Five things Microsoft must do for Windows 8 in 2013

Microsoft's ambitious Windows 8 gamble may have launched this past October, but it's 2013 that will make or break the new operating system. I have five recommendations that Microsoft should implement sooner rather than later to keep Windows 8 from going the way of Vista.

Make the case for Windows RT

"That's right, it filets, it chops, it dices, slices, never stops, lasts a lifetime, mows your lawn, and it mows your lawn and it picks up the kids from school..." --Tom Waits, "Step Right Up"

Waits wasn't talking about Windows RT when he wrote and recorded "Step Right Up" in the mid-'80s, but he could've been. Microsoft wants the tablets that run the OS to be unifying devices that are portable like a tablet but powerful enough for the heavy lifting of Microsoft Office. Claiming that the OS can step up to that challenge, and actually proving that it can, are not the same thing.

Here's the problem with Windows RT: Even after writing CNET's FAQ on Windows RT, I still have problems clearly explaining what it is and why people should want it. It's "Windows 8 Lite," but it's so much more complex than that. Sure, the Surface is a nice piece of hardware, but besides its utility as a tablet-and-skateboard combo it's a hard sell.

I have a semibaked theory that Windows RT will become Windows 9, especially because of its ability to run on lower-powered, more secure ARM chips, but right now RT is closer to being the next Kin than the next Xbox.

Windows is not some in-development mobile operating system; it's the mature senior statesman of the computing world. It's on more computers than any other OS, and that's not going to change anytime soon. We know Microsoft wants the world to move as quickly as possible to Windows 8 -- there's no other explanation for the soon-to-expire $39.99 upgrade and the push for new, interesting, touch-screen hardware.Focus on apps

Though some Microsoft defenders point out that it took Google years to bulk up Android's app catalog to 500,000-plus titles, Redmond doesn't have that kind of time when it comes to Windows 8.

While it's true that Windows 8 can run legacy software just fine in Desktop mode, Metro apps are what will sell people. Some good apps currently available demonstrate the possibilities of Metro, but they don't offer a compelling reason to change your entire work flow.

The strength of iOS is that Apple's operating system is the cleanest around. Android basks in the glow of Google's best apps and services, from Gmail to Goggles to Translate to search. The Windows 8 app experience has yet to be defined, which could benefit Microsoft in that it has an open canvas to paint on.

The bad? Don't expect competitors to look the other way as Microsoft refines its app pitch to developers.

Microsoft's Panos Panay proudly shows off the Surface hardware at the company's unveiling event at Chelsea Piers in New York.

(Credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Convertibles and hybrids need a Surface, too

The Surface hardware went a long way toward drumming up interest in Windows 8 and Windows RT, not to mention a lot of sturm und drang from Microsoft's hardware partners. While it could be interesting to see a Redmond-designed convertible or hybrid laptop, it's not strictly necessary. But what the burgeoning, occasionally confusing category does require is a hybrid or convertible that Microsoft can point to and exclaim to the public, "This!"

It may not want to, but right now all that we've seen are oversize tablet-tops with hinges. You can't easily tell people why they must have a new category of hardware without a signature device.

Wherefore art thou, settings and preferences?

Settings aren't sexy, but they shouldn't be confusing, either. Microsoft ought to make some decisions, and fast, about cleaning up the confusing mess of its under-the-hood options.

Sometimes they're behind the Settings charm in Metro. Other times they're buried in some Desktop mode window. Currently, I find it easiest to simply start typing for what I'm looking for, and let the powerful search tool do the hard work. But if Microsoft wants Windows 8 to have long-standing appeal for nonexperts, it's going to have to demystify this stuff.

Windows 8 has opens some settings from the Charm bar in the new Metro-styled interface, but others open in Desktop mode.

(Credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Get people and businesses excited about Windows 8

Microsoft has done itself a great disservice by coming up with a fairly interesting, unique approach to the ecosystem problem, and then letting substandard marketing heighten people's questions and uncertainties.

Solving the above problems alone won't work without helping people realize what's so great about Windows 8. And without the massive license buys that businesses can provide, Windows 8 will struggle in a consumer marketplace that is increasingly turning to Macs to solve its problems.

