Microsoft to take 30% cut of Metro apps under Windows 8 - Page 3

Wrong, it's the new shell. If you read a post on the "Building Windows 8" blog authored by Steven Sinofsky, he states that the classic desktop is like an app and will only load when needed by the user.

Time for people to start using Linux some more for business.

While there are many thousands of x86 apps out there, that doesn't mean that any large percentage of them are usable on a tablet. Consider how successful x86 tablets have been for the last decade.

Even if ARM chips become powerful enough to run x86 apps that does not mean that the apps will be anymore usable on an ARM tablets.

Part of the success of the iPad, the so-called post-pc device, is that the apps have been designed specifically for the user, the device and the task at hand... "task at hand" I like that

The legacy x86 apps were designed for a large display (or displays) with multiple concurrent windows, granular context-sensitive cursor, positioned by a mouse or separate touchpad, with mouseover hints, right-click contextual menus, and a separate keyboard with kb shortcuts.

This all changes with a tablet. Take something as simple as "text select/copy/paste". It's trivial with a mouse -- not so much with a finger.

Or typing on a popup on-screen kb that covers the document being edited.

Or navigating using controls, links, etc. that are small, close together and hidden by the finger poised to select among them.

To make legacy x86 apps usable on a tablet, the UI for the above must be modified -- at the minimum.

Then there is the matter of accessibility and focus -- with a smaller screen size, single window, larger controls -- you must jealously husband screen real estate, being carful of what and where you put things (so they don't get obscured by popups or fingers). All the while being careful not to add distracting clutter.

Generally, a tablet is used: get in; do something; get out. Speed and focus are key. This is quite different from the way a desktop or laptop is used -- longer sessions multiple open windows, interacting among several apps at the same time.

My point in all this is that legacy x86 apps must be repurposed and re-implimented to run on a tablet -- be it x86 or ARM.

You will, likely, need to rethink the app and storyboard it before re-impliimenting it.

Then, you have 2 codebases to maintain -- the desktop/laptop version and the tablet version.

Not difficult, but not easy/inexpensive either!

Not true. Sinofsky specifically said that Metro is core, NOT a layer. I can personally verify this because I'm running Windows 8 on an old laptop and if you look at the processes you can see that EXPLORER.EXE has been replaced by the new shell.

Somehow everyone here managed to miss the most important bit of news in all of this.

Microsoft stated that the ONLY way to get Metro apps on your PC is through their app store. Starting with Windows 8, you're only allowed to sideload "classic" (non-metro) apps.

This is HUGE. Even Apple hasn't locked down the PC to this level.

But at least you can keep windows 7 and load it on new systems unlike apple that forces the new mac os on new hardware.

and there are way to many old apps for MS to do any type of super lock down.

Corporate America will never go for it. I smell Vista 2.

Of course with Metro sitting on top of Windows 7, Microsoft finally has their tablet OS. But here's where it gets dicey for them: real Windows (x86) doesn't suffer from incompatibility with legacy programs as do products called Windows SomethingElse (Windows CE, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, none of which run "real" x86 Windows programs). The reason 64-bit Windows 7 was adopted pretty quickly is that it runs 32-bit Windows programs just fine in most cases.

But with new ARM Windows, it's Metro only, no x86 emulation and no legacy desktop is provided or supported, and on top of that, no side loading. So ARM Windows 8 is for tablets only, which means it's Microsoft's version of the iPad. If it can't run any existing non-Metro x86 Windows programs, how will anyone equate that to being "real" Windows? Isn't it just like all the Windows SomethingElses Microsoft has been selling? And no, if you can't run x86, the consumer will think of it as "Windows Phone for Tablets."

You didn't understand me. Read my post again.

You can't simply say "it's not a layer" because then you are arguing with people about the definition of what a "layer" is. In that case everyone can be right and everyone can be wrong at the same time.

What you can say is that it's not another layer, or that it's not a layer on the "classic" Windows, it's something new.

From what I can see I think Metro is running in the "Desktop Window Manager" process.

If that is the case the Metro "Desktop Window Manager" is a UI layer on the Windows kernel.

