A couple of screenshots have just leaked of Microsoft’s Windows 8 tablet user interface.
Currently in pre-beta, Windows 8 is Microsoft’s shot at building a UI that’s suitable for both tablets and PCs. Windows 7 is not being ported to tablets. Early versions of Windows 8 have reportedly been shipped to Microsoft’s hardware OEM partners. So far, the UI hasn’t been seen, but two new screenshots indicate it is based on tiles, very much like Windows Phone 7.
The screenshot above shows the home screen, which features Microsoft’s Bing search engine front and center. Underneath are big tiles for shortcuts to Web apps or Web pages. Each app opens in a full-screen version of Internet Explorer, according to Within Windows, which first published the screenshots (The site is currently down. The screenshots have been republished at WinRumors)
The screenshot below shows a new e-reader app that includes built-in support for Adobe’s PDF format. Looking at the diagrams in the screenshot, it will include page scrubbing (to quickly scrub through a document) and multi-touch pinching and zooming. Apple may not like that.
Microsoft appears to be pushing a new file format called AppX (.appx), which will reportedly allow Windows Phone 7 developers to repackage apps in AppX and offer them through an app store that will be built into Windows 8. Sound familiar?
Our take? It looks OK. The tiled interface is pretty good on Windows Phone 7, but why are there still scrollbars if the interface is full-screen?
Rafael Rivera posted a number of screenshots
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
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49 responses to “Leaked Screenshots Reveal New UI For Microsoft Tablet”
All this vapor tablet needs is a mouse, keyboard, and a big room.
Looks terrible! I’ll stick to iPad.
As fugly as it gets. Big ugly squares, wasted real estate, directional controls based on circular icons vs tiles, a mess. Looks more like a primary school bulletin board than a state of the art user interface. Wow.
They didn’t even make the scrollbars look nice!
Looks like it’s ready to party like it’s 1999!
Apple has patents on most multi-touch gestures, but pinch to zoom is the most famous exception to that rule. Even if Apple takes people to court for multi-touch and even if they win, pinch to zoom is still in the public domain.
Keep in mind, it’s always tough to improve on a classic:
http://apocalyptixgfx.hostei.c…
Good thing this is pre-beta. Those scroll bars have to go by final release – you’d never hit one with your finger!
Yuck
Microsoft recently took a backseat to technology didn’t they? This tablet will down-right kick them out of the car all together. Serves them right for what they did to Apple in the 80s. Payback’s a B***h isn’t it?
Couldn’t care less. How does this relate to Apple products?
Looks so bad, wouldn’t even buy for $50.
Indeed
Oh boy! This isn’t looking so good. For competition’s sake, I do hope something far more aesthetic is coming to Win8.
While I have no plans (or desire) to replace my iPhone, I do respect Microsoft for trying something different with their Windows 7 Phone. I least it wasn’t a clone of the iOS or Android. Maybe it’s not to everyone’s tastes and maybe it will ultimately fail, but I certainly won’t hold it against them for trying something different.
Same goes for their Windows 8 OS. Lord knows it can’t get much worse than their current stuff and again I won’t fault them for trying. Besides if these are truly leaked photos then they weren’t meant to be seen yet. It’s still too early to tell.
so i have that new homescreen … and where are all my programs?
Or would Microsoft want to teach the windows users the spotlight way? :D
What is this?!
Microsoft has like the crappiest products ever, yet they keep selling and making money
how can they do that?
It looks like someone barfed Live-tiles onto the Windows 7 interface.
That is really bad. I don’t believe the large square icons from Win mobile will work, they’re just too large, at least in the 1st shot. The content isn’t even fitting on the page, having to use up/down, left/right sliders just to view your home page doesn’t feel right. I can’t agree with putting Bing right in the front and the opening of each app within IE seems like a terrible idea.
They really have dropped the ball over the last 5 years and unless they actually have a game changer, which I doubt, they are merely going to survive just because people are “used” to windows.
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
wow thats rough. at least windows phone 7 is pretty, not as user friendly as ios, but pretty
Fugly.
Bcoz Apple makes iSHit which is far cruel than Microsoft products.