Home windows 8 was horrible but it surely appropriately predicted at the least one a part of the long run

Again in 2012, Microsoft took a chance that went on to have sweeping penalties for the PC trade. With the dramatic rise of touchscreen-based computing platforms on the time, the tech large made the decisive transfer to evolve its flagship desktop working system for the cell period. This touch-first method to computing resulted within the notorious Windows 8. Whereas leaving the standard desktop consumer interface largely in tow, Microsoft bolted an all-new UI paradigm onto Home windows, which was designed to higher conform to a world more and more dominated by smartphones and tablets.

Taking inspiration from its Home windows Cellphone 7 smartphone platform, Microsoft introduced Live Tiles to its full-fat desktop OS in Home windows 8. These colourful squares and rectangles had been successfully a three-in-one answer, combining the very best parts of app icons, widgets, and notifications. Elsewhere, the OS changed the basic Begin Menu with a Begin Display, launched a brand new mobile-esque app framework and a centralized app retailer, and ushered within the flat Metro design language.

For sure, most customers did not take kindly to those adjustments. The overwhelming majority of Home windows-based PCs lacked a touchscreen in 2012, and Home windows 8’s daring new route did not jive nicely with a mouse cursor and keyboard setup. The Charms bar, which was designed to floor key OS options like sharing and settings, was troublesome to work together with on desktop, and the Begin Display felt surprisingly at odds with the prevailing and way more acquainted desktop paradigm.

On reflection, Microsoft made loads of errors with its preliminary rollout of Home windows 8. In subsequent updates — Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 — the corporate backtracked on plenty of its 2012-era touch-friendly design selections, whereas studying to strike a greater steadiness between contact and mouse enter in different respects. Whereas inarguably flawed, I really feel that Home windows 8 did at the least one factor proper, which (to my chagrin) has since been emaciated from the Home windows OS expertise.

Home windows 8 was forward of its time

Microsoft’s touch-friendly UI spearheaded the OS gesture period

Placing apart Home windows 8’s many flaws, Microsoft completely nailed one side of the OS proper from the get-go: its gesture-based navigation paradigm and its corresponding contact responsiveness. Purposes fluidly leap out of the Begin Display, and they are often manipulated in a silky-smooth trend. Closing apps is so simple as flicking them downward, and cut up display screen might be invoked with a easy facet gesture. Extra app settings and fewer necessary interface buttons might be shortly surfaced through a flick from the highest or backside bezel.

Importantly, all Home windows 8 system interactions are non-linear (they observe your finger versus enjoying out a linear animation). One of the best instance of this, which stays my favourite touch-based gesture inside Home windows 8, is the one for multitasking. By merely swiping from the left-hand facet of the display screen, you possibly can speedily flick by way of all open purposes with each precision and magnificence. On a pill, it is a downright excellent technique of interacting with operating software program, and its elimination again in Home windows 10 was an unlucky growth in my eyes.

In some ways, Home windows 8 was just too forward of its time. By the point Microsoft acquired its act collectively and launched Home windows 8.1 in 2013, the Home windows 8 model itself had misplaced an excessive amount of goodwill with shoppers. The following backlash precipitated the corporate to overcorrect within the different route with Home windows 10, leading to a a lot worse expertise for Home windows on tablets as a complete. The irony of the state of affairs is that trendy tablets operating iPadOS or Android now depend on gesture-based UI techniques of their very own, which Microsoft had spearheaded years prematurely.

Associated

These 5 things are holding Windows 11 back from greatness

Home windows 11 is a robust and feature-rich working system, but it surely’s being held again from greatness in a number of key methods.

What comes subsequent for Home windows?

Microsoft is in a slightly precarious place for the time being

Pocket-lint / Microsoft

Microsoft is in a troublesome place with regards to Home windows within the modern context. Google’s ChromeOS and Android working techniques, Apple’s iPadOS, and Steam’s SteamOS are all giving Microsoft a run for its cash throughout varied PC type components, and Microsoft’s still-popular Windows 10 is nearing its end-of-life, too. Home windows 11 — probably the most up-to-date model of Home windows — is a stable desktop working system in its personal proper, however regardless of being a better-realized product than Home windows 8 ever was, it lacks a lot of the contact UX refinement of its ill-fated predecessor.

Save for conventional desktop setups, an enormous variety of Windows-based PCs ship with touchscreens — one of many lasting impacts of Home windows 8 on the PC trade. Home windows tablets, nevertheless, have receded into the background as a type issue, and I believe it is a real disgrace. I might like to see Microsoft re-implement a few of Home windows 8’s gesture-filled delights in a future Home windows 11 replace, which might go a great distance in making the OS touch-friendly with out the bags of yesteryear’s Home windows 8 carfuffle.

Specifically, I might like to see Microsoft re-embrace the next contact and gesture applied sciences from Home windows 8:

• Carry again the left-hand multitasking gesture for flicking by way of open apps
• Carry again the swipe-down gesture for killing apps completely
• Carry again the pinch gesture in Begin for simpler sorting of alphabetized apps

These adjustments would go a great distance in making Windows the very best model of itself, with out sacrificing usability for mouse and keyboard customers. If Microsoft had been to implement these adjustments, in addition to maybe deliver again Home windows 10’s devoted Pill Mode for operating all apps in full display screen, I can envision a future resurgence of curiosity in Surface Pro-style pill PCs as a product class. Microsoft clearly put loads of effort and time into perfecting gesture-based touchscreen navigation again within the Home windows 8 days, and there is not any want for this code to be thrown away merely out of its affiliation with Home windows 8 quirkiness.

Associated

Microsoft has a Windows 10 problem, and the clock is about to strike midnight

Home windows 10 might be sundown as of October 14, 2025, and Microsoft actually desires you to hop on the Home windows 11 bandwagon.