Windows 8 App Store and More Discovered in Leaked Slides

Ahh, just when we were beginning to get used to Windows 7, out of nowhere comes news of Windows 8! Okay, okay… so Windows 8 news has been leaking ever since 7’s launch. Fair enough. But bits of information leaked this week from a conference held this past April is new, and it’s for the most part quite interesting, giving us a sneak-peak into seeing where Microsoft’s priorities are with its next major OS.

As our ever-digital landscape changes, Microsoft keeps a hard eye on where it should put some focus, and how it should design its software. According to these leaked slides, some of that focus in 8 will be slanted towards all-in-one PC’s, slates (tablets) and of course, laptops (and netbooks, I’d assume). But while slates do seem to have some focus, it doesn’t seem like Microsoft is interested in building a dedicated OS, and in truth, that’s probably for the better. At least for now.

A major feature in 8 to catch my attention is a “Windows Store”, a one-stop shop for most things software. Like similar services, such as Apple’s App Store, it appears that Microsoft’s would feature its own software along with approved software from other companies. Unlike repositories in many Linux distributions, Microsoft is going to have a level of quality assurance, so when customers purchase a piece of software this way, they can have confidence in knowing that it’s a great product.

It’s hard to gauge to what extent software would be sold this way, but if Microsoft gets things in order, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see numerous categories and hundreds of software products at launch available (personal prediction). I’d have to jump to conclusions and say that games, other than simple ones, wouldn’t be available via this store, but it’s hard to say. I just can’t imagine the amount of customer service calls that would result from someone purchasing a game that runs like molasses on their laptop.

Either way, a Windows Store is something I’d personally look forward to, and if it has good policies, such as unlimited re-downloads, then it could be a roaring success. This is more of an add-in software solution, though, and not really a major change to the OS. There there still is lots of that en route, at least we hope. In 8, you could expect improvement for sensors of all types, including GPS, proximity, accelerometers and of course, something related to Microsoft’s own motion peripheral, Kinect.

Of all the features leaked here (I didn’t touch on them all), none are truly innovative or all that surprising. As the Ars Technica article linked to below states, it seems to be more of an evolutionary upgrade than a revolutionary one… and it is supposed to be the latter. But, we’re still far from 8’s launch, so we’ll undoubtedly learn a lot more as the year progresses.

The decision to equip slate machines with Windows 8 does not, of course, mean that Windows 8 might not be more finger-friendly than Windows 7 presently is, but it does mean that Redmond is still not going to have a platform that can properly compete with the iPad or Android-powered tablets. These low-powered ARM-based devices have no equivalents in the x86 world; if Microsoft wants to target them, it can’t do so with Windows 8.