Windows 8 Release Preview out in the wild

Microsoft on Friday (Manila time) unleashed the Release Preview —the final version before official release— of its upcoming flagship operating system Windows 8, with a tech site noting improved apps and other new features.

 

Tech site Mashable said that while the latest test release of Windows 8 has much polish, there are still issues such as “inconsistent” scrolling in its Metro interface.

 

“With the Release Preview, Windows 8 enters its final stretch toward release, ready or not. There’s clearly lots of polish here, and Microsoft has good reason to be proud,” it said.

 

Mashable tried out the Release Preview on the Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook, powered by an Intel Core i5 processor.

 

It said one of Windows 8’s high points is the ability for Wi-Fi passwords to travel with the user’s Windows Live ID.

 

“That means if you ever borrow your friend’s Windows tablet or switch machines, you won’t have to input the network passwords for your home router, local coffee shop, etc. It’s a nice convenience that I hope is stolen by Android and iOS quickly,” it said.

 

But it also cited basic interface issues like the inconsistent scrolling for the new Metro interface.

 

Such inconsistencies may be a bane for Windows, which runs about 90 percent of the world’s computers.

 

“That would be a shame, since there’s a lot to love in Metro; it just needs a perfectionist’s touch. There’s still time. Windows 8 may be close to the finish line, but whether or not it scores a win probably depends more on what happens in the next few months than even Microsoft thinks,” it said.

 

Touchpad

 

Mashable said the touchpad was one area that’s much improved, where Microsoft added some new touchpad gestures to Windows 8.

 

Useful tools include being able to call up the “charms” menu by sliding in from the right edge — exactly how it works on a tablet.

 

“The special drivers also add the ever-popular ability to perform two-finger scrolling. The feature is extremely useful, proving popular on MacBooks and many Windows 7 machines. However, the implementation (on Windows 8 Metro) is incomprehensible,” it said.

 

“If there’s a setting that can restore order to this chaos, I didn’t find it. Microsoft really should sort this out before General Release — I can see it being a real turn-off for casual users,” it added.

 

Live titles

 

Mashable said the live tiles, the constantly changing rectangles on the Start screen, are one of the big improvements in RP.

 

“As great as live tiles are, they could be better. Some of the new apps, such as News, Sports and Travel, don’t vary the live-tile content that much — you tend to see the same photos over and over,” it said.

 

Also, it said that while a headline or photo can catch one’s eye, clicking on a live tile will take the user back to the app’s last state, regardless of what was showing on the tile.

 

New apps

 

Microsoft has a new Finance app as a template for its News, Sports and Travel apps.

 

“They all make great use of the horizontal scroll, and they have nice customizable features, like seeing feeds on specific teams or search terms for news topics,” Mashable said.

 

But it said they could use a little more polish.

 

Also, it noted many primary apps received a makeover, with People (contacts app) as among the most improved, with the “What’s new” feed, which shows social-network updates from one's contacts, "now approaching something useful."

 

Flickr also connected with the Metro Photos app, although there is no easy way to simply sign out of Flickr and reconnect.

 

Mail can render HTML emails nicely, but Mashable said the Release Preview only has presets for adding Windows Live and Google accounts and everything else is done through Microsoft Exchange.

 

"Lots of people still use Yahoo and AOL (sadly), and those should be added before general release. Also, there’s no combined-inbox view, oddly," it said.

 

Music can to access content from a Zune Pass as well as a controller for the lock and start screen - "when your screen times out, you’ll be able to adjust volume and skip tracks without logging in."

 

Internet Explorer 10 also got an upgrade, including a strip of frequently visited and pinned/bookmarked sites that appear when you begin typing in a URL.

 

"Potentially more useful, however, is 'Flip Ahead,' which adds an arrow ... to the right of the screen. The arrow looks at Bing user activity and page data and actually tries to predict the most likely page you want to go to," it said.

 

Also, IE10 now has Flash compatibility built in but Mashable said this does not mean that every Flash site will render properly.

 

"Since IE in Metro uses a customized version of Flash that Microsoft worked directly with Adobe to create, sites need to submit themselves for approval to work with IE10. Microsoft said it’s already taken care of big Flash sites (like YouTube) and more are getting added to the bucket," it said. — TJD, GMA News