I'd like to occasionally post about my experiences with using Windows 8. In these posts, I'll include one thing I like about the operating system, and another that I feel could be improved or that I simply dislike.
When someone is raving about a product, they are telling people what they like about it. When they are raging about a product, they are usually complaining about it instead. I'd like to do a bit of both in these posts.
Rave: Information at my fingertips
With a quick glance at the screen, I can see everything that is important to me. The latest headlines, how many unread emails I have, the amount of data usage left on my Internet plan, and the most recent photos that I've taken on my phone - to name a few.
And with a single tap or click on the associated tile, I can bring up additional information about those news headlines, I can read my email, and I can look at everything else that I need information about.
Windows 8's newer interface is built from the ground up for consuming information. And when I've had enough of that, I can switch to the Desktop, pull out my mouse and keyboard, and get right back to work.
Rage: No way to easily check recent changes on my Store apps
I am the type of person that always leaves auto-updating of applications disabled, and prefers to read the change log before updating. This has nothing to do with any lack of trust for the developers - I simply like to know what is new, and want the opportunity to compare both versions of an application (before and after the update), to see the full effect of those changes.
On any iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), when there are updates available in the store it is extremely easy to expand out and view a list of recent changes — all without even leaving the list of outdated apps.
However, on Windows Store it automatically assumes that you just want to blindly update all applications, and therefore to view the change log you need to access each application's page directly. Even then, it is not guaranteed that the developer has added a list of changes. I am constantly moving back-and-forth between the list of updates and individual app pages, in an attempt to check what has changed before installing.
It would be nice, if the Store allowed me to view the changes for an application on this screen, rather than having to go to the individual application page:
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