How Microsoft can best do that I'll leave to greater marketing minds than myself. On some level, though, it would seem easiest to have compelling hardware that people want to use. The interest in the Surface is a step in the right direction, just as Samsung's Galaxy S3 and Google's Nexus 7 did wonders for Android. Maybe there's a killer "laptablet" coming at the beginning of next year, but there's little doubt that Windows 8 has a hard path to trek in 2013.

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Microsoft Previews New Touch-Friendly MSN And Bing For Windows 8

Microsoft just gave a quick sneak peek of the redesigned version of MSN while at the IAB MIXX digital ad conference. It’s optimized for Windows 8 (in fact, it will be the default home page for Internet Explorer 10 on many Windows 8 devices), and it will be launched on the same day as the new Windows, Oct. 26.

The MSN homepage’s new layout is reminiscent of the Metro design that we’ve already seen on Windows and Windows Phone 7. It’s a clean, tile-based design, with big type and images, with a new News section.

And it’s optimized to for navigating with touch screens. One of the cooler new features is the ability to “flip ahead”, where you basically swipe across the screen to flip the page and read the next article. Another new feature is the ability to “snap” content to the side of the screen. For example, you could look up financial information on MSN Money, snap that content to the side of the screen, then open a PowerPoint presentation and copy the information over.

Microsoft also offered a preview of new Bing apps for search, news, and travel. Again, there was a new layout, and you could snap content to reference later. And yes, space is saved for big, glossy ads.

Qi Lu, Microsoft’s president of online services, closed his presentation by saying that online media has not “lived up to the promise” of allowing marketers to build brands online. By nailing the consumer experience for the new wave of devices and services, Lu says Microsoft can change that, and can enter a “new era.”

You can read more about the new MSN in this Microsoft blog post.

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Brand New Tablet: Microsoft Surface RT

The tablet wars are no longer a two-horse race between Apple and Google.

Four days after Microsoft invited the press to Los Angeles (and after four days of Web-wide speculation as to why), on Monday, June 19, 2012, the company finally unveiled Surface.

Surface is a line of tablet devices running the company's next-generation Windows operating system and marks Microsoft's first foray into the ever-expanding tablet market. Yes, you read that correctly: Microsoft will be building and branding its own tablets, effectively competing with its own hardware partners such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo.

Family Surface

The Surface tablets will be available in two distinct versions. The first, running Windows RT -- effectively the "light" version of Windows 8 -- will launch in the fall, around the same time as Windows 8 does, and run on an as-yet-unnamed ARM CPU. While it won't have the full desktop version of Windows 8, running only the Metro apps available through the Windows app store, it will include a version of Microsoft Office at no additional charge.

Surface tablets will be available in Windows RT and Windows 8 versions.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Approximately three months later, a Windows 8 Pro version of the tablet will follow. The Pro will offer the full Windows 8 OS running on an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU (the same chips found in ultrabooks and other laptops). The Pro version will also be slightly thicker, offer a more robust battery, and boast better peripheral support (USB 3.0 versus 2.0, DisplayPort, and an SDXC expansion slot) and twice the storage capacity of the RT version.

The surface of Surface

Surface uses a 10.6-inch optically bonded ClearType display. The screen's 16:9 aspect ratio (AR) is identical to that of an HDTV, so many of your favorite movies and all newer TV shows will run in full-screen on the tablet, with no stretching or letterboxing. The vast majority of Android tablets feature a 16:10 aspect ratio, while the iPad uses the same squarish 4:3 aspect ratio you may remember from pre-HD TVs.

Microsoft hasn't yet confirmed the resolution of the Surface tablets, except to say that the RT version is "HD" and the Pro version runs at a "full HD" resolution. Reading between the lines, that seems to indicate that the RT tablet will run at least 1,280x720 pixels (720p HD), while the Surface Pro will boast at least 1,920x1,080 pixels (1080p).

Optical bonding allows the screen to sit very close to the Gorilla Glass 2.0 cover.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Surface for Windows 8 Pro will support digital inking, and during a demo at the conference the company demoed this by writing on the screen using a stylus and then zooming in on the writing, which still looks smooth without any of the "jaggies" you'd expect. According to Microsoft, this is thanks to the 600dpi sampling rate the screen records your writing at. Ostensibly, this allows digital inking to be much more precise.

Thanks to the optical bonding process, there are no layers between the Gorilla Glass 2.0 and the display. Microsoft demonstrated that when you use the Stylus, it feels like you're writing directly on the page, not the glass on top of it and it touts optical bonding as the reason behind this level of pen-to-page intimacy. According to Microsoft, there's only a 0.7-millimeter distance between the Stylus and where you see the ink.

