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

[Munroe]

Used Win8 for a month or so, like it in general, but most of the time I find myself still using the desktop. I like the idea and design of the Metro apps, however they seem to be annoyingly slow and user-unfriendly. 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. Also you cannot switch out of the app while waiting for it to start. For desktop apps, if the startup time of a certain app is slow, you can just launch a browser or media player or whatever during the wait. For Metro apps, if you switch out during the startup to browser the web or something, when you switch back, it will still be at the startup screen. So you need to keep staring at the whirling circles when waiting for the Metro app's slow startup. This kind of things make the Metro apps really annoying to use IMHO.

Read through the posts and thought I'd give my rtm version a test and see how quickly apps start up. Using win 7 on my main desktop but win8 on my laptop (Athlon II dual core, 2.1GHz, 4Gb Ram, 64-bit, so not great), the mail app took 2 seconds, no exageration, shut it down and launched it again, as soon as I launched it quickly went back to start and launched another app (music) which took between 2 and 3 seconds. Switched back to mail and it had fully launched so multi-tasking does occur. So not sure what's occuring with your software.

Overall I'm liking Win8, need to get used to it more and all the different/new features but that doesn't mean it should be rated badly for being different compared to win7.

There are few things that could do with improving, like a seperate volume control for music.

Trying to connect to Flickr from the photos app seems to be a mess, it attempts to fit the web page into the small space on screen and it just doesn't look very good.

Someone else mentioned about mail app not highlighting new messages in other folders, luckily I don't have that issue, however with mail and new outlook email address, from the web browser version of Outlook you can change the "from" email address e.g I have one @msn.com and an @outlook.com both tied to the same account and you're able to select which one to send from, the mail app doesn't seem to allow that unfortunately.

[MFH]

Because the RTM is already out there and if there was a major issue then guess what - we'd be hearing about it by the early adopters.

It is for the general public? Must have missed the news...

How about reading the post, thinking about it and the before you even write a reply consider asking yourself whether what you're going to write makes any sense what so ever.

How about you understanding what "general media" means? Who apart from techies actually knows that Win8 has hit RTM? Close to nobody!? Right, so your point was exactly what again?

[phailyoor]

Read through the posts and thought I'd give my rtm version a test and see how quickly apps start up. Using win 7 on my main desktop but win8 on my laptop (Athlon II dual core, 2.1GHz, 4Gb Ram, 64-bit, so not great), the mail app took 2 seconds, no exageration, shut it down and launched it again, as soon as I launched it quickly went back to start and launched another app (music) which took between 2 and 3 seconds. Switched back to mail and it had fully launched so multi-tasking does occur. So not sure what's occuring with your software.

That's around 2-3 seconds too long. I can start WMP and MPC faster. I don't have a mail client on my desktop, but I can start the android mail client in less time. Same with the google play music and vlc. It's sad when a phone can open these things faster than a win8 PC can.

[Dashel]

Please do not presume to speak for us.

I was merely speaking generally. Unless you really think the Music app is better than Zune. Pray tell.

[micro]

They suck bad. I think part of the problem is that developers are making these RT apps for tablets when they dont even have the tablets to actually deploy and test on..

I dont have any hope for RT. However I love WP7 and Look forward to WP8.

[f0rk_b0mb]

FooBar, rubbish?

I think you need your head retuning. FooBar's perfect for loads of people and devices and uses very little system resources. Although you having a pretty powerful PC compared to say an embedded system wouldn't really care less that you're using way more power or anything.

+1 Foobar! Love at first sight. :wub:

[Brandon Live Veteran]

That's around 2-3 seconds too long. I can start WMP and MPC faster. I don't have a mail client on my desktop, but I can start the android mail client in less time. Same with the google play music and vlc. It's sad when a phone can open these things faster than a win8 PC can.

Even on a slow machine, only a cold launch should take more than a second. After that, you should be able to switch to it instantaneously, even on the slowest of machines.

[zhangm Supervisor]

Even on a slow machine, only a cold launch should take more than a second. After that, you should be able to switch to it instantaneously, even on the slowest of machines.

Why is it that when you scroll rapidly through a list of items like songs in Music or Mail that the content blanks out and shows nothing but grey boxes?

[phailyoor]

Even on a slow machine, only a cold launch should take more than a second.

Well, if you look up, there's another poster claiming that it takes 2-3 seconds to start a metro app. I also back that figure.

