win8 Is it just me or those Metro apps really sucks so bad?

[wellofsouls]

yes, it's just you... and you CAN switch to another app while starting one up:

1. if you've got one that's slow and you know this just start it, snap to the side then use what you want or switch to desktop with win+d or whatever (but TBH i NEVER shut down the mail app or outlook)

2. you CAN switch to anything, apps start in the backgroud just fine

Hmm... the Metro app startup seems to just hang there if I switch to another application in the middle of it, and when I returns after five minutes it still greets me with the whirling circles. My company notebook is 1280x800 so I cannot use the "side-view" feature, but for my work desktops with greater resolutions and the "side-view" thing, it still behaves the same.

and saying all metro apps suck so bad then giving one example wich is pretty subjective (my mail app starts up around 3-4 secs) is not a good way to start an argument - but plenty of the metro apps suck, buggy or lack features i give you that

1. it will change with time, MS itself stated that they'll continually update their metro apps

2. all app stores are alike in this respect: 90% of the stuff is utter crap, deal with it and find your preferred 10%

well I can list all those Metro apps one by one, like Weather, Finance, People, Message, whatever. They all start much slower than their desktop counter parts. And harder to use. And those are Microsoft's own apps. It's not like third party apps we are talking about here, and even the Store app itself is slow and acting weird at times, this does not even come to the third party apps in the stores yet. I think one example should suffice here already, it's really about the Metro apps in general, I don't need to point out the names one by one.

And I'm using the genuine TechNet RTM version, not some preview releases. My team's clients want to test their products under Windows 8, so we are provided some licenses, and even a couple (really awful) Windows 8 tablets to work with.

[Mainer82]

It's not just you, I too, find the apps mostly dumbed down and useless. Take Evernote for example, it's difficult to navigate tags and notes in their metro version unlike their full desktop version.

[spaceelf]

Hmm... the Metro app startup seems to just hang there if I switch to another application in the middle of it, and when I returns after five minutes it still greets me with the whirling circles. My company notebook is 1280x800 so I cannot use the "side-view" feature, but for my work desktops with greater resolutions and the "side-view" thing, it still behaves the same.

You might look/have to wait for newer graphics drivers, I know there are new systems that can't do WinRT app acceleration properly yet. Usually they should load relatively quickly first run, and after that instead of closing be in suspend mode so have nothing to initialize or whatnot.

[deleted_acc]

well I can list all those Metro apps one by one, like Weather, Finance, People, Message, whatever

what do you mean when referring to "desktop counterparts"? websites or software? i of course use outlook, without it i would be half dead half stupid but i wouldn't count it as a "counterpart" for mail app - the latter is just an easy to use and finger friendly email client, sorta like outlook.com/email but on your start screen (what plus you get are the notifications and of course you can add multiple accounts)

weather, i find easier to look at a tile than go to a website - and for forecasts, the display of information is better in the application than on most websites i've seen

people, well... i think it's a great opportunity but yet a bit awkward to use, slow and not a bit like WP's people hub; but the notification section is great and it has potential, we'll see

anyway as i said earlier most of the apps are in need of at least one major update for performance and features but i'm pretty confident that we'll see quite a few of those till the 26th

[nekkidtruth]

just ignore the last sentence like you did with the previous comment mate... never said anything about you or your skills but when it comes to "egotistical bunch" it's not me flexing my IT skill muscles...

gonna say once more: i actually don't know you or your skills and TBH i don't care either way, i'm saying you cannot accept every comment stating "i have big f_cking computer skillz n00bs" stating their rig is perfect but windows (version x) is crap and for evidence there are no reproduced bugs, no logs or at least a f_cking KB article about the error just the word of some guy crying out

if you think this suit fits you then by all means complain further how i insut your intelligence but relax: i do not

I didn't "ignore"' the last sentence. I actually didn't see it. I was just finishing up my shift at work and eager to respond. I apologize for missing your disclaimer. But for the record, I wasn't flexing anything. Just slapping down the "You're doing it wrong" bull**** that flies around when it comes to Windows 8 and how the majority of the pro-Windows 8 folks automatically assume anyone who has any real issues are stupid and don't know what they're doing.

