back to article Microsoft's first Window 8 tablet app spotted

Bloggers have uncovered an application for Windows 8 that blurs the line between Windows, the web, and mobile using a new architecture from Microsoft. The application is called Modern Reader, Microsoft's own version of PDF Reader. According to bloggers Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott, who've been combing through leaked Windows …

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  1. NoneSuch Silver badge
    FAIL

    All I could think of when I read that...

    was "Lipstick on a Pig"

  2. Steen Hive
    Unhappy

    appx

    .docx reloaded. Oh lordy No....!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Battery life

    No coincidence that MS's IE blog recently published an article drawing attention to the effects of the common browsers on battery life, claiming Opera is worst and IE9 is the best.

    At first glance, this may have appeared to be a rather odd thing for them to blog about, but clearly MS are slowly gearing up for the age of tablets and other portable devices (yes, MS tend to be slow coming to these things), and one of their meerkating angles is probably going to be battery life.

    So here we have them developing tablet apps for Win8 whilst playing with battery life benchmarking. I wonder how long before they start releasing lots of software as 'web apps' which they boast run on the web browser like widgets, but in reality either need IE9 or run poorly on anything else.

    And before anyone says MS can't start making wild claims about battery life in the face of the existing competition, it hasn't stopped them meerkating IE9 as some kind of standards compliant holy grail well ahead of everyone else!

    1. John 62
      Unhappy

      don't know about Opera on Windows

      but I dropped Opera for Chrome on the Mac with great sadness because Chrome has been much more stable and less processor intensive than Opera :(

      Chrome really needs a paste and go shortcut

    2. Yag
      Troll

      "one of their meerkating angles is probably going to be battery life."

      Maybe a good reason to try to kill other battery-efficient mobile OSes... Nokia's homebrew gimmicks for example.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    .appx?

    i'd have thought .xap was the future?

  5. Uncle Bernie

    dream on

    you windows users have the stench of desperation about you

    1. MrCheese
      Flame

      Desperation...

      It's not as bad as a smell as the stench of your supercillious fanboi arrogance

      1. Tom Maddox Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Supercilious Fanoi Arrogance?

        I think I saw those guys at the Warfield. I thought it was going to be pretty rocking, but it turned out to be a bunch of guys in turtlenecks and horn rim glasses talking about their jobs.

  6. johngeorge

    windows

    how dumb is america? ask windows, microsoft and bill gates! their still laughing at americans all the way to the bank! ever had a problem with a virus? a worm? software glitches? registry? slow computer? windows security? lol, thats laugh out loud! i own a mac, i don't, can't get or will ever have to worry about this crap! yes they cost more, yes their 10 times better, faster and i can go anywhere a windows putter can go faster smoother and just better! simply put bill, windows and microsoft are scamming you and your allowing it to happen! john george columbus ohio

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      How can you tell someone uses a mac?

      They will tell you.

    2. MrCheese
      Grenade

      Can you say Apple Tax?

      My computer flies my friend, and I probably paid a fraction of what you did....and Idon't feel the need to sneer at other people to justify my buying choice either.

  7. mraak
    Thumb Down

    Copy? Over

    MS got lucky once by copying others, they got lucky big time. So lucky in fact that due to their Windows "invention" they became the biggest software company on the planet. They just keep on playing the same card since the company formation, copy whatever works good and see if it sticks. Last one that worked after Windows was XBox. Will they be lucky again or is it over?

  8. Mikel
    Pint

    No doubt lots of schools and certs

    Take the crash courses on these and skill up quick before they're deprecated. That way you can amuse your friends with tales of how many worthless ephemeral technologies you have mastered instead of doing something useful with your life.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Interesting

    I'm usually among the first to criticise Microsoft but on this occasion I do think they're on the right track. XAML+native code and standardised package installation are powerful concepts if done right.

    Much better idea than trying to shoehorn applications into the rubbish stack that is HTML5 or Adobe AIR/Java apps which always seem to live in their own alien little system.

  10. Sirius Lee

    Windows 8 is Silverlight?

    <<It will be a thin XAML/UI layer on top of Windows application programming interfaces and frameworks for subsystems like graphics, text and input>>

    Silverlight, then. Same as Windows Phone 7. Silverlight uses .xap files for application files but while these are signed they don't support protected (DRM) content. The packaging API (which generates the Office 2007 file formats) does. So maybe AppX is a xap in a DRM format?

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