Tag Archives: metro app

Now Test Your Windows 8 Metro Apps on iPad !

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Windows 8 Tablets are expected to be released later this year with various architectures like the usual x86 based processors as well as the ARM based processors.The Competition is against the number one  tablet iPad  and various flavors of android based tablets.

One of the touted features of the upcoming Windows 8 Tablets is the Metro based apps from their Windows Store,where developers will submit their Metro apps for Windows 8.So one would need a better hardware to test their Metro based apps on a touch screen.Though Microsoft gave away some of the Developer Devices at the Build conference last year,many of the developers who are busy creating their Metro apps still haven’t got a Tablet which would be a Testbed for their apps.

But if you’ve got a hold of an Apple iPad,you can test your Metro apps on their iOS based iPads Courtesy a company named Splashtop,which recently released an iOS app on App Store  named Win8 Metro Testbed program.It basically  combines an iPad app and a small “streamer” component which  runs on a Windows 8 system.

Some of the Features of this app include Windows 8 Metro touch gestures like:
- Swipe from the right for the Charms menu
- Swipe from the left to switch apps
- Pull down from the top to close the app
- Swipe slowly from the left to run two apps side-by-side
- Pinch to do Semantic Zoom
- And many more gestures for you to explore!

So you just need to buy and download the app on your iPad and install the Streamer file on your target Windows 8 System and a network connection between the iPad and the target system,that is pretty much what is required to stream the  Metro app from your iPad.

Download the Win8 Metro Testbed From App Store(Currently priced at 50 % discounted cost at $24.99,official cost is $49.99),You would also require a PC equipped with Windows 8 Consumer Preview where you will install the streamer program.

Via[ZDNet]

Firefox Metro App For Windows 8 Screenshots Revealed

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Firefox already mentioned about their plans to bring the Metro version of Firefox Browser to the Windows 8 operating system a few weeks ago,since then they have been working hard on the Metro version of Firefox.


In a recent blog post Brian Bondy a Firefox programmer gave a glimpse of the prototype they have been working on for the Metro version of Firefox,showing how the Metro version of Firefox browser will look like.As you can see from the above screenshot which shows the Metro Tile for Firefox app.The prototype which they are currently working on is based on Fennec XUL code.

Here are some of the screenshots for the Firefox Metro app.

Firefox Metro app with Sidebar

Firefox Metro app Without Sidebar

He also explained why it was necessary to build a  Metro version for Firefox browser,

If a browser is awesome on Metro, the only way to use this awesome browser in Metro is for it to become the default. If a browser is default on Metro, it will also be default on the Desktop.

If a browser does not support Metro, it is seriously at risk of losing the default browser status, and therefore significant market share. A browser without support for Metro, if default, would be taking away a Metro browser completely from the user’s computer.

Even if a user spends most of their time in the Desktop interface, having a really good Metro browser may be enough for the user to change their default browser. A browser with great Metro support can gain significant browser market share for this reason.

The Metro Version of Firefox is officially slated for Q2 2012 but Brian Feels that there is still lot of work to be done in terms of platform integration as well as some design questions.

It would be interesting to see how the other  names in the browser market come up with their version of browsers with the likes of Opera,Chrome.

Image Credits[Mozilla]