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Friday, June 1, 2012

Top 6 New Features of Windows 8 Release Preview

  • Top 6 New Features of Windows 8 Release Preview
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Windows 8 Release Preview

Many analysts, including yours truly, were somewhat surprised to see how few changes were made between Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows 8 Release Preview. Normally, at this point in the process, you'd get a "Release Candidate" which would be, as the name implies, feature-identical to the final product, barring any major revelations during testing.

This time, thanks to Microsoft's blog, we know about upcoming features in the final release. This includes a new flattened design for the "desktop" interface in Windows 8, which serves as the replacement for running legacy Windows 7 apps, as opposed to the tablet-friendly, newfangled Metro-style apps, with their tiles and simple, touchable design. Despite the lack of many new, marquee features in Release Preview, Microsoft claims that hundreds of visible changes and tens of thousands of internal coding changes have been introduced.

The company has also informed us that there will be "getting started" pointers in the final release, to help familiarize users with how to use the new OS interface. The Release Preview includes nothing of this kind. But Microsoft reports that millions of users have downloaded Windows 8 preview versions and have been using it on a daily basis and that Redmond will use the boatloads of gathered remote usage data to craft this help effectively.

Windows head honcho Steven Sinofsky has nevertheless clearly stated on the Building Windows 8 blog that Release Preview is the last test version before final release. He also stated that the final version should be ready in a mere two months! In the meantime, let's see what's new in this final pre-release version.

1. New Apps: Not technically part of the operating system, but nevertheless important to the success of Windows 8 are the included, basic apps you get out of the box. New Microsoft apps in Release Preview include Sports, Travel, and News, all three of which make good use of photos and information from Bing.

2. New App capabilities: The new and updated apps make use of several Windows Metro interface features we haven't seen much of until now. You could always pin an app to the Start screen as a tile from which you could launch the app and see live updated info. But now you can pin subsections from within an app, too. For example, the Mail app now lets you pin a particular inbox - if you use the app to view a Hotmail and a Gmail account, for example. Likewise, the Sports app lets you pin a particular team, and the Finance app a particular stock symbol.

3. Updated Windows Store: Windows 8 is starting to take hold in the developer community, and particularly among major software houses. The Windows Store was closed the day before Release Preview launched, so what's new? The Store itself has undergone some tweaks, as detailed in the Windows Store Blog. Desktop apps, as well as Metro apps, can now appear in the Store, but you still have to obtain the desktop apps directly from their publishers via a link.

Windows 8

App pages in the Store show an app bar when you swipe or right click, with options for easily returning to the home page and seeing your purchased apps. Pause and Cancel options are now available from the Install page, and you can now share info about apps using the Share charm.

New apps for Release Preview include the Financial Times, Box, Major League Soccer, and Fruit Ninja. All of the apps in this preview version of the Windows Store are free, though, so we'll definitely see richer options when the Store opens for real and developers can make some cash for their efforts.

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