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Comment by joebadmo | Hacker News Reader

Wow, really? Which parts, exactly?

I'm genuinely curious, as someone who's been a Windows user for basically his entire computing life.

I'm guessing Metro UI caught his attention, and I must admit - I also find it quite interesting and for lack of better word - beautiful.

Well, as someone who only uses Windows when he has to, I'd say IE10 being the default browser is pretty exciting. Win7 ships with IE8 so people may or may not upgrade. With IE10, it's "HTML5" in full force.

http://html5test.com/results.html

I fail to see your point. IE10 looks like a great improvement but only when compared to itself. Even current Tablet/Mobile browsers seem to have far greater support than what IE10 will give!

Google Chrome 14.0.797 Score:329

Google Chrome 13.0.782 Score:329

Firefox 6.0a2 Score:312

Apple Safari 5.1 Score:293

Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 PP 2 Score:231

Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 PP 1 Score:125

Why the downvote?

IE10 isn't even close to done. At any rate, see the huge jump in HTML5 compatibility? IE raising the bar so much is a big win. In many corporations, IE is the only browser that people care about. Becoming more compliant means it's easier for developers to write "standard" web apps.

I feel the same way; what we've seen of Win8 marks the first rethinking of desktop computing since the original WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers). (Not the first, actually, but the first to actually see the light of day from a vendor as big as MS). And the fact that it's HTML5-based doesn't hurt. :)

What exactly are they rethinking? To me it looks like a desperate attempt to catch up with the tablet trend without leaving their massive existing customer base out in the cold.

They're definitely cribbing some from tablets, but they're also doing so using WinPhone7, which was itself an innovative take on touchscreen phones (at least, compared to the Android/iPhone norms). But I think the overall idea of subdivided rectangles with large touch targets is a pretty interesting one. (I'll be less excited if they stop there.) :P

So what do you suggest they do? Stay with a stagnating UI that's not suitable for anything other than a desktop in fear of looking "desperate"? The UI they pulled off is far from desperate, in my personal opinion it beats everything available right now in the mobile world as far as usability and looks go. For example, I haven't seen any one call the new windows phone UI anything short of amazing and it's the same concepts that will be applied to the Win8 UI from what I've seen so far. Their approach also seems much more likely to remain unified across multiple touch device form/scale factors when compared to something like Android.

As far as being last to arrive at the scene, need I remind that this is Microsoft? They're always last, and sometimes that actually works out for them (XBox, .NET), and sometimes it doesn't (Bing).

I grudgingly have to agree with you here. Neither iOS nor Android really radically break from the UI conventions of the desktop. Microsoft's latest UIs are both bolder and more elegant. And with C# they have the best development stack by far of the three.

I just like to see them generating buzz through change. The new metro UI and general a-typical microsoft behavior.

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