Surface will also make use of Windows' support for something it's calling palm block tech. Windows uses two digitizers: one for touch and another for digital ink. As long as the Stylus is in close proximity to the tablet screen, Windows will shut off the touch sensor, so that your hand doesn't accidentally swipe the screen while you're trying to write or draw. Once you're done, the Stylus can then adhere to the side of the tablet, magnetically.

During our brief hands-on, the screen didn't feel as responsive as we expected. We swiped the screen briefly to rotate around a panoramic picture Microsoft had on the device, but the feedback of the animation felt rough and didn't seem to respond as quickly to our swipes as we would have liked. That said, this was early preproduction hardware, so we'll have to see how the final version behaves when it's released commercially.

(Microsoft's) The stand

During the conference the Microsoft reps were keen to continually mention the VaporMg (pronounced "Vapor Mag") process it used to build Surface. According to the company, the process allows Microsoft to melt metal and then mold it down to a 0.65mm thickness for any given part. The layering of components is apparently so efficient that even sticking a piece of tape in between them would cause the tablet to bulge.

The full magnesium case is both scratch- and wear-resistant and weighs about 1.5 pounds. We only got to hold the tablet briefly, but it felt substantial -- fairly light but not airy.

Microsoft also credits VaporMg as the reason it was able to seamlessly include the Surface's built-in kickstand. We've seen kickstands on tablets before and being able to easily prop up your tablet is something we definitely appreciate.

The integrated kickstand makes for easy media viewing.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

The bottom rear third of the tablet is all kickstand, but it's not something you'd quickly notice without being told it was there. There's an inch-long groove that allows you to easily pull out the kickstand and prop the tablet up. When combined with the cover, the combination gives the tablet a laptop look and, ostensibly, feel.

However, Microsoft may want to point out the stand mechanism a bit more obviously. There were a few journalists during demos (us included) that couldn't figure out how to enable the kickstand without being shown. Still, the kickstand feels very well-integrated into the design and is actually useful, so thumbs-up here.

Two tablets, two covers

If you took the keyboard attachment used by the Asus Transformer family of tablets and melded it with Apple's Smart Cover, you'd get the basic idea behind Microsoft's cover implementation for Surface.

There will be two types of cover and keyboard attachments: Touch Cover and Type Cover. Like Apple's Smart Cover, the covers are magnetically attached to the edge of the tablet. Both types of cover can act as either a cover for the screen or as a full keyboard, with a two-button touch pad and buttons for navigating Windows' Metro UI. When flipped back, the keyboard automatically shuts off.

Let's face it: no one likes typing on a tablet screen for long periods of time, and Microsoft certainly made it clear that typing on its cover-keyboards was just as accurate and enjoyable (and in the case of Type Cover, possible more enjoyable) as typing on a normal keyboard. At least according to the Microsoft reps.

The Touch Cover is one of 2 magnetically attachable keyboard covers that will be available.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Unfortunately, we didn't actually get to use the Touch Cover keyboard while it was attached to the tablet. Since there's almost no tactile feedback and no button depression, typing on the keyboard felt weird. However, Microsoft says that the audible "clicking" sound from the tablet's speaker when typing adds enough feedback.

Still, without personally having that experience, it's difficult to say how successful Microsoft has been with the design until we actually use it with the tablet. It's definitely the thinnest (3mm) physical keyboard we've ever used, though.

As the conference went on, we started to notice how much thought and detail Microsoft has added to the experience it wants you to have with Surface. One of the coolest little details was that depending on which color Touch Cover (five colors were shown) is connected to the tablet, the color of the screen background in the Metro UI would change to reflect it.

We didn't get to play with the thicker and much more traditional Type Cover keyboard, but Microsoft gave a pretty detailed demo of it in action. Unlike the stationary buttons on the Touch Cover, Type Cover keys have a 1.5mm travel, while still being packed into what seemed to be a relatively thin (5mm) enclosure.

Also, the keys sense the grams of pressure you're applying to them. Unlike a touch screen, this allows you to place your fingers on your home keys without them interpreting that placement as keystrokes.

Other specs

Aside from confirming that the Surface boasts front and rear "HD" cameras, Microsoft was mum on imaging details. That implies at least 720p image capture capability (which is merely 0.9 megapixels), but we're hoping for something at least closer to the multimegapixel resolution you find on middle-of-the-road tablets and smartphones these days.

