What was the worst version of Windows ever?
We've argued it was clearly Windows Me or ME, but there's another version that people love to hate.
Windows 8 may not have been the buggest release ever,
but it was definitely the most pointless. So let's take a stroll down memory lane back to 2012,
when the iPhone 5 was all the rage. Call Me Maybe was the most overplayed song in history,
and the end of the world we are embracing for didn't bother to show up.
Windows 7 had been out for about three years,
and people actually seemed to like it, but it was built for traditional desktops and laptops.
Microsoft could sense that a massive shift toward mobile computing on touchscreen devices was imminent,
and the company, understandably, didn't want to be left behind.
So they adopted the attitude that Windows had to be on everything from desktop PCs
all the way down to smartphones. In 2010, Microsoft released an operating system
for phones simply called Windows Phone 7. It introduced the concept of live tiles,
which were supposed to distinguish the OS from iOS and Android.
Instead of boring static app icons, users would instead get large tiles
which would show real-time information like messages, emails, or news updates.
This design language, called Metro, was actually relatively well-received,
with some outlets praising Microsoft for daring to go in such a different direction.
So what does this have to do with Windows 8? Well, Windows 8 directly borrowed
quite a few design elements from Windows Phone, possibly due to the positive feedback
or possibly because they planned for that to happen all along, but regardless,
Microsoft clearly thought the correct way to get Windows onto every device
was to have it look the same on every device. But it turned out that this wasn't the solution,
and we'll get into the exact reasons why, after we thank, computers and tablets are not phones,
yet you'd never know that from the way Microsoft designed Windows 8.
One of the biggest aspects of Windows that Microsoft had emphasized since Windows 95
was multitasking. If you need to switch to another program,
just click its button on the taskbar and you're there,
or hit Alt-Tab if you wanna impress the hotties. This simple and long-standing design convention
was upended by Windows 8 and its much-maligned start screen.
Instead of the familiar start menu, you got a start screen,
featuring a dizzying mosaic of live tiles spitting out often useless information
and steering you toward full-screen Metro apps,
which made multitasking a lot more confusing, as when the Metro app took over the whole screen,
the taskbar would disappear, leaving novice users wondering what the heck was going on.
Although you could still get back to the traditional Windows desktop pretty easily,
Windows 8 felt confusingly like two operating systems in one,
with a normal desktop experience and a touch-optimized experience
stuffed into a single, bizarre package. Maddeningly, Windows 8 also lacked any option
to restore the classic start menu, a decision that was so unpopular
that developing third-party tools to restore it became a full-blown cottage industry.
Windows 8 also debuted a built-in app store, which wasn't bad,
but seeing as how many people were already used to just finding whatever program they needed
through a quick web search, the new Windows Store raised concerns
about Windows becoming a walled garden in which users would ultimately have less control
over their own PCs. But this wasn't to say Windows 8 was a terrible OS.
It was roughly as stable and polished as Windows 7,
and some of the weird UI decisions could have been forgiven
if Windows 8 actually improved in other ways over its predecessor for desktop users.
There were some useful new features, such as the ribbon in File Explorer,
a new task manager with a performance monitor, secure boot to prevent against rootkits,
and native USB 3 and NBME support. But all of these features likely could have been part
of a Windows 7 update, or at least didn't necessitate such a radical redesign
of the user interface. Simply put, Windows 8 didn't give users
enough positive changes to outweigh the negative ones,
especially considering that the popular Windows 7 was also a minimalist, unintrusive OS
that largely stayed out of the way, even on phones where Metro apps and live tiles
seemed to make a little more sense. Microsoft overestimated how much utility
the average user would get out of them. It turns out most people didn't need a bunch of live tiles
vying for their attention every time they opened their phone. Think of how annoying regular notifications can be
without live tiles. And there simply wasn't enough interest
from big app developers on the platform, especially the likes of Google,
who didn't want to help Microsoft compete with Android just by handing them a YouTube app, for example.
So the phone version of Windows 8 didn't fare much better, and Microsoft completely pulled out
of the phone OS market in 2017. On the desktop side, the start screen was completely axed
in Windows 10, and live tiles disappeared by the time Windows 11 rolled around.
Yes, they were still in Windows 10. And ironically, the Microsoft Surface lineup
is doing just fine today without a specific tablet interface.
But if any Microsoft developers are watching this video, please don't feel too badly.
Windows 8 was far from the most pointless tech product
we've ever seen. Remember Gibo?