Using Apps Side-by-Side on Windows 8

Scroll down to “Using Apps Side by Side” and watch the video. It’s certainly interesting, and I can see how it’d be useful, especially on devices with larger screens like the new 12-inch Surface Pro 3.

But the interface for managing this is opaque, abstract, and complicated. You need to know how to do it before you can do it. There is nothing self-evident about it. If anything, it’s more abstract to manage side-by-side apps in Metro than it is in regular desktop Windows. With traditional windows on Windows and Mac OS X, you directly manipulate the window itself to move or resize it. In Metro, you need to memorize special edge gestures to enter different modes for rearranging, entering, or leaving the split-screen mode.

There has to be a better way.

★ Thursday, 29 May 2014