“Before you get too excited: No, the Start Screen is still there — but due to a trademark claim by Metro AG, a massive Eurasian retail chain, Microsoft can no longer call it the Metro Start Screen, and those bold, preschooler cubist apps can no longer be called Metro-style apps,” Sebastian Anthony reports for ExtremeTech.
“Metro AG operates supermarkets, department stores, and — here’s the kicker — consumer electronics stores across Europe and Asia.,” Anthony reports. “Microsoft has issued an internal memo requiring employees to refer to Metro as ‘Windows 8 style UI’ — temporarily, anyway. Developers are being asked to use the phrase ‘New User Interface.’ As for why Metro AG waited until now to complain to Microsoft’s legal team… who knows. The internal memo states that the changes are occurring because of ‘discussions with an important European partner,’ but that’s it.”
Anthony reports, “Curiously, despite a ton of marketing dollars and column inches being plowed into Metro, Microsoft is down-playing the change: ‘We have used Metro style as a code name during the product development cycle across many of our product lines,’ a Microsoft spokesperson says. ‘As we get closer to launch and transition from industry dialog to a broad consumer dialog we will use our commercial names.’ This smells a bit fishy, considering Windows Phone 7 — with its Metro-style UI — has been on the market for two years. If Microsoft had planned to give Metro a “commercial name,” it would’ve already done so by now. Microsoft is expected to announce a replacement name for Metro before the weekend.”
MacDailyNews Take: Confusing the Windows sufferers even more. We like their strategy. We like it a lot.
We hereby nominate: “A Bunch of Silly Tiles Trying to Hide a Raging Case of AppLack™,” although that name might be a bit too concise for Microsoft’s “taste.”
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I nominate “Partridge Family Bus UI.”
Great idea, MDN and billyjackblack; start a fun “nominate an alternative name” contest. OK, here’s mine:
WinZebra: The UI designed by a committee of … donkeys, asses and a bald salesman.
I’d suggest Peacock, but NBC might take offense to that.
Mondrian might be appropriate, but I wouldn’t want Piet to roll over in his grave.
…so might Captain Peacock, floorwalker at Grace Bros. Dept. Store in London.
‘TupidTiles? TurdyTiles? Cube Readable User Device = CRUD? There is also the Metro in Paris so perhaps we can use Le Pew instead? UI-Clutter? Confusatiles? Geofarts? Unimaginaboxes? ProKi (productivity killers)? Fuglies? ExpungeSteve Square Supplants?
MeToo
+∞ – Partridge Family Bus
“Mondrian” might be an alternative, but if it’s not already protected, it’s still too highbrow for Microsoft.
There can be only one logical name now:
Windows PT (Polished Turd)
“Who Died and Made Apple King, Anyway?” UI
Careful MDN, is Applack™ not the name of the Insurance Company with the duck?? 🙂
It’s like a clown running around in a minefield.
How about “Window Pain 8” ?
‘Windows 8 style UI’ – yeah, that just rolls of the tongue.
You know someone will contract it in writing to “W8 UI. The question is, is that pronounced “wait” or “weight”?
Yes.
Tiled Blue Screen of Death
Pronounced “tubby sod”.
Whoops! This is SO humiliating! Luckily, embarrassment is one emotion that Mr Ballmer is apparently not capable of.
“Oh yeah, we didn’t want to use Metro anyway even though we’re seconds away from launching. Pay no attention to that raging man behind the curtain throwing chairs.” — Bill Gates
Inzunity.
I always thought Metro was a strange name. Like the company fell in love with the code name, and no one had the guts to stop and develop a real name for it.
Apple’s great at that (besides the cat names for OS versions, which are hard to wrap in a single, relevant name), Apple always takes the time to have their marketing team think it through and come up with one of those brilliant but obvious-once-you’ve-seen-it names.
How about:
This interface has been Balmerized!
I’d suggest “The Windows style UI formerly known as Metro, but now called something else” but it’s probably too short of a name for MS. They would also need some weird made-up symbol to represent it.
Where did they get “Windows?” In the user manual which came with my 1987 Mac SE, the most frequently used word, outside of common articles and prepositions, is “window” or “windows.” Then, as now with Google and Samsung along with Microsoft, all they can think to do is steal from Apple.
Windows Dressing
Windows Peep Show
Windows Blinds
Windows Price is Right
Windows Family Feud (Show me Potato Salad)
Windows Pane (pronouced Pain)
Windows Gooey
I could go on and on…
I think this is it:
Windows Pane (pronouced Pain)
Window Pains
How is this all that different from Apple’s Rendezvous name. They had been using it for about 2 -3 years and had to rename it to Bonjour for this exact same reason.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_(software)
shhh, flyingcactus, shhh. don’t upset the Apple fan-bots. They think everything Apple does is perfect, and everything MS does must inherently be evil or inept. Repeat endlessly until the biased narrative sinks in.
Too bad the real world isn’t so simple, cut & dried.
Apple IS far better at many things than MS, but this isn’t one of them.
There’s nothing evil or inept about changing a product name. At least both Bonjour and Rendezvous were related to what the technology did.
Metro just reminds me of the term metrosexual which must describe you pretty well, seeing as you are a nerd-troll.
@ twilightmoon: in your dreams, junior.
your term-association exercise reveals more about your juvenile behaviour than anything else. but if you want to play that game, i am glad to see that my “trolling” caught a nerd, as you describe yourself in your own post. now back to your time-wasting video gaming, kid.
Really? Just how deep must you go to dredge up a reference to “metrosexual?” I sincerely believe that 90% of the people who hear the term “metro” think first of the Paris Metro (or some other well-known urban transit system) and let it go at that.
Please don’t make ad hominem attacks just because you don’t like a person’s comment. There was absolutely nothing in his post to indicate “metrosexuality” or “nerd-trollism.”
Sheesh.
Difference?
bonjour is a small feature which most users aren’t even aware off..
Metro is a MAJOR PLATFORM INITIATIVE and the WINDOWS OS IS MICROSOFT’S LARGEST MONEY EARNER.
How many effort did apple spend promoting rendezvous vs how much effort msft has done with metro? Ballmer, his execs, his engineers, Pr people have been touting Metro, giving interviews, tech previews, demos etc for months. In the Pc press like Zdnet it’s been like HEADLINES Metro , metro, metro all the time now (ed Bott alone must have written 10 Metro related articles) …
difference: one is small hiccup related to a minor feature, the other a pie in the face for their BIGGEST PRODUCT and LAUNCH IN YEARS.
Hmm,
WindoZune?
WinZune?
ZuneWin?
Badly stained glass?
SqueakSqueak?
WinTile?
Frankly Apple could use some polish on it’s GUI’s as well. Maybe a little more maturity in the design but then again maybe not? Anything is better than Android.
If it’s not the Metro, it must be the Underground.
Or the Tube.
“Subway” being already taken.
ReZuned
I nominate “Collection of Unified Navigation Tiles”. They can then abbreviate it…
What’s covered with tiles? The Floor UI.
Proview boss’ take: “Metro guys are DUMB. They should HINT using the name is no big deal. LET Msft. use the name, sell millions of copies… THEN SUE THE SUCKER”.
Call it Vista GUI. It’s underpinnings is mostly Vista so why not just be truthful about it.
Very unfortunate for Microsoft, I would live to see ballmers reaction when he was made aware of this 😥😖
Broken Window.
Simply call it “Metropolis”
change it to ‘mud hole?”
nice “Zune Brown” color?