We have heard about the upcoming Windows Blue before, a nudge here and a whisper there, mainly thanks to Microsoft’s job vacancies board. However, over the weekend, something more solid arrived to give us an insight into Microsoft’s evolution of Windows 8, an .ISO of Windows Blue, build 9364. From what we have seen so far there are quite a few significant changes, improvements even, especially to the UI and customisation options.
Let’s start with the Start Screen. Now the tile sizes will be more customisable with both larger and smaller tile sizes to arrive in the Windows Blue update. The largest tiles will be twice as big as the current double sized Windows 8 tiles; these are great big, eye-catching visual blocks. At the other extreme a new tile size quarter the current Windows 8 standard tile size will be introduced. All these sizes will allow much more interesting Start Screen tile arrangements, similar to how Windows Phone 8 offers a much more customisable look than its predecessor. WinSuperSite’s Paul Thurrott also informs us that individual tile colours are going to be assignable.
Observe the full range of tile sizes and the personalisation overlay
The start screen can be personalised more directly, choosing background and accent colours without scarpering to some remote empty looking setting screen. You can tweak appearance with your eyes able to see a portion of the Start Screen, much more intuitive. The new range of background and accent colours is set to expand to infinity... Additionally for ease of use and set up of your Start Screen, groups will be able to be assembled without using semantic zoom mode.
Red and green should never be seen
Snap view has been updated to allow a 50/50 screen app split adding to the current 75/25 option. This should make the system much more flexible for a variety of multi-tasking purposes.
Under the hood Paul Thurrot says that many more of the control panel settings, including Display Settings, are now to be found in the Modern UI settings. That’s much more convenient for tablet users. The cnet report suggests that there will be power efficiency improvements on offer too. Also Internet Explorer 11 is shown running in some screenshots.
In the next couple of months a public preview version of Windows Blue is supposed to become available. Before then, hopefully some more useful and exciting new features destined for Windows Blue will emerge.