Here's a rundown of the official specs as we know them:

Surface (Windows RT) tablet key specs

• Windows RT operating system
• Nvidia ARM CPU
• 9.3mm thick
• 676 grams/23.85 ounces
• 10.6-inch ClearType HD Display
• 31.5 watt hour battery
• Ports: microSD, USB 2.0, Micro-HD video, 2x2 MIMO antennas
• Storage options: 32GB and 64GB for Windows RT
• Front- and rear-facing "HD" cameras

Surface (Windows Pro) tablet key specs

• Windows 8 operating system
• Intel third-generation Core i CPU
• 13.5mm thick
• 903 grams/31.85 ounces
• 10.6-inch ClearType "Full HD" Display
• 42 watt hour battery
• Ports: microSDXC, USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort video
• Storage options: 64GB and 128GB
• Front- and rear-facing "HD" cameras

What impressed us most was not the specs, but the sheer attention to detail that went into building this product and the obvious effort put into integrating its features. It seems to be a truly impressive design and engineering feat. However, there are just too many important, unanswered questions.

Hands-on with Microsoft's Surface tablet (pictures)

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Windows 8: What You Need to Know

Microsoft showed its first public demo of Windows 8 on Wednesday, and it's not at all like the Windows operating systems you've come to know over the past 25 years. The next version of Microsoft's operating system ("Windows 8" is just a code name) is a radical departure, designed around touch screens.

If this revelation is making you weak in the knees, worry not. Here's a handy FAQ on the early Windows 8 build that Microsoft demonstrated:

What Windows 8 features did Microsoft demonstrate?

Essentially, Microsoft showed how Windows 8 will work on both tablets and traditional PCs. The operating system's home screen is filled with big, touchable panels, like the live tiles in Windows Phone 7, and from there you can tap and swipe your way to other touch-based applications. But underneath that touchy layer is plain old Windows, with a task bar, file manager, app icons--everything.

Swipe across to multitask. (Click to Zoom)

How does the touch interface work?

From the start menu, which shows basic information like time and unread e-mail counts, users swipe upwards to reveal the home screen and its tiles. As with Windows Phone 7, apps can show some information within the tiles--users needn't click on the weather app to see the current temperature, for example. Swiping from the right bezel brings up a menu that can take users from an app back to the home screen.

Users can multitask between open apps by swiping across from the left bezel. And therein lies the coolest-looking feature of Windows 8: When swiping in a new app, users can snap it in place next to the app that's currently running. This allows users to view two apps at the same time--something that no existing tablet OS can do.

Windows 8 Weather App (Click to Zoom)

How will Windows 8 apps work?

Microsoft says it's created a new kind of app for Windows 8 using HTML5 and Javascript, and they're a lot like the apps you'd expect to find on a tablet. A weather app shows the five-day forecast. A news reader displays stories and thumbnail images in big, rectangular panes. Microsoft also showed off Internet Explorer 10, which is optimized for touch. Presumably Microsoft will distribute these apps through its own store--there's a "Store" tile in the version of Windows 8 that Microsoft demonstrated--but the company offered no details.

Legacy apps and new apps can run side by side (Click to Zoom)

What about existing Windows apps, such as Office and Photoshop?

They'll still work. Loading one of these apps will bring up a more familiar version of Windows. According to All Things Digital, classic Windows apps will use "fuzzy hit targeting" to aid finger taps, but they won't be optimized for the touch screen like Windows 8's HTML5/Javascript concoctions. Legacy apps can, however, run side by side with the new Windows 8 apps.

But what about Windows PCs running on ARM chips? Will legacy apps run on those devices?

It's conceivable that ARM-based Windows devices will be restricted to the touch-centric user interface in Windows 8, but Microsoft hasn't made any announcements on that front. In fact, Microsoft recentlydenied claims made by an Intel executive about which apps will run on ARM-based Windows machines. Intel's Renee James had said to expect at least four versions of Windows for ARM processors, and that none of these versions would be compatible with apps from Windows XP, Vista or 7. Microsoft said these statements were "factually inaccurate and unfortunately misleading," but didn't clarify the matter with any details. In other words, the question is still unanswered.

When's the Windows 8 release date?

