Microsoft dumps Metro from Windows 8 Microsoft has dropped "Metro", the name given to the squaretastic user interface for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, claiming it was just a code name all along. Litigation, though, may be the real reason as it seems the word may be owned by a European company or individual that objected to its use. The change comes late in the …
How about "Oh Hai" as in "Oh Hai! I iz a cellphone now LOL!" which is pretty much win 8 in a nutshell. I swear if i didn't know better i'd think the whole thing was an Onion style parody, but sadly others like Canonical have adopted the "Oh Hai" interface as well. It seems like Jobs last laugh is gonna be making every UI designer lose their minds and try to make everything into a damned cell phone like some cargo cult praying for the ghost of Jobs to bring them some iMoney.
Of course they could always go with metrosexual, its about as tasteless as metrosexual fashion and the guys up in Redmond wouldn't know what it meant anyway, they'd just be happy they could keep the original work by tacking sexual onto the end. Besides who don't like sex?
From reports elsewhere, it appears it is a German cash & carry outfit that are complaining about it.
The French borrowed the name for their underground railway from the District and Metropolitan Railway in London, which was often shortened to the Met or Metro. It became more frequently known as "The Tube" some time after they added actual tube tunnels to the network. The Geordies call their underground network "The Tyne and Wear Metro"
As pointed out elsewhere there is also a 1980s car made by the British Leyland Group with that name.
"From reports elsewhere, it appears it is a German cash & carry outfit that are complaining about it."
But surely trademarks have to be in the same area? I.e. you can have Apple the music label and Apple the computer maker, because they're not (at the time, anyway) overlapping. How can a "cash & carry" (that means a shop, btw?) be overlapping with a O/S GUI?
No. Much as I dislike Apple, it wasn't unreasonable. At the time of the agreement, the "Music business" consisted solely of selling overpriced vinyl and tat in order to keep Colombians in business. By the time Apple added the "sosume" sound to the Mac, computers were handling music and it would have crippled them not to be able to enter that business. Computerised music was not the music business in force at the time of the agreement.
I would agree that American conservatives believe that the Constitution written by a group of pre-industrial white slave-owning oligarchs is valid word for word for all time, but I submit that Conservatives in the US are so stupid that that in itself is an argument against rigid interpretation of old documents. (The other one is American religious conservatives who, if possible, are even more stupid...but I digress).
Metro is a worldwide wholesale & retail company with a turnover of about 60 Billion € (2011), and the largest reseller of Microsoft software in Europe (Media Market, Saturn). With about 250.000 employees a little bit larger than Microsoft, and certainly with some good lawyers.
"Or Windows Leyland"
Entirely appropriate! Cars whose appalling build quality single-handedly destroyed the British car industry.
In Australia, Leyland produced a catastrophe called the P76 - so incredibly ugly and so atrociously built - even by Leyland standards - that it became Australia's answer to the Ford Edsel.
So I suggest Windows P76.
I guess Australia never got the Allegro, the first car to have a square (well 'quartic') steering wheel.
Clearly the Allegro design team have been working hard since then and the Win8 UI is their latest masterpiece so - WIndows Allegro
I'll bloody sue if they do.....
Excuse me! It wasn't only the appalling build quality; it was also the crappy design, both mechanical and aesthetic. The engine and transmission of the Marina were so over-complicated that maintenance on a small, cheap car cost more than it did on a 3.5 litre Rover.
I guess it might be libellous to mistakenly posit any resemblance whatsoever to Microsoft products. Though I do like Azure.
Marina
Scarily bad compared to the opposition.
Poor front suspension, cart spring rear suspension
Rust
Bigger engines are BLs duff designs.
I much prefered the Avenger in that market place, good suspension, great seats, tough well designed 1600 pushrod lump with 8 port head and well oversquare.
This post has been deleted by its author
<wince>
Back to where RIM was with the BBx(*) trademark...
For Win8 -- Should have been code-named "Squarepants", and released as "Spongebob" for all I know.
(*) A trademark owned by Basis International.
"Spongebob Squarepants" is a tradmark of Viacom via Nickleodeon brand also owned by Viacom. Trademarke referred to and Used under Fair Use provisions for this comment.
I can help them rename this. They want something that summarizes the Design Language Formerly Known as Metro.... The BBC article on this says the previous name was picked because it is "modern and clean"... We can work with that.
It's also tied to their operating systems, we want people to know that.
So, I say the new name should be....
MAC OS.
Oh...
I maintain that if they're looking for a name that is:
- in keeping with their corporate branding and colours
- reflects the structured, grid-like appearance
- also reflects the way that the public feel about their products
then surely the only possible names they can consider is "Blue Waffle"?
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