Microsoft loves tinkering with the Start menu, but most of the changes it has made have been quite controversial. Now, it appears that the Windows 11 Start menu will categorize your apps into tiles.
Wait, Windows 11 already supports folders in the Start menu. So, how is this new? Well, no, the upcoming change is not related to the Start menu’s home page. Instead, it changes the appearance of the “All Apps” screen.
This is what the All Apps section looks like today, it’s a bit clunky, as it lists all your apps in alphabetical order, and you have to scroll down the list to get to a specific app. There’s no keyboard shortcut to quickly move down the list, if you type the first letter of an app, it simply inputs the text into the search bar. That being said, finding an app via search is the fastest way to find it.
Windows 11’s Start menu will automatically categorize your apps
Here’s a screenshot of the upcoming style, courtesy windows latest. The Start menu automatically categorizes apps by type. This change was spotted by PhantomOcean3 about a month ago, you can check out the demo HereThe leaker has also shared a demo of the new style, which you can check out here See here,
The new layout looks similar to the live tiles present in the previous version of the operating system, but it is unclear if these categories will offer a more rich experience, such as unread badge count for apps.
The automatic categorization of apps is good, but the organization could be improved. For example, some apps are placed under a tile called Entertainment, these include Paint, Movies & TV, and Xbox apps. But the Music app is placed in its own section, which is a bit odd. It would be nice if Microsoft allowed users to personalize the selection, just like we can customize folders on the main page of the Start menu. The new layout offers a slightly better view, but the app labels, i.e. the names of the programs, are hidden. One interesting thing about it is that clicking on an icon launches the app immediately without opening the folder. This requires you to scroll down the page, but it is still a notable improvement over the current state of the list, but it is not a very high level.
Microsoft is also testing a grid layout for the All Apps page, which would group apps based on the first letter of their name. This isn’t particularly useful, as you’ll still have to scroll down quite a bit.
These changes to the Start menu are being tested in the latest beta version of the OS (build 22635.4010) in the Windows Insider Program, the feature is not enabled by default, which suggests this may not be the final design. The new layout may be available as part of the Windows 11 24H2 update that is reportedly being released this fall.
In my opinion, the Category View resembles the home screen on a mobile device. In fact, it is exactly what the iOS App Library looks like.
What do you think about the automatic classification of apps? Does this make the Start menu better to use?
Thanks for reading..
