A video of the new Windows 9 Start menu has surfaced, courtesy of winfuture.de, a German tech blog. This is the same site that posted a large batch of Windows 9 screenshots yesterday.
Related: New Windows 9 screenshots leak, show Start menu, Notifications Center, more
Here’s what the video teaches us about Windows 9 in its current form about Microsoft’s upcoming OS.
In it’s current form, Pin to Start allows you to place a shortcut to an app in the tiled Metro UI’s Start screen. This option’s appearance in leaked Windows 9 images implies that the Start screen may live on, despite the fact that it clashes with the classic desktop experience.
Related: Windows 9 news, rumors, leaks, more
However, the newly leaked video shows us that while the Start screen is still in Windows 9 (at this point, anyway), you can at least disable it.
By right clicking on the Taskbar and clicking Properties, you can turn off the Start screen in Windows 9 by heading to the Start Menu tab, and checking the option labeled “Use the Start menu instead of the Start screen.”
With this box checked, if you hit Pin to Start on something, you’ll be pinning it to the new Start menu instead of the Start screen. If you uncheck that option, you’ll be able to access the Start screen again.
If you notice in the above image, there’s a Customize button. Next to it, a line of text mentions that you’ll be able to customize how links look and act in the Start menu, along with icons and menus. This implies that you’ll be able to add links and pages as shortcuts to the Start menu.
The ability to add links to the Start menu makes using Windows a lot easier. This means that, by hitting the Windows key, which should be right under your left pinky when typing on a keyboard, you can pull up the Start menu get quick access to whatever your favorite sites are.
The equivalent of Start-Programs is populated by both classic desktop programs and Metro apps. This is good, because you won’t be forced to fetch a Metro app from the Start screen or by looking it up in Search in case you want to use it in the desktop.
This was part of the problem with Windows 8. Want to use a Metro app? Get ready to snuggle up with the tiled UI. Want to use a desktop app? You’ll have to go back. The back and forth made the entire experience jarring.
Windows 8.1 fixed this somewhat by allowing you to run Metro apps in the desktop, but the inability to run them in windowed mode still makes for a head-scratching (and headache-inducing) experience.
It looks like Microsoft is learning from that experience by putting them all in one place.
If your Start menu looks full and you try to pin something else to it in Windows 9, Windows will simply make the Start menu bigger, stretching it horizontally. It’s unclear whether there’s a size limit on the Start menu, or whether it will start to grow vertically once horizontal space runs out, but it’s nice to see that it has the ability to adapt in those situations
You can make large tiles smaller in the Start menu, though the sizes themselves are pre-set. You can’t manually shrink them to whatever size you want, which is a limitation shared by tiles in the Windows 8/8.1 Start screen.
Other interesting things we noticed in the video include the ability to run apps in windowed mode, though that has been rumored for quite some time. Plus, images showing that feature off have leaked already. Here’s a new one though.
Also, as we suspected, the power button in the new Start menu gives you as many as four ways to shut off, sleep/hibernate, and restart. That’s assuming that all the other methods that exist in Windows 8.1 are carried over.
We’re sure Microsoft doesn’t like it when stuff of theirs leaks out, but we’re pretty sure they’ll appreciate the good buzz that this will likely generate.
We like what we see so far. Microsoft appears to be learning from past problems, and adapting those learning experiences to Windows 9 appropriately.
Recent rumors indicate a possible Windows 9 reveal late this month or early next month. We hope that’s accurate, because we can’t wait to learn more about Microsoft’s next OS.
Related: Windows 9 public preview could come this fall
Microsoft needs Windows 9 to be a success, and Windows users need Windows 9 to save them from Windows 8. The sooner this marriage happens, the better.
You can watch the leaked video for yourself below, courtesy of winfuture.de and YouTube.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.