First off, there is a Start Button (or rather Start Flag) that returned. It opens "Start" just as in the past.
Umm no. The Start Flag takes me to the Start screen (aka the Metro interface). Yes it is a "Start" screen. But it is not what most want.
You mean Windows 7 advocates here on forums want, which are but a minority in proportion to the general public worldwide. It looks as though less users were using the Start Menu only to plaster icons to the Desktop or Taskbar. How many Desktops such as waltc just posted above have we seen? Therefore MS took Start Screen from the phone and made it better via Live Tiles and better personalization in order to organize to one's benefit. We've also entered an era of mobility, which demands touch UI, but one can navigate just as well with keyboard and mouse. BTW, Apps Screen is much closer to the Start Menu in functional replication, not the Start Screen.
http://www.eightforums.com/windows-8-news/2886-designing-start-screen.html
Which links to here:
Evolving the Start menu - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
Did you look at the article and the screenshot? The Start Button pictured would open similar to how it is Windows 7 and how it is purported to be in Windows 9.
Yes. I read the article and many more like it recently. We can all speculate until we're blue in the face, but that's all it is > Speculation. Nadella must have laid the law down along with consequences if an employee leaks anything. It may well be that they give an option of the Start Menu. I'm not against it, but personally I'll never use it as in the past. I ended up using the Taskbar configured to hide on the right that was 3 or 4 icons deep. Personally I found that to my liking of which I found to be the quickest. That, along with Gadgets, eats up system resources as you know. I'd speculate that the average user doesn't have the powerful systems that most here have, especially laptops, although they've become more powerful in recent years, but with a price. A leaner OS was/is one of their goals.
I'll add here that 8.x has/is Modern/Metro UI and that the Desktop app/portal sits within. It, after all, has it's own Charms bar shared between the Start Screen. What's changed in 8.1 is that one can configure it to boot to the Desktop app/portal. It continues to have Charms, although one can shut it off.
Overall, to me it's not just about navigation anymore. It's about obtaining the most personal data upon boot or awakening in the least amount of time. The Start Menu didn't give me that. The Modern/Metro system does.
http://www.eightforums.com/general-support/16379-real-quality-boot-time-8-verses-7-a.html
Not only that, but personally I find using the Modern/Metro system with Charms much faster in navigation and in sharing data with others. I can't prove that for there's no scientific study to prove such. I haven't found one anyway. Perhaps someone has. Admittedly it has a higher learning curve, but once learned I find it to be much quicker.
Bottom line > They may make the Start Menu an option to appease some, but I think MS's overall ultimate goal will be a Modern/Metro > native, but cloud-centric to synchronize > touch-centric OS designed to run across multiple devices. Fredledingue stated it well here in this discussion:
Metro Start Screen can open Windows application on an operating system which supports Windows Applications and these operating systems are so far working only on computers.
Ballmer and his team wanted to bring with Metro lower capability on PCs. Today they want to bring highr capabilities on smartphones which is more logical.
With a little less bloat mid-range mobile phone could run Windows (a normal version) easily. As I understand Apportal is closer to a full Windows OS.
http://www.eightforums.com/windows-...aunches-new-windows-apportals.html#post403076
I'm creating this post on my patio deck having an iced coffee and speaking it into my 8.1 Nokia Lumia 1520 in one app then copy/pasting it into the forum posting text box via the browser because I simply don't want to sit inside behind my tower on such a sunny, gorgeous Sunday morning. Tech sure has changed and will continue to. Tower PCs have their place, but may eventually die off to such mobile devices as the Surface Pro 3, this phablet, and other such devices. At age 63 I may not see it, but I think it's inevitable.
With that, I'll post then touch the Start Flag to return to Start Screen to see what's up. It may be that I'll write a Word doc via voice and save it to OneDrive to edit or finish on my tower (or other device if I had one). Lean, mobile, and synchronization are the key words today. I simply can't see it accomplished with a Start Menu.