Microsoft Eyes Small Tablet Market with Windows 8.1 Release in Fourth Quarter 2013
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At Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference held at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, Microsoft re-stated on July 8 its plan to release Windows 8.1 RTM (release to manufacturing) in late August of 2013. The company also projects that its downloadable Windows 8.1 release will occur in October or November.
The release will roll out enhancements to improve the user experience for tablet users as well as position the operating system for getting a solid foothold in the smaller 7-inch to 8-inch tablet market.
Some of these improvements to the current Windows 8 version include additional size choices for tiles on the start screen, more color and shading options for start screen tiles, and more flexibility with the snap view. There are several other improvements as well.
Snap view refers to the ability to display apps on the screen at the same time which is not available on Apple’s iPad and only available in special cases on Android tablets.
Windows 8 was released with what is known as the 70/30 snap view where if two apps are displayed, one is restricted to 30% of the screen while the main app has a 70% hold on it. A user cannot increase the size of the 30% screen.
Windows 8.1 improves the snap screen capability. The release will provide 50/50 snap capability on tablets with the capability to side-by-side snap up to 4 apps with greater screen resolutions. The enhancement allows smaller tablets to clearly display two running apps in landscape mode.
They also improved this snap experience by giving 500 pixels width resolution to each snapped app which improves visibility across all displays. Currently in Windows 8, the snapped 30% display has scaled down interface which limits its usefulness and visibility, especially on smaller screens.
Although Microsoft is focusing on the tablet market, it is listening to its desktop user community for the return of the familiar Start button which will be available with 8.1. However, it is not a full return of the Start button with a breakout menu for launching apps but rather a shortcut to the start screen. There will still be a market for add-on developers to provide plug-in apps for tablets and desktops to enable this classic functionality that has long been popular with Windows users.
There are several other enhancements coming with the 8.1 release but clearly Microsoft’s focus is to gain its share in the tablet market and especially the small 7-inch to 8-inch tablets.
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