[--BulletMagnet--]

I did a fresh install of Windows 8.1 Pro last night and decided I would give some of Microsoft's native apps one more try after initially dismissing them as stripped, dumbed-down versions of real software.

I'm having a hard time disproving myself. I'm speaking as a laptop/desktop user, of course. If I had a touch screen, I could of course see myself benefiting from a few of the apps, but the UI for most of the Windows Store apps is very confusing and not intuitive. Furthermore, most apps are simply web articles and snippets from other sites, so you can pretty much open your web browser and you've all but replicated the usefulness of those apps.

I might try to find a few simple games in the Store to play in my spare time, but I doubt I find anything beyond that. One redeeming quality of a few of the Windows apps is the live tile functionality. Seeing the current weather on the Start screen, for example, is pretty neat.