Meet Julian, the three-year-old who has mastered Windows 8 and in turn rebutted the many complaints that Microsoft's newest operating system strays too far from the Windows on which computer users were raised for widespread adoption.
Designed for the impending multi-device world, Windows 8 tries to strike a balance between navigating an OS on a PC, tablet, or smartphone. So far, it's been a risky venture. Even the New York Times and Associated Press have reported mass confusion.
Julian begs to differ. Running Windows 8 on a desktop, Julian starts out by correcting his father's use of lingo, who so naively calls the Start Screen the "Start menu," because parents just don't understand. From there, he can find and open the Weather app, pin it to the side, go back to the Start screen, open up new apps, toggle between apps in the full-screen view, do all of his Christmas shopping on Amazon, and update his fantasy football lineup before calling it a day.
(Note: some of those tasks may not have happened. Watch the video, for accuracy's sake.)
Julian is undoubtedly the best new friend of Redmond, which has heard plenty of negative discourse since first unveiling its new, multi-interface-enabled operating system.
He could simply benefit by learning Windows 8 as his first operating system, which may only actually be difficult to learn because current Windows users are so ingrained with the traditional interface. That was the case for Joe Pirillo, the father of LockerGnome founder Chris Pirillo who, in this widely viewed YouTube video, struggled to navigate Windows 8 when he first tried to use it.
In either case, the video shows that, when the user puts aside their preconceived notions about how Windows is supposed to work, the OS could be easy enough for a toddler to use.
The timing of Julian's small-screen debut works in Microsoft's favor as well. Besides surfacing less than a week before Microsoft is set to release Windows 8, the video came just two days after Pirillo, apparently acting on behalf of a company called Pokki that offers software that inserts the traditional Start menu on Windows 8, starred in a conveniently timed follow-up video - this time on the Pokki YouTube account - in which people on the street express their distaste with Windows 8.