The Windows 10 Review: The Old & New Face of Windows
by Brett Howse on August 25, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Operating Systems
- Microsoft
- Windows 10
Touch-Enabled Office Apps Arrive with Windows 10
When Windows 8 launched, Microsoft had built a touch-first version of their operating system, but they had not yet completed their touch-enabled version of their most popular productivity suite. In fact, in the almost three years between Windows 8 and Windows 10, Microsoft released Office on iOS first, and then Android, leaving their own platform as the only one without a touch-enabled version of Office. Finally, with Windows 10, Office Mobile is here.
These are, like practically all pieces of Windows 10, Windows Universal Apps, and therefore they are made to scale all the way from a phone to a large display desktop. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote are all available. The experience is very similar to how it looks on the other platforms, and Microsoft has done a nice job keeping the look and feel consistent across the different mobile operating systems.
I think most people are familiar with the Office trio of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and perhaps not quite as familiar with OneNote, but the mobile apps are surprisingly competent versions, and can likely easily replace the full Office suite for a lot of people. If you need some of the extra functionality like conditional formatting in Excel, or the ability to open password protected documents, you will need to go with the full version of Office, at least for now.
In pretty typical Microsoft fashion, the apps have been created to allow basic file reading, creation, and editing for free, but if you want to access all of the features you need to purchase an Office 365 subscription. There is a big caveat here though. This only applies to devices under 10.1 inches in screen diameter. Anything larger than this requires a subscription to gain access to edit, which is a pretty big concession. According to Microsoft, they want to keep the free capabilities available for devices that are mostly used with touch, and the Office team feels this cut-off is 10.1 inches. Amazingly, the same company also sells a consumer version of their tablet line, the Surface 3, which is a 10.8 inch device and therefore over the cut-off. They do sell it with a one year subscription, but it’s a rather odd way to market the new Office Mobile apps.
There is also a new piece to the Office puzzle, which is called Sway. Luckily, like OneNote, Sway is free for all users. So what is Sway? It is an interactive storytelling app, and it lets you easily add some text and media, and it will create a sway for you. It’s very much a cloud based app, and you can share links to your sway to view or edit. Think of it like a simpler version of PowerPoint. Here is a sway as an example of what it can do.
OneNote is of course back, and this is Microsoft’s app which lets you do a lot more than just take notes. The touch version is changed from Windows 8, and it now fits in with the theme of the other Office Mobile apps. Fans of the Windows 8 version’s radial menu will be disappointed though since that has gotten the axe.
I think the capabilities of these apps are going to improve over time, but it is unlikely they will ever offer the full functionality of the desktop version of Office. They are targeted towards a different set of needs. It was certainly one of the key missing pieces of the Windows 8 era, so it is great that they have made their debut with Windows 10. Only OneNote is installed out of the box, and the other apps can be found in the store.
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prophet001 - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
The spyware aspect of this OS bothers me. I'll be using Windows 7 until this is reconsidered.Michael Bay - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
So, the same spyware.prophet001 - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Windows 7 doesn't even begin to approach this level of intrusion.Michael Bay - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
As long as you believe that.wishgranter - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
The Windows 10 EULA and Microsoft's Privacy Statement declare that Microsoft will access and use the content of people's emails and other files, such as documents uploaded to One Drive, according to Microsoft's discretion. "Share with our partners" also includes law enforcement, wherever Microsoft deems required. And I think Microsoft cannot ignore any instance which they feel should be forwarded to law enforcement without making themselves complicit in any potential criminal activity.Windows 10's all-your-contents-are-belongs-to-us policy is also a widening of the backdoor which law enforcement asks OS manufacturer to build into their systems.
Basically, Microsoft's Windows 10 EULA claims that all files used in Windows 10 may be accessed, searched, and contents utilized by Microsoft, with Microsoft exercizing sole discretion over what it will access, and how it will be used.
I think all businesses, content creators, and even nations should be dismayed at this. It looks like Russia already is concerned with Windows 10's always-on espionage against its users:
http://www.rt.com/politics/312172-windo ... ent-stirs/
If people will recall, Microsoft was previously found to be snooping in people's Outlook emails, and this discovery caused a furor among people, leading to Microsoft saying they would not do this anymore:
http://www.wired.com/2014/03/microsoft_vigilante/1
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/55314 ... l-policies2
But now, Microsoft has made it a guaranteed policy of Windows 10 that they will always do this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/privacy ... fault.aspx
"Content. We collect content of your files and communications when necessary to provide you with the services you use. This includes: the content of your documents, photos, music or video you upload to a Microsoft service such as OneDrive. It also includes the content of your communications sent or received using Microsoft services, such as the:
- subject line and body of an email,
- text or other content of an instant message,
- audio and video recording of a video message, and
- audio recording and transcript of a voice message you receive or a text message you dictate."
Shouldn't there be a much bigger furor over the discretionless snooping of Windows 10, which includes all Outlook emails, than there was over just Outlook on its own?
Are people OK with their PCs contents no longer being their sole domain and in their privacy, but instead being fully open to Microsoft?
I'm not. I'll be sticking with Windows 7 for now.
Windows 10's motto: Your System is not Your Own
xenol - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
You're reading the TP EULA. The actual Windows 10 EULA is at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Useterms/Retail/Win... , which defers the privacy stuff to Microsoft's privacy statement ( https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/ )Which says none or few of the things in the TP EULA (the only one I found in common is they may look at anything you upload to OneDrive, which you can disable on Windows 10 anyway)
Grooveriding - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Really unfortunate how far Microsoft went with privacy invasion and data trolling with Win 10. Fortunately you can disable what appears to be all of it with options, registry tweaks and disabling services.I would also recommend running a draconian firewall such as Tinywall that blocks all internet traffic and you have to allow applications on a case by case basis. As well as editing your hosts file to block all traffic back to Microsoft's data collection servers. As well, never use the OS with an MS account, just use a local account.
Pretty outrageous MS does not offer an option to disable everything without having to resort to these measures.
hansmuff - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
The "sharing with law enforcement" is automatic for any data Microsoft has. If you're on 7 and use OneDrive, well there you go.Regarding the recording of voice data, that's a given with all of them. Siri, Google, now MS all use online services to improve detection and of course otherwise use that data. And they all send your recorded voice in some form or shape to their servers.
I can see how you'd tie it to Windows 10 because that centralizes a lot of those "new generation" of services that are in the cloud. But those services exist with or without Windows 10. I think it's wiser to educate people about what "the cloud" implies, which is exactly what you say; people do not have control over the data they store.
It's a cloud issue, and the cloud has provided the perfect vehicle for the likes of Apple, Google and Microsoft to take what they want. This goes for your PC, phone, tablet, everything.
Notmyusualid - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
None of my phones or PCs send anything to the cloud.It is called privacy common sense.
Matts8 - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
What phone do you have?