Microsoft has a video on YouTube giving a demo of the new UI for Windows 8. It looks impressive, relying heavily on a touch based interface which would suggest it’s being geared towards supporting tablets. However, halfway though the video, the presenter shows that you can still access files on the file system and use Office to edit your Word docs etc. What, with my finger as a mouse? I don’t think so. This is just as bad as trying to squeeze the Windows interface into Windows Mobile for phones which was just as awful and hard to use even with a stylus replacing the mouse. It’s taken all these years later for Microsoft to try another attempt at a new/improved UI for mobile devices (with the new Windows Phone 7), so apparently it takes them a while to learn from their mistakes.
I’m not sure what the point of this video is. You can’t please everyone all of the time, and trying to just results in a half-baked solution. If the video was demonstrating that Windows 8 will support touch based tablets as well as desktops with two different interfaces, then that’s not as bad, but using Office on a touch based device with your finger as a mouse and the existing desktop UI, that’s a disaster.