Yeah, the "windowed metro apps" thing is way more interesting than the start-menu.
I stubbornly insist that the idea behind a unified tablet and desktop OS is sound, it's just that windows 8 screwed the implementation with its Classic/Metro schizophrenia instead of focusing on the nature of the user's screen real-estate instead of the nature of the applications.
On a desktop I have space, so use my space for an always-visible taskbar and windowed apps. On at tablet I don't have space, so make the apps always-maximized and auto-hide the taskbar. But that doesn't mean unifying the OS was a bad thing - I'd want that auto-hide always-fullscreen tablet-oriented OS on an 11" ultrabook, even if it was the "desktop" form of the OS. And likewise, give me windowing on some kind of monstrous 23" tablet thing.
It sounds ugly and wrong to have both IMHO. Yet I use both in Mac is every day. Coding = full screen zone mode, debugging = panel / window mode. Window mode I find pretty much useless these days Im not sure what has changed but I prefer full screen and panels windows just add an extra step and use case of organizing my windows which should be handled for me in this day and age.
Side note, anyone know of something like awesome for Mac?
The traditional windows UI is perfectly capable of accommodating all of your use cases. You want to code full screen? Put your editor into full screen mode and auto-hide all the panels. You want multiple windows? Just drag windows around and resize them to your heart's satisfaction. You want neat tiles? Use the snapping feature that virtually all modern desktop environments provide, or if you're really serious about tiles, use a tiling window manager.
All the alternatives I've seen so far, on the other hand, are excellent at one or two of these use cases but not all of them. So it's understandable that each and every one of them has a sizable group of vocal opponents (though not necessarily the same group of people) whose needs are being ignored.
I stubbornly insist that the idea behind a unified tablet and desktop OS is sound, it's just that windows 8 screwed the implementation with its Classic/Metro schizophrenia instead of focusing on the nature of the user's screen real-estate instead of the nature of the applications.
On a desktop I have space, so use my space for an always-visible taskbar and windowed apps. On at tablet I don't have space, so make the apps always-maximized and auto-hide the taskbar. But that doesn't mean unifying the OS was a bad thing - I'd want that auto-hide always-fullscreen tablet-oriented OS on an 11" ultrabook, even if it was the "desktop" form of the OS. And likewise, give me windowing on some kind of monstrous 23" tablet thing.