Microsoft Defends Screen Space Wastage In Metro Apps

June 28, 2013
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Windows 8.1 comes with several optimizations that make it work better on devices with smaller screen sizes, but the way some Metro apps are designed is inviting criticism from users that believe they eat up a lot of space on the screen.

This is space that is wasted without actually providing more information within these apps.

A report by PC Pro that cites a high profile company executive claims that Microsoft has taken notice of this problem. The software titan actually recommends users to try out a larger display, as that would lead to a greatly improved experience.

Chaitanya Sareen, the principle program manager lead on Windows said:

“When you get to large screens the experience could be better. There are different ways to solve that. Developers can put more content on the canvas – there are certainly no guidelines on size of text. Also you solve that by changing the amount of windows you can have on one screen.”

In other words desktop software use the available screen space a lot better, Metro apps focus on a full screen approach with big images and large fonts. But ultimately this depends on the developers, and they are free to design their apps in such a way that puts more content onscreen.

Microsoft already has several guidelines in place for Metro apps, but at the same time it is not restricting coders and developers on how the content is displayed.

It remains to be seen what approach Metro apps take up when devices with smaller screen sizes start flooding the market, but here’s hoping a fair tradeoff is found.

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Microsoft

Mike Johnson is a writer for The Redmond Cloud - the most comprehensive source of news and information about Microsoft Azure and the Microsoft Cloud. He enjoys writing about Azure Security, IOT and the Blockchain.

All Comments

  • “The software titan actually recommends users to try out a larger display”. Is Microsoft going to be paying for this “Larger Display” for me to try out?

    1stkorean June 28, 2013 8:34 pm Reply

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