windows
Microsoft Explains Metro Tiles in Windows 8
Microsoft seems to be going out of its way to make sure that Windows 8 for all devices goes off without a hitch. Now the company has been explaining all aspects of the upcoming OS to developers with the latest installment being about the Metro tiles we can expect to see on Windows 8. According to the company, the use of Metro tiles in the OS is about making the desktop OS in-line with its mobile OS.
Although some might say that the tiles make more sense on a mobile device, the company believes that it would be equally good on PCs. Because of that belief it has released more information to developers explaining to them how to better the consumer experience with Windows 8. The company insists that when users see “fun & interesting things on their tiles, they will be more likely to launch your app to learn more about it.” From the post by Microsoft, “There are 4 ways that an app can update its tile.
Apps can use local notifications to update their tile, which is useful if info changes while the app is running. Apps can schedule tile and toast updates to happen at precise times. Also, apps can use push or polling tile notifications to update their tiles from the cloud while they are not running.” On top of that, the company released a bit of code for the Metro tile which allegedly revolves around a food truck where users will be able to pin tiles to the taskbar and its movements can be tracked.
After the tile has been pinned, it becomes a secondary tile and real-time notifications will be sent to it. With the OS that is said to also feature in many upcoming smartphones and tablets coming up soon, it is our guess that the company is doing its best to ramp up the developers right now because once the flood gates open it might be hard to keep everyone in the same vicinity. Are you excited about Windows 8? Let us know with a comment below.
It is quite a feeling to have a smartphone getting the latest operating system update up and running, that is for sure. After all, you can never quite tell just what kind of goodies that your handset would receive now, can you? Those who are rocking to a Windows Phone 8.1 device might be looking forward to spending Christmas with a Windows 10 Mobile update but it seems that such hopes will have to be shelved for the moment.
It seems that there will be no Windows 10 update arriving this month as originally speculated, and the time frame itself has been altered, being even more vague in nature – where it has been mentioned to be “early next year”, which could jolly well mean any time, even in April. Looks like patience needs to be had in boatloads here.
So, you are still rocking to the Xiaomi Mi 4 and are more than happy with the device, right? Well, how about enjoying an operating system upgrade when December 3rd rolls around? This is what will happen to the Xiaomi Mi 4, where it has been teased by Xiaomi’s Founder and President Lin Bin on Weibo, citing the December 3rd date. I suppose it is encouraging to take note that this bit arrives close to nine months after Microsoft and Xiaomi came to an agreement, where there would be support for the Windows 10 Technical Preview on the Mi 4 handset.
Just in case you were wondering, there is another device from Xiaomi which will rock to the Windows 10 OS, and that would be the recently announced Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 tablet, with that particular device arriving in a 64GB memory configuration alongside an asking price of $205 thereabouts.
Trivia lovers, here is something that might just pique your interest. After all, don’t you wish you had all sorts of information at your fingertips? Windows Phone lovers will be pleased to hear that there is a leak concerning information about the Windows Phone Store, and such information can be said to be ‘ancient”, as it dates back all the way to October 2011 with the introduction of Windows Phone 7.5.
So far, the most popular downloaded app happens to be Facebook with more than 112 million installations – no surprise there at all, I suppose. WhatsApp is behind Facebook considerably at 92 million downloads, while OneDrive has 62.5 million downloads. Located close to the bottom of the food chain would be PayPal that picked up a mere 1.6 million downloads all this while, and 2.5 million for Telegraph.
Third party apps as well as games have had their fair share of hits, too, like Tube HD that handles the playback of YouTube videos with more than 13 million downloads. Of course, these figures would pale in comparison to what Android and iOS platforms have garnered all this while.