[HawkMan]

I wish the mail app had a quick view like Live Mail though, so I coudl see all my inboxes and all my unread mail in one place without checking each account. then it'd probably replace my live mail.

[matt4pack]

Even on a slow machine, only a cold launch should take more than a second. After that, you should be able to switch to it instantaneously, even on the slowest of machines.

But the point is they are ridiculously slow to open on first use to the point where I've given up on Metro apps.

Desktop apps don't have this problem and there is a huge difference between the 2. I don't really understand why this is as it doesn't seem like there is this issue on Windows Phone.

[efjay]

So apparently it is Microsoft's fault that third party applications are crashing? If the crashing is so wide spread how come we don't see a media circus around it - maybe it is just your installation?

Yep, its their fault for not properly testing the apps before approving them.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Well, if you look up, there's another poster claiming that it takes 2-3 seconds to start a metro app. I also back that figure.

But that's only a cold launch (i.e. after a reboot) and on a slower machine, right? Once you've run it once, the app will be suspended and switching back to it should be instantaneous.

Of course, on a fast machine even the cold launch should be under a second, although some apps show splash screens with progress indicators while downloading content from a server, making them subject to network conditions.

[AngryTomato]

Got another updates for News, Weather, Maps, Finance & Travelling apps today. There seems to be in-app advertisement now?

Build numbers jumped from 1.5.0.190 to 1.5.1.248 (except for maps app - that buld number was 1.5.0.222, jumped to 1.5.1.240)

[srbeen]

Apps which lack any feedback generally suck - as win8 never released yet, its a good chance it will take a year for 'metro' apps to really catch on and be optimized in their utilization.

[zhangm Supervisor]

Got another updates for News, Weather, Maps, Finance & Travelling apps today. There seems to be in-app advertisement now?

Build numbers jumped from 1.5.0.190 to 1.5.1.248 (except for maps app - that buld number was 1.5.0.222, jumped to 1.5.1.240)

Not sure if other people have seen this issue, but I've set a custom time format in Windows, and the apps have previously not been able to handle those formats. For instance, the Weather app wouldn't display hour labels in the hourly forecast section. This issue seems to have been fixed.

[phailyoor]

But that's only a cold launch (i.e. after a reboot) and on a slower machine, right? Once you've run it once, the app will be suspended and switching back to it should be instantaneous.

Well, duh. App switching is instant in desktop too. We're talking about first start performance here, where metro apps seem to have a disadvantage. Also, if you do the drag down to close an app, the opening time goes back up...

[zhangm Supervisor]

Well, duh. App switching is instant in desktop too. We're talking about first start performance here, where metro apps seem to have a disadvantage. Also, if you do the drag down to close an app, the opening time goes back up...

IME recently closed apps open in about half the time as they do immediately out of rebooting the computer.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Well, duh. App switching is instant in desktop too. We're talking about first start performance here, where metro apps seem to have a disadvantage.

I see quite the opposite (on slower devices). On my faster machines they're all (desktop or Store apps) instantaneous regardless of whether they're running or not.

Also, if you do the drag down to close an app, the opening time goes back up...

So don't do that?

[NightScreams]

you guys must really be in a rush to worry about a few short seconds. I'd hate to see you all drive.

[phailyoor]

I see quite the opposite (on slower devices). On my faster machines they're all (desktop or Store apps) instantaneous regardless of whether they're running or not.

Well, it's nice that your metro apps start quickly for computers that you touch. That does nothing to help everyone else.

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

No, it is not just you, they do suck.

[syobon999]

too early... the entire Metro platform is at alpha at best.

[Wyn6]

Well, if you look up, there's another poster claiming that it takes 2-3 seconds to start a metro app. I also back that figure.

This obviously varies from setup to setup. I mean, my apps (all of them) open instantly. I also played with an HP all-in-one today at Best Buy and the apps there too opened instantly. Not real sure what some of you guys setup is. I'm on an ASRock 8900 GS Extreme 4 mobo (3.2Ghz), AMD Phenom II quad core (not Black) with 12gigs of 1666 RAM, and a 120gb Kingston HyperX 3k SSD and a Radeon 4870.

As you can clearly see I don't have the newest bits except the SSD, and none of them were top tier even when they were new. So... only thing I can think of is Nvidia. People with Nvidia cards seemed to have more issues than others through the various previews.

[remixedcat]

what I don't get is why people expect people to spoonfeed them and baby stuff down.... people should try to better themselves and grow up instead of being babied and drag everyone down.... this is for those who think proper media players are too overwhelming....