Windows 8 has finished its development cycle now, which mean everything that was said and done in the past either took an effect or it didn’t. Along the way however, people liked to get other people hyped up over things that didn’t exist. The development of Windows 8 was full of rumours, most of which were untrue.
128bit support
The first rumours about Windows 8 began appearing in 2009, a few weeks before Windows 7 was to launch actually. I believe the first rumour was about Windows 8 supporting 128-bit architectures and removing support for the 32-bit architecture.
Looking at that rumour now, it seems stupid that people actually thought about how that rumour could be true. But thinking deeper into it, it was obvious that Microsoft weren’t going to drop support for 32bit PC’s. Also, have you ever seen a 128bit PC? I haven’t, and I don’t think I will for at least a 5 more years.
To be fair though, the rumour did also mention Windows 9, but I’m not even sure I can see that happening either. In theory, Windows 9 is only a few years away. If we can build 128bit processors in that time, then maybe Windows 9 will support it, but for now it’s a “not happening”.
Facial Recognition with Kinect
2010 saw the rumour of facial recognition when logging into Windows 8. It would require something like a Kinect based device or webcam. Just place your face in view of the camera, and Windows will see you as your and log you into your account. Sort of like the Xbox does.
The fact that the Xbox can do it made this rumour seem very possible, and why wouldn’t it be? You can get the same functionality with 3rd party applications on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. This should have been a feature baked right into the core of Windows 8. It’s an actual shame that it isn’t.
The end of the Blue Screen of Death
Since some of the leaked versions of Windows 8 had a black, simplistic screen of death, many thought Microsoft were trying to phase out the entire scenario of BSoD’ing. This wasn’t true, just because they changed the wording and colouring of the BSoD, didn’t mean it was going away.
They made the BSoD a lot nicer in Windows 8, and in early builds the Blue Screen of Death was actually the Black Screen of Death. They changed this back to blue for reasons that are unknown.
Windows 8 designed for gamers
2010 saw another rumour that just wasn’t true, although we all wanted it to be. When people say Gamers, what do you think? I think sitting down, playing Halo, or The Walking Dead, or The Sims. I don’t picture Angry Birds or Cut the Rope. Sadly, when people said Windows 8 was designed for gamers, they meant casual type games.
Sure, Windows 8 includes Xbox LIVE integration, but it’s only for silly little games that can get you up to a max of 200G. They aren’t full-fledged games that I like to call Games. It’s almost offensive for people to say Angry Birds is part of the gaming world, when it’s just a fun little sides roller to waste time.
Windows 8 can play games from services like Steam just fine, but it can’t play Xbox games. This was the original rumour that got half the gaming world excited.
The reports said that gaming would be a big part of Windows 8 as a whole OS. It isn’t. At all.
Wind UI
Many don’t know this, but before the public learned about Immersive UI and the Metro Start Screen, people thought the second UI was going to be something amazing for powerful desktop PC’s and Laptops to use. How wrong were they?
This rumour said that Microsoft were working on 2 user interfaces (they were right), one for the normal PC and one for high end PC’s. These higher end PC’s would require a 64-bit processor and at least 170MB Graphics Memory. This new UI was codenamed Wind, and would take advantage of 3D capabilities within Windows.
The new interface was supposed to be “fully dynamic” and would adapt to the users habits. For example, the UI would adapt and change to make daily tasks easier and quicker to access. It sounded amazing. Sadly, this rumour wasn’t true. Metro is simple, 2D and not dynamic. It doesn’t alter itself to become more like you. /cry
Chatter
What is Chatter you may ask? It was a rumoured video chat service that was supposed to be built right into the heart of Windows 8. It was going to rival FaceTime on the Mac. Obviously, Chatter doesn’t exist, although it could have one day.
Sure, you can do all that with Skype Video Calling, but that’s an app that you must download from the Store. Chatter was going to be baked right into Windows 8, and that’s what made this rumour so cool. A possibility is that Chatter was something Microsoft were working on before they purchased Skype, since Chatter did have its own icon. Either way, Chatter isn’t a thing in Windows 8.
RTM in April 2012
This was a rumour that got around quite quickly, as it was posted on major blogging websites. Windows 8 was going to RTM in 2012, and be released in the summer time. Not much else was said about this rumour.
Obviously, the rumour was proven false when April 2012 passed and the RTM wasn’t even in sight. May 31st saw the release of the Release Preview, so that should tell you how wrong this rumour was.
Windows 8 didn’t RTM until July/August, and was released in October 2012.
Calling and Texting functionality
Along with the Video Chatting, Calling and Texting was also rumoured to be a thing in Windows 8, since images of a Call tile was visible on the Start Screen. However in today’s builds of Windows 8 this feature is not included, and can be only done with Skype for Windows 8.
We can only assume that the Calling and Texting functionality was planned, but the scraped since Microsoft had just recently purchased Skype.
So there you have it, a bunch of Windows 8 rumours that didn’t make it to prime time. What rumour did you wish was real? Leave your thoughts below!