• Diyan
• On April 16, 2015

Microsoft abandons the old designs

Upcoming builds of Windows 10 Technical Preview will introduce Microsoft’s universal MSN apps that will run across PCs, phones and tablets. Windows Central has obtained early versions of these new universal apps and we can notice some drastic changes compared to what we know from Windows 8 and Windows Phone.

The new apps for Windows 10 now resembles those on Android as they feature the hamburger menu at the top left corner and similar design. Clicking on the hamburger menu reveals different options and lists which varies from app to app. There is also a back button that pops up next the burger button whenever users open a new section from the menu. We don’t know how these apps will actually work on phones. We guess that users will be able to swipe to move from section to section, while the main menu will be opened only by tapping on the hamburger button at the top, which could be difficult on large screen devices.

All these recent UI changes we found in Windows 10 Mobile Technical preview and MSN apps raise questions whether replacing the old metro/swipe menus with more conventional approaches (hamburgers / Split view) is good or bad. Can these new apps be optimized to run well on touch (phones) and desktop (with mouse and keyboard) devices at the same time? One is sure, more developers are likely to work on new universal apps that share the same code across devices and target millions of potential customers.