Around a week ago, reports suggested Microsoft might be ready to finally ditch the Start menu’s Live Tiles feature within Windows 10 – one of the most argued-over features in Microsoft’s long history of making software.
Now the company itself has fuelled that fire in the latest episode of the Windows Insider podcast. The company says it is “exploring” a new Windows 10 Start menu that places less emphasis on Live Tiles in favour of a less colourful, more uniform approach.
The simplified approach will be “visually differentiate the Start menu from something that’s chaotic colour to something that’s more uniform,” Microsoft said during the episode, as reported by The Verge.
Live Tiles date all the way back to the Windows 8 operating system and were a major feature on the dearly departed Windows Phone. There was a significant backlash when it first appeared on the desktop and Microsoft eventually restored the traditional Start interface and placed the Live tiles within as a scaled back feature.
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They remained as a major UI feature when Windows 10 arrived, but it appears their days may soon be numbered, especially given the company has already revealed Live Tiles won’t be part of the Windows 10X operating system that’ll power devices like the Surface Neo dual touchscreen device.
As our own Alastair Stevenson wrote last month: “Considering Microsoft’s push to unify its software across all devices it would make sense for the company to tweak regular Windows 10 UI to match the X-variants.”
The Windows Insider podcast doesn’t say the Live Tiles will be going away completely, as the report from Windows Latest suggested last week, but this may be the first step to a wider phase out of the opinion-splitting UI feature.
Would you be sat to see Live Tiles go the way of the dodo? Let us know @trustedreviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
