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Android

Windows 8 Metro Theme Created For Rooted Android Tablets 116

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the all-the-good-none-of-the-evil dept.
MikeatWired writes "Now here's a cool one for you tablet users that like to tweak the appearance of your UI! XDA member BroBot175 has created a Metro UI theme for all tablets running Honeycomb or ICS! The theme is a fully functioning replica of Windows 8 that allows you to create your own tiles, and organize them however you want."
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Windows 8 Metro Theme Created For Rooted Android Tablets More

Windows 8 Metro Theme Created For Rooted Android Tablets

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  • in b4 lawsuit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @02:06AM (#39627867)

    Microsoft will probably not like this one bit.

    • Re:in b4 lawsuit (Score:5, Funny)

      by game kid ( 805301 ) on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @02:15AM (#39627905) Homepage

      Indeed. They'll say "People actually want to copy Metro?"

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        shhhh.... it's a move to confuse microsoft so they don't notice when we make the windows 8 tablets dual boot ICS

      • Well how stupid Microsoft can be, using UI as its horse for war :p, that was naive, with something as customizable as android, its normal that people are bound to make themes that does the same [or better].

        • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          That's kinda not the point, a theme is a theme, you can make it look like anything, it's still Android underneath. The draw was the unified UI on both the Tablet and Desktop version of Windows 8, and beyond just appearance. It's kinda retarded when you think of it, it's like when people though skinning KDE/Gnome to look like OS X magically made it OS X.

          Microsoft's war horse is that it's Windows through and through, on any device, on any architecture. It's nor iOS -> OS X, or Android Linux, but precisely

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by wvmarle ( 1070040 )

        I know you're joking (at least trying to) but well that's the question I also have. But then on a more serious note.

        A problem that I see with iOS vs Android is, for as far as I have played with iOS, the basic UI is the same. No significant difference. Less difference than between OS-X and Windows even. It's basically iOS and Android all along, and with major brands like Samsung doing their best to look as much like iOS as they can get away with (including the design of the hardware) the real amount of choic

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • This video shows exactly my problem with the latest Ubuntu interface, Unity. I'm sure it's nice on touch screens or on small screens like netbooks, but it sucks on even my small-for-today's-measures 15" monitor. Small and big screens need different way of doing stuff.

            The difference is that Unity is navigable, it didn't made me lose my way by hiding all those important controls, just was very irritating to deal with. Everything full screen, only most-used icons visible and the rest hidden, etc.

            But then I was

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @07:20AM (#39629203)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by wmac1 ( 2478314 )

      They will love it. It familiarizes android user with Win8 environment and eventually some of the users will prefer to use the real thing.

      • Except, that's not how it works. The only people who like the horrible UI mess that is Metro is the true believers. The Yesmen that would be happy with a brick with "Turn Over!" written on both sides, but only if it was a new game from Microsoft.

        • Except, that's not how it works. The only people who like the horrible UI mess that is Metro is the true believers. The Yesmen that would be happy with a brick with "Turn Over!" written on both sides, but only if it was a new game from Microsoft.

          Why is Metro a "Horrible UI mess"? I see this posted a lot of places and have yet to see someone come back with something that doesn't boil down to "it's not my flavor".

          • Re:in b4 lawsuit (Score:4, Insightful)

            by realityimpaired ( 1668397 ) on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @05:39AM (#39628707)

            As a tablet or smartphone UI, actually it's pretty good. I still prefer Android, but I can understand why people would like Metro. A lot of the texting, e-mail, etc. widgets that people use on Android would not be necessary on Metro, because of the way it presents the tile for an app. (basically, no icons, everything is a widget).

            As a desktop UI, you have to ask what the hell they were smoking. Something designed for touchscreen input on a 4" device does *not* scale to a 24" screen with a keyboard/mouse. While it's usable, it would be very counter-productive to anybody who's comfortable with the mouse, because they would have to scroll through pages of tiles to find the one they want. I don't think it's going to be the unmitigated disaster that everybody says it's going to be, but I do think that "how to turn Metro off" will replace porn as the number 1 Google search for a while after it launches.

            • It might even become a standard procedure after installation to use some hack which disables Metro and puts the Start button back.

