If you’ve installed the Windows 8.1 Preview build 9431 on the Surface or any other touch computer, you might have noticed that touch scrolling is really buggy if not completely broken in XAML Windows Store apps such as the official Twitter app or MetroTwit. This is a known bug.
At BUILD 2013 I learned a bug creped into the WinRT framework and caused any virtualized ListViews with variable sized items (like the tweets in Twitter app) to scroll unpredictably when panned with touch. Fortunately it has been fixed so when Windows 8.1 RTMs it’s all good, but for anyone who downloaded the Preview a patch is uncertain.
In my opinion, touch scrolling is a highly essential aspect of the user experience, especially when over 6,000 attendees of BUILD just received two tablets for free and are eager to try out the Windows 8.1 Preview. It’s understandable a preview release build has bugs but it’s unfortunate this bug has such a severe impact on a pretty important aspect of the touch experience.
The fix missed the Windows 8.1 Preview day-0 hotfix cycle, which was made available yesterday through Windows Update. It may even face an uphill battle for future Windows Update patches because it’s not a critical security, data loss or crashing issue.
If you have Windows 8.1 Preview on your tablet and have been suffering scrolling issues, this is why. I sincerely hope the Windows team can come together to push out a fix as soon as possible.
Little New Things 