[Max Norris]

Meh the Metro apps have been hit or miss for me, found a few nice ones, others not so much. (Which is true regardless of the platform I guess.) Ran into a few quirky ones. Some are just inconsistent as hell; for example in some Metro apps I can scroll sideways with the mouse wheel. Others, I can't... irritating. Happens vertically too; have Tweetro for example running in a column on the side of the screen for a list view, can't seem to scroll that one with a wheel either.. big WTF there. As far as usability goes, a lot of it had to just do with getting used to it, learning how to resize Metro apps and move them, the new hotkeys, a few things that weren't blatantly obvious, etc. I think the platform itself is ok, just a bit immature yet, never mind developers are still fairly new raw with it. Performance wise again it's hit or miss, depends on the program. I think over time it'll improve a lot, both with some under-the-hood improvements from Microsoft (it is a first version after all) and from developers themselves, but right now it's fairly hit or miss. Kind of reminds me of a Linux desktop in a way.. bits of sheer brilliance sprinkled with a dash of utter stupidity in random places just to make things irritating. (And that's not a bash a Linux, rather fond of that OS too.)

That said, Windows 8 itself (the "regular" bits) has been running very well for me. Have been using the Windows 7 "hybrid shell" trick as I really don't find myself using the Metro stuff much.. I can deal with the start screen (mostly.. it needs work too) but meh, if I'm not using the Metro stuff may as well save a little memory. Run just as fast as 7, often times faster depending on the scenario. Has been quite stable, so far I have yet to find anything that doesn't run with it or get any crashes, well on the non-Metro side anyway, had a few apps that kersploded. Overall I've been finding it very good under the hood.. just needs a bit work on the front end. That and a better theme.. eesh hurry up third party modders.

[deleted_acc]

I apologize for missing your disclaimer.

no harm done mate but you too should try and empathyze with the "other side": us win8 users (not de facto fanboys altough i admit i am an ms-fanboy) continually need to take the crap (some times it is REALLY just crap) from the abovementioned people, many of them never used the thing (i don't say never will 'cos in the minute COD or BF do 1FPS better on Win8 piratebay will overload) but bash it anyway - and the real LOL is that i heard this music many times with idiocy like the scrapping of classic theme, the scrapping of classic start menu, file indexing, superfetch, aero itself (enter aero and queue the ****storm of "eyecandy BS", exit aero and queue the ****storm of "looks like win1.0 lolz") and countless more

that's why i rarely concern myself with topics like this, the one and only reason i posted 'cos the OP was >wrong< about backgroud startup and switching between apps (not saying he's lying but if Win8 behaves this way on his rig it is not normal)

[HawkMan]

Actually, I'm telling the truth. Windows 7 works perfectly for me, Windows 8 doesn't, and my hardware is not faulty.

And again, one OS working and another not working is in NO WAY indicative of perfect hardware

[Eins.MY]

you are not a power user if you failed to use Windows 8

its the same as Windows 7 but with more added goodness

[TPreston]

Xbox Music & Movies are the only two that i think are worth keeping (assuming your collection is mp3+mp4 like mine)

[wellofsouls]

what do you mean when referring to "desktop counterparts"? websites or software? i of course use outlook, without it i would be half dead half stupid but i wouldn't count it as a "counterpart" for mail app - the latter is just an easy to use and finger friendly email client, sorta like outlook.com/email but on your start screen (what plus you get are the notifications and of course you can add multiple accounts)

weather, i find easier to look at a tile than go to a website - and for forecasts, the display of information is better in the application than on most websites i've seen

people, well... i think it's a great opportunity but yet a bit awkward to use, slow and not a bit like WP's people hub; but the notification section is great and it has potential, we'll see

anyway as i said earlier most of the apps are in need of at least one major update for performance and features but i'm pretty confident that we'll see quite a few of those till the 26th

Well, yeah, Mail is not even near the features and functionality of Outlook, yet still it's slower, less responsive, and buggy from my experience.

For Weather, I'd say most of the desktop weather widgets out there load faster and more responsive.

For the record, I really like Windows 8 in general, I like the faster system startup and shutdown, like the more streamlined look, like the smoother feel of the UI, like the more responsive operations in the desktop environment, and IE10 in Windows 8 is the first nicely usable IE in a long time that doesn't instantly drive me to install Opera and Chrome. However most of the Metro apps are really useless and user-unfriendly at this time IMO, I hope they can really work some magic and turn that around. Ot maybe some better driver support if that's the main issue.

