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Windows 8 now officially launched

The recent launch of Windows 8 was by the standards of previous Windows launches a bit of a lack lustre affair, with hardly a celebrity in sight. Instead of the usual line up of famous faces Microsoft just wheeled in their board of directors to the event which was staged in what was once a bus depot. 

Perhaps the reason for the low key event is because we all know what Windows 8 is like, after all the pre-release version has been around for some time now, though according to Microsoft there have been over 20,000 revisions since that was released.

Windows 8 has been designed to be used on fixed and mobile devices including the Microsoft 8 Surface tablet. So is it now time to sell Macbook pro laptops and move over to windows 8?
According to Apple you should stick with your Macbook. Tim Cook, the Apple CEO said that it was a compromised and confusing product. He said that although it might be possible to design a car that floats and flies, it would be unlikely to perform any of those functions very well, but then of course he is just a little biased.

So what is so different about Windows 8? For a start there is no start button. Instead there is an array of tiles which you can swipe or click with a mouse. It really doesn’t feel like the Windows that we have all known and, if not loved, then at least grown to respect. Despite its many previous failings, with Windows 7 Microsoft created a reasonably secure version of its ubiquitous operating system; one that didn’t blue screen on a regular basis.

It Windows 8 just Windows 7 dressed up in new clothes? According to Microsoft it is much more radical than that, and has been built from the bottom up to work with touch screens. But once you get through the tiles UI what do you find? You find the same old desktop that came with Windows 7! Just click the tile called Desktop and you are there, back in Windows 7.

The new UI is very good, make no mistake. It is fun and intuitive to use and there are already plenty of apps available, with thousands more in development. It is new and it is fresh, but perhaps it is still a little premature to sell macbook and buy Windows; it is probably best to let the dust settle first.