Most of this information is already mostly confirmed. They slated Update 2 for between approx August and October.
Update 2 will have the replaced Start Menu, but others have confirmed that Floating Apps will not come till Win9 in 2015.
Of course all this information can change, but I doubt the Floating Apps will be in Update 2.
The Start Menu as pictured is what I hope we will be getting.
With that and the Start Screen, this will be pretty sweet.
Information at your Finger Tips.
Along with Insteon, being able to access your most important Live Info from the start button is a step in the right direction.
Interactive Tiles (which would essentially be full blown Gadgets) I hope will also be a part of Win9.
Keep in mind that all of this started in Vista as Ultimate Editions.
Unfortunately it got started in a bit of a under-managed mess, and was quite unsecured.
This is the results of starting over and bringing forth a much better managed oversight of the App (Gadgets) system.
Despite all the hoopla and over-exaggerated problems, Win8 is shaping up to be a damn solid OS.
I can say this, cause I have 2 Desktops, a Laptop and 2 Surface Pros all running Win8.1 Update 1 and current on all Updates.
None of my systems have a single problem with running anything I throw at them.
Incidentally to those "Store Lovers" -- if you have to totally re-install your OS - maybe on several computers how do you get your apps again from the store --do you have to do it separately for each machine
Sort of, but it's not difficult at all to do, and this will also the beauty of App Unification.
When you go into the store and look at the App History, you can install them from there
But let's say I installed 5 App on one PC, and 10 on a different one, I can see the history from all PC's
When I install an App on one PC and go to a different one and login with the same name
The Tile will show on the Start Screen with a small down arrow, click it and it automatically installs.
Seriously, install Win8 and actually use it for a while. It's a very solid OS and getting better.
This is the issue I have with people that want to down talk Win8 who have never actually used it,
or used it for such a short period of time they have no clue what they are actually talking about.
As for Versioning, I will grant that could be an issue
But if the app is that big, the developer better make sure they know what they are doing.
But that's an App Dev issue, not an OS issue. And you are not required to Run only Apps, unless you buy RT,
if that's the case, don't complain when you didn't spend the money for something with more options.
You get what you pay for.