              • And what is the advantage of the start-button to metro. i have window 8 running on a laptop and i see(if i see it at all) as a glorified start menue. since the tiles are self actualizing it might also make a good screen saver. One advantage of metro is the availability of web apps and a centralized store. there are many js libraries that dont have a comparable .net equivalent (invoviz...). if you don't like it hit the windows key and poof gone.

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by Niomosy ( 1503 )

                  There was an article that was showing the Metro UI after a number of apps were installed. It started to become quite a mess. The Start menu was a bit easier to deal with for me, particularly since you could just start typing in what you wanted and Win7 would get you pertinent results.

                  • The Start menu was a bit easier to deal with for me, particularly since you could just start typing in what you wanted and Win7 would get you pertinent results.

                    The "start typing to search" feature is still there in Metro (indeed, it is the only way to use it efficiently to wade through all the non-Metro apps). The main annoyance with it compared to Start menu is that Metro is fullscreen, which is rather distracting when all you want is to launch an app.

              • IMHO, Microsoft would have been smart to make Metro Desktop a small series of "tiles" along the bottom (top/side, whatever) of the screen instead of directly scaling it up to full screen. You can still have your weather app and whatnot in a small tile along the edge of the screen and when you click on one of the tiles, it expands it to full screen pushing the other tiles to the edge. You could even provide a virtual hover button in the top right that allows a person to maximize/minimize the tile like Wind

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by DrXym ( 126579 )
                I expect most people wanting start menu wouldn't be averse to metro if it offered a functionally equivalent replacement, The problem is it doesn't.

                I think a) The desktop start button must be reinstated. Something that is discoverable and people can click on. Shoving the mouse into a corner and clicking is not discoverable b) Metro should appear as an overlay over the desktop, not a seperate screen. Of if it is a different screen at least give it some context back to the desktop such showing scaled windows

            • As a tablet or smartphone UI, actually it's pretty good. I still prefer Android, but I can understand why people would like Metro. A lot of the texting, e-mail, etc. widgets that people use on Android would not be necessary on Metro, because of the way it presents the tile for an app. (basically, no icons, everything is a widget).

              As a desktop UI, you have to ask what the hell they were smoking. Something designed for touchscreen input on a 4" device does *not* scale to a 24" screen with a keyboard/mouse. While it's usable, it would be very counter-productive to anybody who's comfortable with the mouse, because they would have to scroll through pages of tiles to find the one they want. I don't think it's going to be the unmitigated disaster that everybody says it's going to be, but I do think that "how to turn Metro off" will replace porn as the number 1 Google search for a while after it launches.

              While I agree that contextually it doesn't work well with a mouse, on something like this [hp.com] it does make some sense. Perhaps someone at Microsoft thinks the mouse is a dead end UI wise?

              This could be something that points to the fact that they think that Surface [microsoft.com] will start to make some inroads at some point as well. Metro makes some sense for it in the same manner it does for the HP piece above, and all the tablet stuff.

              This then introduces the idea that Microsoft is embracing the tablet as the desktop

            • As a desktop UI, you have to ask what the hell they were smoking. Something designed for touchscreen input on a 4" device does *not* scale to a 24" screen with a keyboard/mouse. While it's usable, it would be very counter-productive to anybody who's comfortable with the mouse, because they would have to scroll through pages of tiles to find the one they want.

              Having enough top-level options that you have to scroll through them to find the one you want is bad no matter the form factor. While I don't know if

          • The UI of the few Metro apps I could bring myself to try in the Developer Preview in VirtualBox (I couldn't get Consumer Preview to even consistently boot there so I pretty much stopped trying Windows 8 at that point 'cause it was clear MS was slipping hard) is simply less functional and intuitive than that of the usual windowed ones.

            It's harder to know how other apps ("Classic" or not) are running because the Metro ones are generally fullscreen (as are many pre-Metro games, but that's expected and usually

          • Metro is a mess because its nothing but widgets called "Tiles" and hyped as something groundbreaking and special. It sucked back when Sony Ericsson did it on the SE X1 mobile phone, and it sucks just as much now that Microsoft "borrowed" it.

            I could drill down into specifics, but why would i do that? Its not like there aren't more than enough people inside Microsoft that hates the UI and has long lists of things they think should be changed.

            • Metro is a mess because its nothing but widgets called "Tiles" and hyped as something groundbreaking and special. It sucked back when Sony Ericsson did it on the SE X1 mobile phone, and it sucks just as much now that Microsoft "borrowed" it.

