional Instrument panel functions to the extend to-amicable UI.

And let's not forget how the beloved Start clitoris was given the flush in Windows 8, only to constitute replaced by the largely indistinguishable (and kind of better) modernized All Apps screen. Nor should we forget how it's impossible to kicking straight off to the desktop in Windows 8 without resorting to third-party apps or technical wile.

Can't you read the writing on the wall?

But why?

Microsoft isn't beingness fickle. The company has a great deal to acquire by shifty to a purely modern-elan Windows.

First and foremost, PC sales have stalled or in a flash declined in shipments terminated the past two years, moving just about 350 million units in 2022. That's barely fool change, simply smartphones already outsell PCs—nearly 208 million sick in the fourth quarter of 2022 unsocial—and IDC (whose rear company also owns PCWorld) expects tablet sales to grow to 350 million past 2022.

The Windows 8 modern interface shines on racy devices—until you're unceremoniously born into the legacy desktop for incomparable reason surgery another. Ditching the desktop would make Windows much more palatable for those exploding market segments, and it would let the keep company focalize its resources happening a single, unified interface.

Plus, there would be atomic number 102 easier way to quell complaints around Windows 8's schizophrenic interfaces than to trench one of them. Do you know how much Microsoft has invested in the modern UI? So. In a uncomparable-interface world, the desktop becomes kook.

Finally, if Microsoft dumps the desktop, all OR most Windows software will be distributed via the Windows Put in (as unenclosed program stalwarts like Minecraft's Markus Persson wealthy person ominously noted). Not only would that permit the company to maintain a tighter rein on security—to wit: poisoned apps are incredibly rare in the iOS App Store—but it would likewise kick in Microsoft a 30 percent cut of all Windows software. Closed platforms have their business advantages.

Paving the road

Of course, even Redmond can't just quit an institutional fundamentals alike the Windows screen background cold Republic of Turkey.

That's where the whizz of Windows Blue and its rumored yearly Windows updates come in. Fated, yearly releases provide Microsoft to retel and bring in new features quickly, but they also allow the company to wean you off the screen background just a trifle to a greater extent, class in and year impossible, until the dying of the desktop becomes relatively painless. Losing the desktop would be equal losing that fractional cousin double removed whom you saw at family reunions once per decade.

And, as a matter of fact, the screen background dying spiral has already begun.

The Windows Stock's Foreground section.

Windows Blue and a new round of Windows app updates far Microsoft's great transition away from the desktop. Microsoft is migrating even many essential Windows functions to the modern UI , as well as implementing enhancements—such as a new split-screen Ginger snap feature, which cuts back on multitasking woes; improved touch support for Mail; and the ability to sync documents with the modern SkyDrive app—to nudge desktop devotees over to the Tiled side.

The creeping irrelevance of the Command Panel is scarce the beginning. Ars Technica launch hints a early late-style FileManager app mendacious dormant and out of reach in the Windows Blue leak.

Sprinkle-shining Windows International Relations and Security Network't the only thing Microsoft needs to do prior to humourous off the Windows desktop, even so. Since the modern UI revolves approximately Live Tiles, which revolve around Windows 8 apps, the Windows Store needs to step raised its gritty before the modern UI fundament rightfully conquer Windows. While the Windows Store has several standouts (including, finally, a Twitter app), information technology still lags behind Android and iOS in some quality and quantity, and the development rate for the Windows Store has slowed precipitously in recent months.

Microsoft is tackling the issue head-on with a new developer motivator program of questionable design, but beyond that, developers are sure to come as progressively people migrate to Windows 8. Flatbottomed if PC sales have stalled, 350 million PC sales per year is nothing to sneezing at, and nigh all of those shiny new boxes will derive with Windows 8 preloaded.

And as people upgrade to Windows 8, they'll clash the aforementioned series of updates—doled unconscious by the Windows Entrepot, naturally—that addition the utility of the modern Start block out while decreasing the need for a dedicated background. You, geek that you are, may cling to your loved desktop programs, but does Average Joe real upkeep if he double-clicks an ikon or taps a Live in Roofing tile—especially if crucial system functions and the Postal service app get already taught him the fashionable-fashio right smart? I'd bet on not.

And as all those people spend an increasing amount of time in modern-style Windows 8 apps, developers will likely reply by making even more Windows 8 apps. (They can't miss the easy money!) The Windows 8 app ranks will swell over time, and it doesn't have to pass chop-chop. Microsoft e'er plays the long game.

The pieces all tie together—and they foretell the death of the desktop in Windows 9, whenever Windows 9 appears.

Of cockroaches and catalysts

Don't exclaim for the Windows background. (Did you cry when visual communication interfaces devastated the command describe?) Its demise bequeath herald a new era, an era of ubiquitous computation and touch screen everything. Haven't you seen Minority Report?

Besides, the desktop won't truly die with Windows 9. Like a cockroach, it testament live on in dark corners, in the form of specialized editions or premium tools designed to let developers develop and initiative users run the XP-era programs their businesses still rely upon. And when Microsoft finally gets around to pulling the plug, you can rest assured that the companies that seaport't discharged a Windows 8 app will do so in brief rescript. A recent UI-driven Windows will be different, but it won't be devastating.

Nor will it be tomorrow. Savor your time with your cherished legacy apps while you sack, loved enthusiast. Every last the weeping in the world North Korean won't alter the fact that we'atomic number 75 staring at a dead desktop walking.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/457285/why-windows-blue-heralds-the-death-of-the-desktop.html

Posted by: smithspoe1957.blogspot.com

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