Confirmed: Windows Blue Will Be Free, to Be Called 8.1

And it's growing a darn sight faster than iOS or play.
Apps do not come instantly and off course there's a divide, windows phone has been out ages and has what 200,000 apps now(apparently 145k, but then last year they hit 150k, think people are using different measuring sticks). Even though they share a lot of the same code, it still requires a reprogramming.
Something windows Blue was rumoured to make even easier and share even more code, was even talk of merging WP and win stores, but I can't see that happening in this update as its gone quite on that front.

And don't talk to me about VLC, they are a bunch of ******* and gone down in my estimation. Not even an update in months from them.
 
Last edited:
Taking an approximate number of apps in the two competing stores after an equal duration of time since they first opened as a crude measure of developer interest, is irrelevant in refuting the claim that numbers for a new platform are abysmal?
 
theheyes said:
Taking an approximate number of apps in the two competing stores after an equal duration of time since they first opened as a crude measure of developer interest, is irrelevant in refuting the claim that numbers for a new platform are abysmal?
Click to expand...

Because of the era we're now in, it's a completely different market now to then.
The apps already exist, they just haven't been ported. Whereas previously they didn't exist.
 
Martini1991 said:
Because of the era we're now in, it's a completely different market now to then.
The apps already exist, they just haven't been ported. Whereas previously they didn't exist.
Click to expand...

But they have done far better than them at the same point due to these reasons,msi I don't see how it's abysmal.
You would expect them to have a larger store due to those reasons and they have got a much larger store.
 
this_is_gav said:
But Android and iOS will have 10 times that. It's missing key apps such as all of the BBC ones and Sky Go.
Click to expand...

You can't really say anything about Sky to be fair, It took them years to get Sky Go on Android. I would expect it to take a long time before they bother doing it. Apple are always first really with apps from them.

We all know whats happened with MS & Google so yeah another one that can't really be moaned about.
 
vintage-x said:
I agree. They need to get the hardware out there and at lower prices.I paid £700 for my samsung ativ 500t tablet and to me it was money well spent because I use it for everything except gaming but for lots of others £700 is really steep and it would fly off the shelves if it was £400 - £500
Click to expand...


Im the other way round here, I love my WP8, but the whole tablet bit has me still waiting. Im waiting for the HW manufacturers to catch up with win8, its a great touch based OS, but the hardware is a generation behind in power and battery life, I can't wait for the haswell and 8.1 samples to arrive.
 
Glaucus said:
And it's growing a darn sight faster than iOS or play.
Apps do not come instantly and off course there's a divide, windows phone has been out ages and has what 200,000 apps now(apparently 145k, but then last year they hit 150k, think people are using different measuring sticks). Even though they share a lot of the same code, it still requires a reprogramming.
Something windows Blue was rumoured to make even easier and share even more code, was even talk of merging WP and win stores, but I can't see that happening in this update as its gone quite on that front.

And don't talk to me about VLC, they are a bunch of ******* and gone down in my estimation. Not even an update in months from them.
Click to expand...

What will make or break W8 will be corporate support.
As for market share, there are a lot of companies out there waiting for 8.1 and better battery life, I know where I work, the moment 8hrs battery life on surface pro arrives (hopefully in conjunction with 8.1) then we will put a massive order in for tablets all over the place, but current battery life is a no go for us
In addition, as a company, we refuse to allow android for corporate devices for its obvious security risks and are very wary of apple due to their continuous ability to break things, OSX 10.8 to 10.8.3 destroyed our enterprise wireless, we have only just seen it fixed in 10.8.4, same with IOS, 802.1x roaming has big issues with jellybean and IOS.
We are seeing similar issues with the S4, and have been warned by our wireless vendor to expect major issues Jan/Feb next year with 75% of xmas devices 802.11ac capable but all running first gen drivers.
Apple and google make consumer devices, they just don't get the corporate market in the same way, love them or hate them, M$ are the only mobile vendor who have fully implemented 802.11k, 11r and 11v in their latest drivers so for us, they are the only option we can look at..
 
edgedemon said:
Im the other way round here, I love my WP8, but the whole tablet bit has me still waiting. Im waiting for the HW manufacturers to catch up with win8, its a great touch based OS, but the hardware is a generation behind in power and battery life, I can't wait for the haswell and 8.1 samples to arrive.
Click to expand...

To true, have you seen the rumoured acer one?
German website Techblog.gr reports that Acer is gearing up to launch a Windows 8 Pro tablet sporting one of Intel's upcoming Haswell processors.