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that Windows 8 will launch in 2012, but the company hasn't been any more specific than that. Expect more details on Windows 8 in September, when Microsoft will hold the BUILD conference for developers. For now, check out Microsoft's first video of Windows 8 in action.

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Microsoft’s Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Apple’s iOS platform seemed to come out of nowhere and take the world by storm in 2007. The introduction of the first-generation iPhone set in motion a chain of events that lead up to the holiday quarter in 2011, when Apple recorded the most profitable quarter in technology history thanks mainly to unbelievable iPhone, iPod touch and iPad sales. No platform is selling as quickly as Apple’s mobile platform right now, but iOS is still in its infancy and the fact remains: as hot as iOS is right now, and as popular as smartphones and media tablets are, no platform installed base on the planet even comes close to approaching the size of Windows right now.

   

THE FUTURE

Microsoft said this past December that there are now more than 1.25 billion PCs running the Windows operating system. Billion, with a “B.” Smartphones are the hottest segment in consumer electronics right now and people are buying Apple’s iPad in droves, but even still, more people around the world rely on Windows than ever before. This is because the software that powers countless businesses from the ground up is built on Windows. From web browsers to accounting software to point-of-sale systems to 3D animation software to word processors to custom proprietary solutions and far, far beyond… Entire industries are built on Windows.

The future is anything but “post-PC.”

We are now entering the post-post-PC era, and its focus is the PC. A new, smarter, more versatile PC. A PC that lets users browse the web casually in bed and work with massive databases in SQL Server. A PC that can run a $0.99 news reader as well as it can run proprietary $99,000 CRM software. A PC that is as ideal for playing Angry Birds as it is for running a modeling environment that allows its user to build schematics for a skyscraper. This is the future of computing.

That is not to say Windows 8 is an “iPad killer” or that media tablets are going away. Far from it. While their functionality may overlap in a number of areas, light-duty tablets and full-fledged PCs serve different purposes and will continue to coexist for some time. What we will see, however, is media tablets becoming more capable and more powerful as PCs become better suited for touch input. At some point down the road the two categories may merge, but neither will “win” or “lose.”

THE OS

I’ve spent the past week playing with and working on a Samsung tablet powered by Microsoft’s new operating system. It’s nice to be able to work and play on the same tablet.

While Windows 8 is not quite in a state where it is ready to be released to the public, it is a completely different beast than the Developer Preview Microsoft released more than five months ago. During a meeting with Microsoft executives, I was told that the Consumer Preview version of Windows 8 includes tens of thousands of changes compared to the version that was released to developers in September. Thousands of changes are system-level items that I’m sure I didn’t notice, but thousands more are user-facing changes that have helped improve the user experience dramatically.

One of my favorite features is the implementation of swipe gestures. As can be seen in the second and third images within our Windows 8 screenshot gallery, Microsoft has tweaked the main menus used to navigate the OS and perform a variety of key functions. While using a touchscreen to interface with Windows 8, these menus are opened using gestures.

A swipe from the bezel around the screen in from the right opens the start menu, which includes a search button to search for files and apps, a share button to share the current page via email or using other services, a start button, a devices button that lists devices connected to your PC, and a settings button that provides quick access to basic settings such as brightness and speaker volume, as well as a link to more system settings. A swipe in from the left switches between open apps, and a swipe in from the left and back out to the edge of the display opens the app-switcher. Within an app, a swipe down from the top or up from the bottom opens app-specific menus.

While using a keyboard and mouse, gestures from the sides are replaced by keyboard shortcuts or mouse touches to the corners of the screen. A touch to the top-right or bottom-right corner mimics a swipe in from the right and opens the start menu while a touch to the top-left or bottom-left corners opens the app-switcher.

There are countless other great features new Windows 8 Consumer Preview; from picture password, an enhanced security feature that lets the user unlock a PC by tracing preset patterns on an image of his or her choosing instead of using a simple alphanumeric password, to “roaming,” which automatically syncs settings, apps and other data between different Windows 8 computers. While one convertible slate can handle duties as a tablet, notebook and desktop computer, Windows 8 is all about choice. Some users may opt for a single device while others will want a lightweight 7-inch ARM-based tablet in addition to an eight-core beast of a desktop PC.

In terms of performance, Windows 8 exhibited the smoothness and stability we’ve come to expect in a post-Vista world, and this is just a preview version. There were hiccups, of course, but overall the experience was vastly superior than it has been with any other version of Windows. The setup is remarkably fast and easy, touch responsiveness is iPad-like and I was quite impressed with the versatility of this platform. To understand the concept of one device for work and for play is one thing. To sit in bed hopping around lightweight apps and then walk over to your desk, dock your tablet, and have desktop-grade productivity software running on the same device is something else entirely.

The machine I tested Windows 8 on is a pre-release dockable Samsung tablet with a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM. Yes, it’s a tablet with a fan. It’s also a tablet that can run your existing desktop-grade enterprise software, consumer software and lightweight Metro-style apps. Get over it.

THE ENDGAME

Windows 8 gives us a glimpse at the future of computing, but it’s not quite there yet. While the version I spent time with is merely the Consumer Preview and not the release build of Windows 8, it gives us a very good idea of what Microsoft’s new operating system will look like when it launches. The concept is fantastic and I very much like Microsoft’s execution thus far, but it still feels like a marriage of two completely different operating systems rather than a fusion of two experiences.

This is by design, in part. Because the function of a true PC varies so greatly from the function of a media tablet (as we know this category of devices today), Microsoft has created separate experiences for each category. There is a tablet experience with the fantastic Metro UI, a desktop experience reminiscent of Windows 7, and a bit of overlap with each, intended to create some amount of cohesiveness. The end result, however, is not a consistent experience.

There is a disconnect that can be felt across Windows 8. Again, this is mostly by design. In what I call “tablet mode,” the user is presented with an interface that is quite clearly built to be touched. It is characterized by a cascade of large tiles that display live data and can be poked to open apps. The Metro-style apps that are revealed house nice big buttons and a touch-friendly design. Metro-style apps also take up every last pixel of the display, which is a fantastic canvas on which developers can paint terrific experiences.

In “desktop mode,” Windows 8 has the look and feel of Windows 7. In fact, it basically is Windows 7. There are some elements of Metro that spill over into desktop mode — such as the app-switcher and Windows Phone-like lock screen, which displays notifications from up to five apps — but they are effectively completely separate platforms.

Desktop mode has not been optimized for touch at all. In fact, tapping in a text field while no physical keyboard is attached to the tablet doesn’t even bring up the virtual keyboard. Instead, the user must tap on a small keyboard icon in the task bar to open the keyboard, and then he or she must tap another two buttons to close the keyboard once finished typing. And while in desktop mode, by the way, I found that the keyboard often obscured the text field in which I was typing.

Perhaps I can better illustrate my point about the disconnect with this simple example:

Windows 8 ships with two completely separate web browsers. One is called “Internet Explorer”. The other is called “Internet Explorer.”

Internet Explorer is a fantastic Metro-style browser that is designed with touch in mind. Controls are large and easy to poke, menus retract and let web pages occupy every inch of the display, and pages load lightning-fast in this lightweight tablet browser. Then, in desktop mode, users can browse the web using Internet Explorer, the same robust web browser hundreds of millions of people currently use around the world on their Windows PCs.

Confused yet?

Microsoft’s inclusion of two completely different web browsers that share the exact same name is indicative of the separation present in Windows 8. One tablet OS and one desktop OS, together on the same machine.

In the end, this disconnect is probably a good thing for now. Windows users come in all shapes and sizes, and millions of people who will upgrade to Windows 8 in the coming years will be terrified of doing so. They are used to Windows as we know it today, and the look and feel of Metro is a complete departure from the Windows they currently rely on day in and day out. After the initial shock wears off, these people who are so scared of change will find themselves eased into the new Windows because desktop mode is so familiar, and because “tablet mode” is so separate from it.

But this is not the future of post-post-PCs.

Windows 8 is the tip of the iceberg. The start of a shift that will eventually see the “tablet” UI and the “desktop” UI merge into one comprehensive user experience. Apple is taking a different approach; as we’re seeing in OS X Mountain Lion, Apple is slowly readying its desktop user interface for a touch environment by taking some of the elements from its gorgeous mobile UI and adapting them for desktop computers. This varies dramatically from the path Microsoft is taking with Windows 8, but the endgame is the same: one experience that is as capable as it is versatile, and as user-friendly as it is beautiful.

This is the future of computing.

Microsoft’s Windows 8 Consumer Preview will become available to the general public on Wednesday as a free download with an initial cache of more than 100 apps in the Store, all of which will be free during the preview period.

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