Did you see the "demo" of Metro running on a desktop PC? They were doing horizontal swipes using the arrow keys -- herky-jerky, not smooth and not very pretty... wonder why they didn't use the mouse or a touchpad.

Then, there was the "demo" of "Real Word" on an ARM Clamshell -- Word was already open on the display, the content of the document was already entered. The "demo" consisted of hitting a key on the kb and printing the 1-page document, and saying this is "Real Word" .... WOW!

MS specifically said that Metro apps won't be able to interface Windows apps and vice versa.

Others have said that the Metro paradigm (multiple, large, active tiles sharing the screen) breaks down if you have more than a few dozen apps -- you go to a scrollable list of apps.

As, I think about this, I suspect most current enterprise and power users will just run with Metro turned off.

Many home and other users will, likely, run both layers.

The x86 tablets (if any) will, likely, run both layers.

The ARM tablets will run Metro only, including legacy x86 apps ported to ARM (if any).


If it works out that way, the majority of the Windows install base, likely, won't run Metro -- and, in effect, Metro will be MS's ARM Tablet OS.

Maybe, a year or so after Metro hits the street, enterprise and power users will find enough reasons to run the Metro layer atop Windows -- but that's 2 or more years away.

Ya' know...

I haven't tried this, but I I believe it would be relatively easy to do...

I think you could write an app targeted at an iPad, but that would also run well on an Mac OS X desktop.

Since iOS and OS X have a large percentage of common frameworks and APIs, you could package your app so much of it was a common code base -- with separate constructs with variations for the differences (mainly UI).

Then, you could compile and link for each target from the common codebase.


I do not believe this is possible with Windows 8 as, while they use common tools, AFAIK, Windows and Metro apps do not share common Frameworks or APIs.

The thing one needs to remember is that ARM architecture will not be sitting still either. It is very possible that by the time Haswell has gone commercial, the two may be so close to a level playing field as to not even matter from a performance aspect. It will most likely be pricing and politics that determine who comes out on top.

However, I think that ARM is going to have to perform better than x86 in order to oust Intel's intrusion into the mobile computing space. Legacy compatibilty is a huge selling point for the average consumer who has been trained to think this is a necessary ball and chain by Microsoft - personally trying to run a legacy (read not designed for touch) version of Excel, for example, on a touch device doesn't appeal to me at all.

It is good that Intel is being pressured into this by the success of the iPad and now this move from MS to make an ARM version of W8. However, the way MS are marketing it, it just seems to be a mobile OS that is layered on top of the regular W7, and if you use an ARM tablet, it is only the mobile OS that is there, but the x86 tablets will get both OS layers.

Sounds a lot like if Apple made an MBA that was a touch tablet form factor that had an emulated version of iOS layered on top of it so you could switch between that and Lion.

This seems to play into Intel's hand, as they can market that their architecture provides the only "full" computing experience from W8.

Seems like a bit of a mistake on MS's part, as it will probably confuse a lot of consumers who will just think they are buying a W8 tablet having never even heard of ARM or x86 let alone know what they are, or even know what 'CPU' stands for.

Seems to me it would have been smarter to market this top layer OS as a separate OS, W8 Mobile, and highlight the fact that all your smartphone and tablet apps will now also run on regular Windows 8 Desktop, allowing you to have all your content on all your devices seamlessly - then you can slowly merge the two into one as the ecosystem and technology mature to the platform...

Isn't that what Apple is trying to do? Except they are not offering their iOS apps to run on OS X...it could be a key differentiation that MS could leverage in the short - middle term. (I think Apple's master plan is to eventually merge iOS and OS X)

Excellent advice... ...They did not listen... ...They're not listening still... ...Perhaps, they never will!


Apple seems to be taking the more rigorous approach of implementing iOS features into Mac OSX (in fact, replacing many Mac OS X implementations with those [done right] on iOS).

It may be that, before Windows 8 ships, Apple has integrated enough of iOS into OS X that you can run your iOS apps on the x86 desktop.