Currently using the codename "Bulgari," the unannounced tablet will reportedly feature a huge 11.6-inch display with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 and an 8 MP camera on the back. The tablet is reportedly "almost ready" to launch, indicating that it could be one of the Haswell launch devices next month.
Click to expand...
Big screen, high res and haswell. Me wants now!!
And there's only one reason I'm still on iPhone. MS ***** up the wp8 launch and it doesn't support xbox movies, despite wp7 supporting it. I can only assume like the notification centre,my hey ran out of time. The next feature update better fix that.
 
this_is_gav said:
But without the apps it's never going to get a foothold and with so few devices sold out many app developers are going to be unwilling to push out products for it and without doing a Nexus I can't see how they'll convince app developers.

It's a vicious circle. The need to get the ball rolling on this one.
Click to expand...

They have got the ball rolling, Microsoft has many (many) faults but they've taken a lot of bold steps with Windows 8. They've turned their flagship product into a platform for these apps and they're heavily pushing the tablets, in this regard what more could/should they have done?

Personally I don't understand why more third parties haven't jumped on board, having the desktop Windows 8 install base alone means you have millions of potential customers and that's ignoring the tablet side of things completely.
 
Martini1991 said:
Because of the era we're now in, it's a completely different market now to then.
The apps already exist, they just haven't been ported. Whereas previously they didn't exist.
Click to expand...

What were you expecting? Them to open the store and have every major app ready to go? You're being unrealistic.
 
DeathStorm said:
What were you expecting? Them to open the store and have every major app ready to go? You're being unrealistic.
Click to expand...

No, I never expected that, never even said anything to that effect.
But it's been 8 months now, we still don't have spotify etc.

I think there's 1 decent free FLAC player ; Media Monkey. As far as I know there's only 1 free MKV player and it's not great.
 
edgedemon said:
What will make or break W8 will be corporate support.
As for market share, there are a lot of companies out there waiting for 8.1 and better battery life, I know where I work, the moment 8hrs battery life on surface pro arrives (hopefully in conjunction with 8.1) then we will put a massive order in for tablets all over the place, but current battery life is a no go for us
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong but you're not going to get 8 hours from a Core 5/7 equivalent regardless of Haswell, your choice is still going to be between ARM, Atom and the Core processors.

I'm assuming one of the Intel 4***U will be the crossover point we've been looking for between full Windows, good performance and battery life a lot of us (presumably?) have been waiting for but there's still a lot of variables to consider. I can't see how Microsoft can have just 2 models in that case.
 
Haswell should give 8 hours as long as you aren't using the CPU 100%.
If your using it at full throttle it'll last the same as the current gen. If you are just browsing the web/watching videos. Then it should give massive improvments.
The design brief was double the battery life, double the gfx and 10% CPU increase.
Can't wait for some bench marks to see how close they have got.

Current surface is 4-5hrs I would expect haswell to get 7-8hours on light tasks and same time as surface for intensive tasks. But only time will tell.

Which is why I can't understand why all the moaning in the CPU forum, it was never designed to be a big over clocker, or to massively beat current gen chips. It's all about onward gfx and power saving (Neither of which usually matter for desktops), with a token clock boost to say it performs faster than current gen.
 
Last edited:
DeathStorm said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but you're not going to get 8 hours from a Core 5/7 equivalent regardless of Haswell, your choice is still going to be between ARM, Atom and the Core processors.

I'm assuming one of the Intel 4***U will be the crossover point we've been looking for between full Windows, good performance and battery life a lot of us (presumably?) have been waiting for but there's still a lot of variables to consider. I can't see how Microsoft can have just 2 models in that case.
Click to expand...

With light use, hopefully, the other option is Intel bay-trail which hopefully will allow for even more battery life though with the expense of pure grunt.
Im going to stick my neck out and say that I expect WPxx to be the dominant tablet operating system in years to come as I think corporate support will come to it, and as far as timelines go, we are at the Win95 days for a M$ tablet ecosystem..
Android isn't a threat, apple could be if they decided to support corporate requirements more, but I can't see that happening..
Obviously in my humble opinion of course :p
 
Glaucus said:
Most does not equal all.
Also the unofficial ones are meant to be pretty good. Facebook Now, is what most people recommend.
http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/cbe5b648-e68b-43b1-b94d-74c7db48d8ee

Facebook apps are crap anyhow, just use the website. I don't even use e Facebook app on ipad/iPhone.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I will check it out next time I'm on W8. But like you said, I will probably end up on the website anyway.

I mean FB invests millions in time and money on their primary point of delivery: their website. Why use a puny app coded in a bedroom anyway, it's like going backwards. :p

Now if an official app with a proper integration such as live tile could be very cool.
 
Last edited:
Hopefully they'll wake up, I tried ebay again on ipad and the new update finally makes me prefer it to the website. I need to give ebay win8 app another go see if that's been updated as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom