What will your next PC look like? With so much change in mobiles, and tablets (iPads), it's fair to expect the wave of innovation to change PCs as well. And it will. Very soon ... Microsoft has started to show off the next version of Windows ...
Today marks an event called 'Build'. Somewhat appropriately, it's being held near Disneyland, in Anaheim California and it's not an event for us humans. It's one for those software developers who actually write the various programmes we use. 5,000 geeks attended and all were given a new PC with an early copy of Windows 8, so they'll all be heading away to start showing them off, and making their programmes work on Windows 8. That's a big deal because Windows 8 is different.
For a start, it looks very different. It's made up of tiles, not icons. And many of those tiles change, for example the calendar tile will always show your next meeting, rather than simply a picture of a calendar. The mail (Outlook) tile will show how many new emails you have, not simply an icon of an envelope. The Word tile will show something of the documents you have open, or you last opened. And so forth. The icons/tiles are now more than simply buttons you press to start a programme - they actually run passively to give you information at a glance. If you own a Windows Phone 7, then you've already had a taste of how this works. And that's the next point because Microsoft wants to give the same look and feel on all of their products - Windows, Phone and xBox. This will make it much easier for us to move from one to another. They aren't saying, but I'm also expecting our 'stuff' to move between them as well. Personally I'm not sure that I want my email to come through to my TV using the xBox, but it would be good to link it with my Skype/Messenger so I can see my children when I'm travelling - although to be fair that's pretty much there right now.
Secondly, it runs on more types of machines. We all want lighter, thinner machines with better battery life. We want touch machines (e.g. iPad) but we want them to be able to do more things - to actually be able to type a decent email is a bit tough on the current generation of machines. I'm preparing this news post using a touch-Windows7 tablet and to be honest, it's a bit slow and cumbersome. But with Windows 8, I expect to see that revolutionised. We're going to see ultra-thin, ultra-fast machines in a variety of shapes and sizes (and colours). We'll see batteries that a last a full day of doing real work. Truly portable machines that fold into your jacket pocket. Machines with projection units built in- all sorts of awesome stuff.
But!! To do all these great things, the underlying machine technology has to change. And that has been the challenge for everyone. iPads, for example, are more like cell phones than Macs. The challenge for Microsoft has always been to support the programmes that have gone before - your old accounting software, your old printers and so forth. It was the weak link with Vista. And I'm really hoping that Microsoft will focus on this with Windows 8. Because to make it work, new machines will be different. For example, they will now support 'ARM' processors (that's the processor many cell phones use). So programmes that used to run on your old Intel based machine might be affected. The vast bulk of software will probably be fine, but it's not going to be realistic to expect every old piece of software that was designed to run on older machinery to be able to operate on the new platforms. That's going to take some work. We can think of a number of strategies to overcome it, so it's not the end of the world, but it is going to be a factor. Microsoft hasn't said much about application compatibility, but giving 5,000 developers an early version to start working with it is a really promising start.
So when's it coming? Personally I mostly just use Office, Outlook and Internet on my laptop, so I'm ready to go. In fact I can't wait! These new advances really excite me. But waiting is all we can do for now. All we know i's it'll be sometime in 2012. My guess is mid-year. We'll keep you posted.