The screen is where you first encounter Microsoft's new Metro user interface. The whole Windows 8 experience is based on the second class of Metro-style apps. The app interface in Metro is so free of white noise that when I launch a traditional Windows program and return to the world of menus and icons and overlapping windows, it feels like cracking. I feel as if I've changed channels, landing on a set of "unworthy practitioners." A psychologist values OCD alongside the person sitting next to me, and the engineers who build programs, including fish ball machines. He forces them to face the fact: they have become so engrossed with applications filled with controls and buttons and other user interfaces that they are unnecessarily cluttered and can't even move through them freely. Is there any way for these engineers to adapt? Do you know that just in the last two hours of such cleaning, we have discovered dried-up bodies trapped in seven Clippys piled up in menus and controls, slowly starving to death?
Where is the menu bar? It doesn't appear until you request it (by gesturing from the top of the screen downward, or using a keyboard equivalent). This is a mild zone, carefully selected buttons, not a yardarm of dangling menus.
Where are the controls that let me interact with the OS and other programs? They are waiting for your command, beyond the right edge of the screen. If you want to jump back to the start screen or select a different wireless connection, another gesture shows them on a vertical strip of charms.
Tiles are far more than a launch button. They are live objects that apps can continuously update with information. One glance at this mosaic is the first thing you see when you boot up your computer, giving you an overview dashboard of your entire world. It's a rich briefing. Here's the weather. There are photos from the hockey game your niece sent receipts for. This is the author and subject of the latest email in your inbox.
The traditional Windows 7-style interface still exists; its familiar language of menus and overlapping windows seems almost entirely unchanged. Rest assured, your regular programs continue to run just as well. If you install the consumer preview, you won't even need to reinstall any of your software or data. Click here to grab a copy.
This is the brilliance: it’s a rich amount of information served up on a plate, but it will never overwhelm you. Even though it fills 27 desktop displays, it remains clear and easy to navigate. It's a lovely concept. Even if you're not actively using your computer, it still provides useful, quick information about your world.
None of those ribbons or any other user interface elements distract you from the document you're writing. When a developer rises to Microsoft's challenge, an app can go beyond simplicity and Metro looks a bit serene. You might launch your word processor to compose an angry letter to your cable company, but it will feel as if you're slowly raking concentric patterns into the sand.
Metro is all about reducing the screen to the minimum visual noise necessary to do what the user has chosen to do at any given moment. No windows, no overlapping. When you launch a Metro-based word processor, the document takes up the entire screen.
I've been using the Developer Preview version of Windows 8 on a multitouch tablet for several months now, and I've used the new Consumer Preview for less than a day. My overall opinion is so high that it's already mentioned in the first paragraph: Microsoft has truly cracked a few phrases. With the Metro user interface, they have created a simple and beautiful design language that ties together a wide range of devices and ways people use computers in the second decade of the 21st century.
But Windows is really where Metro performs. There is no longer a "Start" button. In its place is an entirely new Start Screen, serving as the central hub of the experience. Your apps appear on the Start Screen as clean, colorful tiles that you click to launch a program or toggle a switch.
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