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Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
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2012-02-21, 15:45

Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post
Does anyone have any idea what actual Metro apps look and act like?
Sure. You can see them live in the Windows Developer Preview (it's free, and you could test it with, say, VirtualBox, or a demo of VMware Fusion), or on a Windows Phone.

Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post
I admit I'm not the target audience and maybe I haven't searched hard enough, but literally all I've ever seen of the big Metro revolution is big live widgets associated with feeds and media. Twitter, photos, music, weather, stocks, messaging, etc.

You know, like this:



So, is Metro explicitly about "consumption"?
Simplicity does not imply limitation. Yes, you're not going to see a Photoshop-type application in this UI, but you may very well one day see something that exceeds Photoshop in productivity through elegant use of new UI paradigms.

iOS's UI, compared to OS X's, is far simpler as well, and yet many find, contrary to what one might expect, that they're actually far more productive on it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post
Because as I said when Microsoft first started showing this around, I'm having a hard time imagining how big panels translates into usable apps beyond things that involve lists or transport controls. MS isn't stupid, and I know there are recommended Metro practices, but I wonder why I've never seen an image of a productivity app. Is there such a thing?
How do you define 'productivity app', though? To do so by today's standards would be as foolish as Microsoft's very own 2002 "XP Tablet PC Edition" attempt to remove keyboard and mouse and pretend that makes for a good tablet.

Robo may have a thing or two to say about this. The WP7 Office apps look very, very limited, judging from screenshots. And, you're right, based on the sample apps shipping with Windows Developer Preview, Microsoft hasn't given much guidance on what a more featureful app is supposed to look like. They've made it abundantly clear at Build, however, that this is their vision of the future.

Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post
Or am I misunderstanding? Is Metro intended as a navigational language, with individual applications doing their own thing?
No. It is indeed essentially WP7's UI, scaled up. If you have an hour or two to spare, consider playing with it.
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