On another note, apart from some bad performance issues and weirdness of the Metro apps, I think the current design doesn't really make the Start Screen and Metro apps integrate with the desktop environment well, which leads to UX issues. Many times when I try to click on the menu button of Opera or Firefox browsers, or the File menu of maximized programs, I trigger a Metro app switch instead. And as the Metro app switching and desktop app switching are located at different areas of the screen, I think it's easy to get them mixed up at times, like looking at the left side bar for switching into a desktop app, or instinctually moving the mouse pointer to the taskbar when I actually think of switching into a Metro app. :shiftyninja:

[matt4pack]

I agree the apps are mostly awful except for maybe a few games. I still like Windows 8 but don't use metro much at all because of this.

The biggest problem is how slow they are and makes them all feel awful no matter what. There is no excuse for metro apps to be so much slower than desktop apps if that's what they're supposed to replace.

[grayscale]

I love Windows 8 and I'll defend it if the bashing doesn't have a point but since your criticism is directed to the how bad the Metro apps are (and not just the typical "omg! I'm forced to use the Metro apps!"), then I agree. This has always been my stand when it comes to Metro apps: if it isn't as good as its desktop counterparts, then there's no reason for me to use it. Mail app does not take as long as yours to open but outlook.com on the web is just as snappy. Most apps are also crappy, tbh. The only ones I use are News applications for the live tiles, and TrackSeries (and TrackSeries, as much as I love it, isn't intuitive as well). OneNote MX is good, but it can't even match Evernote on desktop.

*I'm assuming we're talking about non-touchscreen devices here.

[zhangm Supervisor]

It's not a day unless Mail crashes.

[abysal]

I'm not exactly a fan of Win8, but I have to say the OS works fasts and stable for me.

[Noir Angel]

And again, one OS working and another not working is in NO WAY indicative of perfect hardware

I've been through enough hardware failures to know when I'm looking at one. Please just stop making rubbish excuses and insulting my intelligence.

[HawkMan]

Then provide some actual evidence.

[BajiRav]

Actually, I'm telling the truth. Windows 7 works perfectly for me, Windows 8 doesn't, and my hardware is not faulty.

I didn't say anything about hardware, the drivers for pre-8 hardware are still a suspect - your skills and experience don't matter.

[wellofsouls]

*I'm assuming we're talking about non-touchscreen devices here.

Yup, as the couple Windows 8 tablets we are provided with are downright awful devices. With Atom CPUs, little disk space, and low quality touch-screens. Oh well they are just given to us to do some software UI tests, so they does do their intended work.

[rfirth]

For example, the Mail app can take more than half a minute to launch, while the Office 2010 Outlook takes less than half the time.

More than 30 seconds? I'm using 5 year old hardware and it only takes 3 seconds to load the first time.

[+unabatedshagie Subscriber¹]

I haven't found a modern ui app that I like or use. I've uninstalled most of them and installed start 8 and now I'm back to using Windows 7.5.

Once a week I go into the store and see whats's new, possibly install a couple and try but usually within a few minutes I've uninstalled them again.

[siah1214]

I swear to God, if you hate Windows 8 it stops working. I've installed Windows 8 on 3 computers, love the built in apps, with the exception of sports they load up in seconds, and never crash. So I don't know how you people have **** luck with your apps, I have no problems, and they are faster and more convenient than the desktop apps.

[notchinese]

These apps are not made for use on your desktop, so why bother. I have run W8 on a desktop since the developer preview and I never use any metro apps, except to just mess around and try them out. And guess what? I still love Windows 8, the fact that I don't use those apps on my desktop does not detract from it. I will likely buy a W8 tablet and use the metro apps almost exclusively. Also, can we stop calling them modern ui apps? That is such a stupid name, and just because some random blogs pro-claimed that is the new name for metro apps doesn't make it true.

[+unabatedshagie Subscriber¹]

These apps are not made for use on your desktop, so why bother. I have run W8 on a desktop since the developer preview and I never use any metro apps, except to just mess around and try them out. And guess what? I still love Windows 8, the fact that I don't use those apps on my desktop does not detract from it. I will likely buy a W8 tablet and use the metro apps almost exclusively. Also, can we stop calling them modern ui apps? That is such a stupid name, and just because some random blogs pro-claimed that is the new name for metro apps doesn't make it true.

I'd hardly call the BBC a blog? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19108952

[remixedcat]

I swear to God, if you hate Windows 8 it stops working. I've installed Windows 8 on 3 computers, love the built in apps, with the exception of sports they load up in seconds, and never crash. So I don't know how you people have **** luck with your apps, I have no problems, and they are faster and more convenient than the desktop apps.

send teh gud vibez 2 windows 8