Articles about Metro

Those who follow my musings here on BetaNews know that I travel a lot internationally. Whether it’s bouncing around Asia, cooling my heels in Europe, or soaking up rays on my adopted home of Mauritius, I rarely go more than a month or so without a major trip somewhere. And now that my children are both attending university in the U.S., I’m shuttling back and forth to the States more than ever. Which makes the news that the city of New York is suing T-Mobile over shady business practices at its pre-paid wireless "Metro by T-Mobile" stores all the more jarring.

You see, I’m a longtime Metro customer. When I left the U.S. for good in 2006, I said goodbye to my traditional, post-paid cellular plan and waded into the murky waters of pre-paid phone providers. At first, I used a mixture of el-cheapo "feature phones" whenever I was back in the States. Tracfone, et al, no doubt appreciated my patronage during those pre-smartphone years when all I cared about was being able to make a voice call when I needed to.

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Inexpensive Android smartphones are nothing new. Getting premium quality phones at a low price is fairly new, however. While some folks hail these respectable wallet-friendly devices as a win for consumers, others -- such as yours truly -- view it as a race to the bottom which could ultimately harm the Android market overall.

Today, ZTE announces the ZMAX PRO Android smartphone. This device is chock full of premium features, such as an octa-core Snapdragon 617 processor, 2GB of RAM, expandable storage, and a fingerprint reader. The truly amazing aspect, however, is the price -- a shockingly low $99.

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The hatred of Modern UI and its associated Start Screen is well documented. Many users dislike the full-screen Windows apps, stating they are less productive with them. There can be truth to that -- working with multiple open programs and apps simultaneously can be problematic. Not to mention, there are very few apps compared to legacy programs. Some users may feel that if they cannot go "all in" on Modern UI, they don't want to use it at all.

It is hard to blame developers for not embracing Modern UI -- Microsoft hasn't even done so with Office. One notable app that has been conspicuously absent, is Firefox. Mozilla developers have been working on it, but a final, stable version never came to fruition. Sadly, Mozilla announces that it is cancelling the project, dealing Microsoft's Windows 8.x a significant blow.

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I've been struggling for a good year now with Microsoft's decision to push users as hard as it is pushing them to use the new, modern user interface, what was once code-named Metro. Even in Windows 8.1 (formerly known as Windows Blue), it is the primary UI. Why is Microsoft forcing us to use it?

"Forcing" is perhaps too strong of a word I suppose (although it's a good one for a headline). You can continue to run conventional Windows programs -- hell, even text-mode console software -- and keep using a traditional computer with a keyboard and mouse, but they're all legacy now, at least for Modern UI apps.

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Microsoft isn't known for its ability in picking catchy names, so it was somewhat shocking when the Redmond, Wash. company began referring to its clean, typography-first interface as "Metro". It was beautifully simple, and just seemed to fit.

Not anymore.

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Fundamentally, the Metro user interface is not bad. It’s a good idea to change the interface of an operating system from time to time. Microsoft did the right thing with Aero back when Windows Vista was introduced. It was definitely a step forward and made Windows XP look old and ugly by comparison.

The fact that Windows Vista had so many problems that some considered it the worst operating system to come from Redmond is another story. Comparisons with Windows Me didn’t help either.

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Tuesday, legacy access software company Cybele Software launched the beta of z/Scope Anywhere version 7.0, a HTML5 and Javascript-based terminal emulator that lets any modern device securely connect to IBM S/390 Mainframe, AS/400, and Unix hosts through the browser in a conspicuously "Metro-style" interface with touch and virtual keyboard support.

Remote users connect to the z/Scope Anywhere server with any HTML5-complaint browser, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, as well as mobile and tablet browsers. Once connected, the server translates all of the interactions between the "old school" architecture and the "new school" client device. The z/Scope server software, meanwhile, can be run on Windows XP/Vista/7 and Windows Server 2003/2008 setups.

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