Or, if of strategic advantage, Apple could do this almost immediately (for many iOS apps).

The iPhone and iPad simulator already run most iOS apps and functions on Mac OS X x86.

Each new version of the iOS Simulator implements additional iOS features on the desktop.

It would be fairly easy for Apple to implement a Dashboard-like layer that just runs simulated iOS apps. Or even include simulated iOS apps in LaunchPad... that's where I think Apple is going..

iOS 5 has a great notifications system -- wouldn't it be neat to be able to run that as a small window (or menu dropdown) on the Mac?

Additionally, Apple could provide APIs and Frameworks (or maybe just a protocol) where iOS apps could communicate with OS X apps, and vice versa.

This, along with the cloud, would open up some amazing opportunities -- say, send an authorized notification to reboot the Mac.

I read that MS has no Plans to allow Metro OS apps and Windows OS apps to intercommunicate.

Yikes. The details of Windows 8 and Metro apps are confusing. This article doesn't help.


Existing Windows 7 apps can be ported to run on the new Windows 8 Runtime and Metro UI. There's no non-runtime version of Windows to compile for on ARM.

Without modification, Windows 7 apps run only on x86 processors, on the Windows Desktop (without the Metro UI).


Users can only install Metro apps from the Windows Store, but side-loading is available for enterprises and developers. Non-Metro apps will still be available, for x86 processors only, outside of the Windows Store.

The Metro UI is a locked-down environment and the only thing available on ARM. On x86 an open Windows Desktop is also available.

More details are available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...(v=vs.85).aspx

Making an IOS app run on os x is probably straightforward. I imagine its like converting a Silverlight app to wpf, as ones essentially a subset of the other there shouldn't be any issues.

I haven't seen anythig yet to suggest metro and classic windows have different APIs or frameworks (except for metro having html). They both use wpf and if the frameworks do have bits missing it won't be hard to are them back in again. There's loads of examples on wp7 where people have just copied in the dlls for the missing bits of functionality.

What makes you think there will be iTunes on Win Tablet? If MS is copying Apple model, then any media or app will come from one source... and that one is unlikely to be iTunes.

Vendrazi was asking about the original post, which included a bunch of confusing stuff about recompiling apps, iTunes, and in-app purchases; but most of this stuff is irrelevant for the following reasons:

• Existing Windows apps cannot run on ARM tablets, and porting them to the new Windows Runtime and Metro UI is the only way they can run on ARM (they cannot simply be recompiled). Apple may or may not eventually port iTunes to ARM, and until they do it will only be available on x86.

• Metro apps can provide in-app purchasing through the Windows Store, but can also provide their own commerce mechanism for purchases.

Are you seriously "Seriously?"?!?

My iTunes library has approx 40GB of music and another 30GB or so of apps, movies, podcasts, etc. My library is on several Macs and a Windows laptop, I sync multiple iPhones, iPods, etc. I actually regularly sync my iPhone 4 to iTunes on my 2004 PowerBook G3 1.5MHz running Leopard with 2GB of RAM. And I never, ever have lockups or slowdowns... and that's even when I'm re-arranging the approx 300 apps currently installed on my iPhone...

I would really love to have a chance to talk to some of those users from 1991. I know it would be a fascinating conversation!

Well, that is, seeing as how it was only in 1991 that CERN first started to promote the new WWW standard and AOL, which probably was the majority of Internet users for much of the 1990's, was still a Mac-only product (the first Windows version didn't launch until 1993) that didn't offer WWW access until 1994 or 1995 (and that was only after clicking through a couple of screens to find the Internet launcher).

Lotus Notes was a brand new product around then, Compuserve users had only recently gained the capability of sending/receiving e-mail outside of Compuserve (if they were willing to spend $10 an hour or so to be online), and the fewer than 100k AOL subscribers didn't even have an @aol.com style e-mail address.

And as far as listening to music, maybe they had a piano keyboard program or were listening to the 4-bit mono sound effects from a game...

Interesting trivia, the first e-mail from the Space Shuttle was sent in 1991 via AppleLink (the predecessor to AOL) running on a Mac Portable.