              I could drill down into specifics, but why would i do that? Its not like there aren't more than enough people inside Microsoft that hates the UI and has long lists of things they think should be changed.

              So in your opinion, it doesn't work anywhere, or just not for the desktop?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DrXym ( 126579 )
            Metro is a horrible UI mess for desktop PCs. This can be seen in the consumer preview simply by enabling administrative programs from the settings. The result is you get a messing of 15 odd drab brown admin icons stinking up metro. They consume a lot of space, are a pain to scroll through with a mouse, and are really hard to organize e.g. there is no ability to rubber band select to move them, or sort functionality, or way to group them in an expanding folder or somesuch, and the two column flow of each gro

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Yes, because your own personal opinion is actually a fact that everybody believes and nobody could possibly want anything different than what you want.

        • The only people who like the horrible UI mess that is Metro is the true believers.

          I'm not at all an MS fan, but Metro seems to be a good direction in UIs, and not just for mobile devices. The pile-of-papers metaphor of traditional windowing UIs is really a horrible mess when you think about it, and recent trend in adding 3D and transparency features to it doesn't really address the problem.

          The Metro approach is an approach that really has a lot going for it. I'm not saying the implementation is necessarily

    • Maybe this is part of Microsoft's marketing strategy. You know, keeping the image fresh in people's mind, normalizing everyone to the concept of Metro.

    • There is a launcher [google.com] for Android phones that mimics WP7 (Metro) UI. It's been out there for over a year now, and it's still up.

  • Who cares? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @02:22AM (#39627941)

    Win 8 is a non-event, except insofar as MS is continuing to demonstrate bad engineering and bad design. Why people get riled up over this continuation of past behavior is beyond me.

  • Cool? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @02:28AM (#39627957)

    "Now here's a cool one

    Mimicking Windows is cool? Not from where I'm sitting.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Idbar ( 1034346 )
      Since I haven't used the theme yet. I'm yet to realize if it's actually cool. My Galaxy gets pretty hot when I use the GPS, if they can cool it down... that would be great.

      Ah... this is just a theme? What an outrage!!

  • What problem does this solve? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tftp ( 111690 ) on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @02:30AM (#39627963) Homepage

    This whole tile madness is driven by commercial reasons. Since MS can't make a phone to be as capable as the desktop, they want to dumb the desktop down to the level of the phone. Then, they think, if everyone is trained to love the bomb ^W the Metro interface there will be more software for Windows phones, and more money for MS.

    A tile (as shown) is nothing but a small application window that can't be arbitrarily resized, and that has no Z ordering. The demo on the linked page is totally confusing - my Galaxy Tab has exactly the same stock configuration of installed applications; the only difference is that all application icons are of the same size (so more fit on each screen.) I'm not sure what was gained by doing this.

    • I got no clue (Score:4, Informative)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @04:28AM (#39628381) Journal

      Metro to me seems idiotic but the one thing that is very noticeable is that whoever drew its design has no love for full color drawing, it is very monochromatic if such a thing exist in color. White icons/text on single color boxes. All very stark and (to my eye) unclear. Mind you, with a lot of icon based interfaces (android, iOS and some PC setups) unclear icons can be just as confusing. As near as I can figure this is politicians logic. Something must be done, this is something, therefor it must be done.

      Unclear sea of icons is confusing and something must be done, metro is something, therefor it will fix everything.

      It is a new shiny, therefor it is the second coming. Until the next one.

  • Not "fully" functioning; missing the point (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @02:30AM (#39627965)

    Rather than being active as they are in WP7/WP8, the tiles here are just shortcuts. That essentially makes this a metro-looking Android launcher, which isn't really exciting, nor front page-worthy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bartoku ( 922448 )
      All the need to do is make the Android "tiles" into widgets, then they can be dynamic.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      it's not missing the point, it's metro style. you're missing the point. look at the screenshots. clearly there is live content in several of the tiles.

      animations and active tiles are a late addition to metro anyways, they had to think of something. but they couldn't just make them fully customizable widgets oh no... because having more functionality wouldn't be innovative(the hacky approaches needed to make nice looking custom livetiles for wp is just.. well, teh suck still).

      • animations and active tiles are a late addition to metro anyways

        Actually, no, it's not - it's been there since WP7 (where Metro first appeared), and has always been the cornerstone of this design.

