The Windows RT Review
by Vivek Gowri & Anand Lal Shimpi on October 25, 2012 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Windows RT
- Operating Systems
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Windows 8
- Tablets
Xbox Live: Music, Video, and Gaming
The music and video players are now part of the Xbox Live family of services, so they’re connected to Xbox Music and Xbox Video respectively. The applications are separate but are very similarly designed and laid out, with local content on the left, featured content in a central location, and content stores to the right. The bottom edge swipe brings up the ability to specify a file for playback, as well as a now-playing control bar. The music application looks quite good when snapped to the edge, with various album art from your library appearing as the background for the music controls.
Hilariously, videos can also be played back when snapped, albeit in a very small window. It’s not the best way to watch a video (who enjoys watching video content in a 320x180 window? Anyone? No takers?) but you can do it if you really want to. The video playback controls are pretty elegant in full-screen mode, and both players seem to have taken a number of interface design cues from the Zune software. I’m a huge fan of the Zune desktop software and how elegantly it operates, so I think this is great. I’m also just glad to not have to deal with Windows Media Player.
Both Xbox Music and Xbox Video look very similar to the latest Xbox dashboard update, and it’s clear that Microsoft is pushing a unified entertainment content front here. I remember when Microsoft was supporting a half dozen different music stores when the original Zune launched in 2006, so I’m just glad that they’re finally consolidating all of their services and concentrating on a single content store. Xbox has been their most successful entertainment effort to date, so it’s no surprise to see Microsoft put their faith in it for media as well.
Now, we can’t discuss Xbox without touching on gaming. Xbox Live is obviously the gaming portal of choice for Windows RT, and offers various hubs for Windows and Xbox 360 games. The Xbox Live application didn’t appear to be ready at the time of posting, with broken links and missing pictures for all the games and hubs. This is still an unreleased software (until Friday, anyways) so it’s possible that we’ll see the application be updated between now and then for a working final release. We will also have to wait until then to see what game support will be like out of the box; currently, the Xbox Windows Game store shows titles like Reckless Racing, Hydro Thunder Hurricane, Fruit Ninja, Cut the Rope, and a number of Microsoft classic titles like Minesweeper and Solitaire, amongst others.
Camera and Photos
The camera application is about as basic as you can get, with a translucent control bar that lets you switch cameras, change between still and video capture modes, set up a timer, and basic picture quality settings. Basic isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, as the application operates smoothly and quickly, with near-instant switching between modes and cameras. The controls are very straightforward - tap and hold to lock exposure is supported, and to capture an image you can just tap anywhere on the screen. It’s one of the easiest capture mechanisms out there, and fits right in with the simple UI.
The photo application pulls images from your local pictures folder and camera roll, as well as being able to connect to Facebook, Flickr, and SkyDrive. They show up as panels for each service, which show a full list of thumbnails. It’s worth pointing out that you can only see photos uploaded to Facebook from your own account, not friend’s images or pictures you’ve been tagged in. As is now the norm with tablet picture galleries, you can view images in slideshow form or just flick through them individually. For local images, the bottom edge swipe brings up an option to delete the images, as well as setting as the lockscreen image and starting a slideshow. For images on Facebook, there’s an option to view them in Facebook, though you need to actually be signed into Facebook in IE for this to work.
The overall takeaway from the camera and gallery applications is that they’re designed as minimally as possible and do exactly what they’re supposed to with a minimum of fuss. You won’t see any spectacular functionality, though the ability to slideshow through Facebook galleries is a nice touch. I think we’ll see manufacturers offer their own spin on these applications, like ASUS and their separate camera application, in an attempt to gain minor levels of platform differentiation. Microsoft has kept a pretty tight reign on the customizations allowed for the Windows Phone platform though, so I can’t see them allowing anything too invasive on Windows RT devices either.
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Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
AFAIK, task manager tray doesn't even have thumbnails. Come on, it's not comparable to what Windows 8 and Windows RT do. Have you used them?yyrkoon - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - link
The software issue, will not be much of an issue at all.Microsoft will just write another abstraction layer ( HAL ) for ARM. Which is most likely what they've done here.
