Metro-inspired apps to come courtesy of Silverlight

Fans of the “Metro” user experience which made its debut on Windows Phone 7 Series will be pleased to know desktop applications featuring large fonts and simple shapes too are coming soon to a PC and Mac near you.

Ahead of the MIX10 event next week, Tim Heuer of the Silverlight team let out a sneak peek at some new application themes developed by Microsoft for Silverlight 4, including one inspired by the Zune desktop software appropriately called “Metro”.

Although themes support was introduced with Silverlight 3, none of the built-in themes have been any compelling. These new themes on the other hand are much more extensive and modern which should make it easier for Silverlight developers to create more polished Silverlight applications without much if any investment in customizing the UI. For users, it means more better looking applications.

I, for one, welcome our new Metro overlords.

9 insightful thoughts

  1. In general, Metro is a fantastic idea, so long as it is suitable to the purpose and environment of the application. I also feel that it is simply beautiful.
    Props to the creators of it, from the very birth of it in Windows Media Center (If I recall.)

  2. wow, that is definitely slick. The Zune software (and the Zune HD itself) really pioneered this look, didn’t it? I’ve been loving the ZuneHD interface for a while now, would be great to have on a phone.

    And yes, “none of the built-in themes have been any compelling” is an understatement – bright rounded bubbles do, eventually, get old :p

  3. I like the UI of Silverlight client for facbook. That one is pretty sleek and awesome.. But it is missing some basic features such as search and all notification viewer… Otherwise to me Metro and Ribbon are the future… Windows Media Player should be replaced by Zune Media Player…..

  4. I’d love Zune to replace WMP. Zune is fantastic, and I use it as my default media player, however it won’t catalog my other movies :o( (avi’s).

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