

Microsoft (officially) details how iPad app development compares to Windows 8 - powertower
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh868262.aspx

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flocial
Even discounting the cruddy resolution of iPad screenshots, I'd say that I
much prefer the Metro aesthetics even though I'm a big fan of Apple products
in general. I think Metro is really a nice design paradigm since they focus on
fonts and pictures, in other words the same elements of great web design and
print. There are no gradients or design elements that would look dated 5 years
from now. Whereas Apple designs need to be constantly refreshed and refined to
keep the polish (it's a hard thing to pull off and for the most part they've
succeeded at it).

While Apple seems more refined in many ways and pull off consistency with
simple but rich designs, I feel like they've been going overboard with rich
textures in the post Jobs era. Applications like Find your Friends on the
iPhone, iCal and AddressBook on OSX Lion sacrifice simplicity and east of use
to emulate "real world"-ish look and feel with faux leather textures that
serve no other purpose than to "look" nice.

The more I see Metro the more I like it.

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GuiA
I tend to agree with you overall (although I think Metro has some serious
shortcomings right now, but this would take several paragraphs to expound on
and is not my goal with this comment), but I do disagree with one statement
you make:

 _"There are no gradients or design elements that would look dated 5 years
from now."_

Using just pictures and fonts does not make your design timeproof— for
example, the classical IBM ad definitely looks antiquated nowadays:

[http://www.designers-books.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/10/3F...](http://www.designers-books.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/10/3F01544-450x590.jpg)

There is no such thing as a design which can always preserve its polish,
because design always inscribes itself within a greater cultural trend which
is inexorably a product of its era.

~~~
flocial
Touche to that. I suppose I should have said that there are less design
elements in Metro that are susceptible to trends as long as we're talking
about nice typefaces and clean layout.

The point in question is my uneasy feeling at the increasingly intricate
designs dominating the iPhone for both third-party and Apple's default apps
that seem to distract from a focus on utility and functionality. Of course,
that's not entirely a valid logical position but my subjective opinions so I
do concede.

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wonderercat
What amazes me is how Microsoft consistently explains design with obviously
aliased images using nasty, bandy palettes.

I hope the explanation is that their web publishing framework just sucks and
has no oversight, because it would be troubling if the designers/bloggers
missed this.