    • I'm afraid that it's you that's missed the point, check out the video [youtube.com]. Watching it, it's pretty clear that the tiles are active.

      Android has had 'active' widget/launchers for years, so I agree this skinning (like Metro itself) is not particularly exciting

  • Is this some sort of attempt to raise ill will about that unspeakably awful, unscalable, hellish nightmare of an interface before Windows 8 comes out? Because that's the only logical solution I can see. That interface is a Vista-Millenium Edition hybrid of every-other war crimes that Microsoft puts together and the fundamental design behind has been proven to not even work in betas. I mean the base level of functionality doesn't even perform computing tasks. WHY would anyone want that on their android d

  • Why?

  • Euwww! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by miffo.swe ( 547642 ) <daniel DOT hedblom AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @03:11AM (#39628107) Homepage Journal

    The last thing in the world i would want on any phone is Metro. To be frank, it sucks. The UI is clunky, unusable, inflexible and really just a try in making something diffrerent, not better.

    The nerd in me says, cool a testament of just how flexible Android is, but why the worst UI in the world?

    • Re:Euwww! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dave420 ( 699308 ) on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @08:18AM (#39629815)
      It's actually very usable. You might not like it, but please remember your likes and dislikes are not necessarily representative of those of others.

      • Judging from the high return rate of WP7 phones and their abysmal sales, im not at all alone in thinking it sucks. Seems impossible to sell them even at a loss like Nokia is doing right now.

        • Judging from the high return rate of WP7 phones and their abysmal sales, im not at all alone in thinking it sucks. Seems impossible to sell them even at a loss like Nokia is doing right now.

          That probably has more to do with mediocre hardware and very limited selection in the app store (which itself is because the SDK is managed code only, and hence does not let you port code from any other mobile platform).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DAldredge ( 2353 )
      I have a Nokia Lumia 900 sitting right in front of me that I use as my main phone so can you please let me know how the UI is clunky, unusable and inflexible because I use it all the time and simply don't see it.

  • Cool? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @04:40AM (#39628437)

    You mean fool or tool

    Making Android look like Windoof is about as "cool" as sprinkling dry dogshit on your cappuccino.

    Next we show you how to make your Ferrari look like a Hyundai. Oh. wow.

    • Making Android look like Windoof is about as "cool" as sprinkling dry dogshit on your cappuccino.

      Darn right, everyone knows it's better with the fresh stuff.

    • > Making Android look like Windoof is about as "cool" as sprinkling dry dogshit on your cappuccino.

      ...but see, you rename dry dogshit as something cool sounding that trendy people must have to remain relevant with their friends. Like...

      Ok, I got nuthin.

  • Now why on earth would I want my perfectly fine android tablet look like a POS?

  • Launcher 7 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Has no-one seen Launcher 7. Metro launcher with active tiles capable of holding applications and widgets.

    Been using it a few days now without any issues. 4/5

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.tikuwarez.launcher3&hl=en

  • Just rooted tablets? (Score:3)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @06:46AM (#39629005)
    One of the nifty things about Android is you can replace the default activities if you like. So if you install an activity that handles an intent you can make it the default. So why do you need to root a device to use this?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      So why do you need to root a device to use this?

      To recover the multimegabytes of space occupied by applications that are not handling an intent. A lot of phones sold in the United States come with trialware that companies pay carriers to install in such a way that they cannot be uninstalled.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        I realise that but the standard Android compatible device document makes it mandatory that you can override the default activities. Most Android 3/4.x tablets with the exception of the Galaxy Tab are using the standard home launcher anyway so it's not like you'd be able to delete it. It does bug me the amount of crap some devices bake into their firmware though.
  • After the numerous critical reviews of Metro, the Windows team must be breaking out the champagne on hearing that someone has actually copied their UI!
  • The dumbing-down of Windows 8 "Metro" (God, I had that monkier) interface is a huge step backwards. This hinderface (intentional) is a move to further isolate users from their computer and operating system. Yes, you can get back to a semi-explorer-ish desktop on Windows 8, but it's not the real deal. Microsoft is doing this because they want to turn Windows-based devices into appliances that they have further control over. Control over what you can load, what you can do--- unless you are willing to pay for

  • ...of which I am not familiar.

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