If you were asked to pick the most annoying of the various Microsoft Windows interfaces that have appeared over the years, there’s a reasonable chance that Windows 8’s Metro start screen and interface design language would make it your choice. In 2012 the software company abandoned their tried-and-tested desktop whose roots extended back to Windows 95 in favor of the colorful blocks it had created for its line of music players and mobile phones.
Consumers weren’t impressed and it was quickly shelved in subsequent versions, but should you wish to revisit Metro you can now get the experience on Linux. [er-bharat] has created Win8DE, a shell for Wayland window managers that brings the Metro interface — or something very like it — to the open source operating system.
The most beautiful horror to ever exist lmao
Makes you wonder why it died on tablets and phones.
The few people I know who had a Windows phone really liked the UI, the platform was just mismanaged by Microsoft. For example, they already had a problem with having too little apps in their store and then they broke app compatibility between Windows phone 7 and 8. I guess Google intentionally breaking compatibility of their services on Windows phones didn’t help adoption either.
A bit ironic when Microsoft struggles because someone else keep breaking compatibility. Although I would prefer it to keep trying because that would have been more choice and competition in the mobile OS land