Passed that. IF any abstraction layers need to be written for the COM model, or .NET libraries. You can rest assured Microsoft will cover that as well. If it hasnt been covered already. Which Im betting it has.
Again, this is nothing like WinCE.This is a real OS, for real end users, with a different HAL.
The biggest issue as I've stated in previous posts. Is not whether it will be easy to write applications for Windows RT. But whether software developers deem it prudent to spend thousands of dollars on Microsoft development tools( not absolutely necessary ). THEN pay Microsoft a forced 30% distribution fee. Through their app store.
For me personally. The 30% fee alone is enough for me to jump ship. And I really enjoy writing apps for Windows. We'll see how it all works out in the end.
karocage - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link
This comment from the article seemed odd to me:"This isn’t like Windows Phone, where we need to see whether the platform will get any market traction before predicting the growth of the app marketplace."
Market traction and app store growth don't seem to have much if any relationship with Windows Phone. WP7 hit 100,000 apps faster than either iOS or Android and has over 125,000 now. If anything, that would seem to indicate that MS really does have a lot of pull with developers independently of market share. So while I agree that the sheer number of devices will be a big draw, I'd argue that's just the cherry on top that guarantees we're going to see a ton of support really quickly for RT/Metro apps.
Obviously buying a WinRT tablet today will be pretty limiting in terms of 3rd party software, but experience from WP7 suggests this will be a very short-lived downside of the platform.
Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
Good point. I've been on Windows Phone 7.5 for a year, and have never had the problem of not being able to find an app I want. (With the exception of Pandora, the assholes. Can't even use third-party ones because they block them. But I have a Zune--I mean, Xbox Music Pass anyway. So screw Pandora.)andypost - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link
Anandtech writes the best articles. period.Thanks to Vivek Gowri and Anand Lal Shimpi for a great article.
Visual - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link
You say it is impossible to make desktop apps, but...I read that Win RT still has PowerShell. A lot of PowerShell scripts on x86 just invoke various functions in third-party ActiveX controls, which are just x86 executable binary libraries, and that will not work on RT... but maybe at least the core MS objects still work? For example, if Windows Forms or Windows Presentation Foundation still works, then PowerShell scripts can create desktop windows with various GUI elements.
And since there is an IE, maybe HTA applications work as well?
Do you have some scripting geek working at AT that could test these theories out?
On another topic, I am very surprised you say there are x86 executables on your install. That is just wasted space on a device that doesn't get a large drive to begin with anyway. MS would get in serious trouble if it were true... Are you sure?
And lastly, I am curious if a Win RT device is supposed to be able to get plugged to a "real" Windows computer over USB for charging or for as a mass storage drive, for transfering files... If it is, then coudn't you also plug one RT device to another RT device? Then which one will become the "host", and which one will become the peripheral?
Dorek - Friday, November 2, 2012 - link
"And lastly, I am curious if a Win RT device is supposed to be able to get plugged to a "real" Windows computer over USB for charging or for as a mass storage drive, for transfering files... If it is, then coudn't you also plug one RT device to another RT device? Then which one will become the "host", and which one will become the peripheral?"Dude...that's deep.
(That's actually a really good question. Surface can't be charged over USB, but I don't know about other ARM devices.)
tommo123 - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link
i mean if someone writes an app and gives it away. there's no sideloading so if has to go through the store right?will microsoft host it for free? if not then they're effectively killing off free software for windows are they not? at least win rt which is eventually (how they'd like) desktop windows to go too.
tipoo - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link
Yes they'll host it for free. And there are many free apps already, there was a influx of apps on launch day and most reviews were done before that. They only take a percentage of the cuts from paid apps, nothing from free.Visual - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link
I forgot one question in my previous post.How is the browser performance with many many tabs open at once? Like 20, or even 100?
I sometimes use tabs in a bit weird way, ctrl+clicking possibly interesting links in some large index page to open them in a background tab for later reviewing it in more detail. Even without Flash, with IE9 starting a new process for each tab by default and a few animated gif ads and various JS scripts on each tab, it really kills Atom Netbooks and even CULV Core 2. It's probably more of a memory usage thing than a CPU thing actually... But anyway, how could that go on these new ARM devices?