Windows 10 Anniversary Update: The Road To Redstone
by Brett Howse on August 2, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Operating Systems
- Microsoft
- Windows 10
Hey Cortana, Remind Me to Explain Windows Ink
Cortana
Microsoft’s digital personal assistant has been updated as well. The most obvious change is that Cortana can now be accessed on the lock screen. If you’re not too worried about others seeing the lock screen, such as on a home PC, you can even have Cortana access your calendar and email on the lock screen. If you enable voice control with “Hey Cortana” you could even ask Cortana to play a song from across the room. It’s a nice feature, but on a PC it may not be that useful. On a tablet or mobile device, it might get a bit more use.
Perhaps the biggest updates with Cortana is just how much Microsoft has expanded the reach. While Cortana began as a feature of Windows Phone, Microsoft now offers it as a downloadable app on Android and iOS as well. That makes a lot of sense considering how the mobile smartphone game has played out, and gives Windows 10 users the ability to have reminders across their devices.
Speaking of across device abilities, Cortana can now send notifications from a smartphone to the PC. You can even reply to SMS messages on the PC using Cortana, which is pretty handy.
One other change has certainly caused some confusion prior to the release. The ability to turn Cortana off completely has been removed from the update, as well as the ability to assign a different browser/search engine via the registry - from now on users will be limited to Edge and Bing. You can opt to sign out of Cortana to remove the personalized features, but Cortana will still be the default search in the taskbar. It’s a change in policy for sure. As always, you can adjust what Cortana knows about you at any time by using the Notebook, and if you sign out of Cortana you’ll get a non-personalized version.
Windows Ink
It’s fair to say that Microsoft has been a proponent of the stylus input on computers for a long time. Over the years, the capabilities of the inking support have grown, and when Windows 10 launched last year, inking was a first class input method, with the ability to use the pen to write on any dialog box, and more. With the Anniversary Update, they are taking it to the next level with Windows Ink.
Windows Ink is a one-stop shop where you can easily access all of your inking apps, like Sketchpad, Sticky Notes, and others. It’s also an easy way to discover more apps built for the pen, and you can configure the pen here as well. It’s a smart idea to help people use the pen to get more out of the experience.
They’ve also added more features to the inking experience, including a digital ruler. It’s one of those “wow that’s so obvious” additions to the pen input, and being digital it can be more than just a straight ruler. Microsoft showed off at Build a version of Adobe CS with a digital French Curve ruler. I’ve actually tried to use an actual ruler with a stylus before, and it’s a pretty frustrating experience. The digital version is much easier to use, and more adaptable.
Some of the inking is even integrated into Cortana, and now Cortana can automatically decipher hand-written sticky notes in the sticky notes app, and create reminders based on them. Sticky notes are still one of the skeuomorphic ideas, but for some people they are indispensable, even as a digital version.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
194 Comments
View All Comments
Penti - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
Centennial is still Win32.Gigaplex - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
UWP is still based on top of Win32 as well.Penti - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
Yeah in large parts, any how Centennial is still using the Win32 VS CRT and all and not Windows Runtime with it's own C++ runtime and framework aka UWP/UWA/Store-app/Modern/Metro/WinRT. As the binaries aren't converted but rather packed into an AppX package. Nothing would work without Win32. You can't even use Windows Runtime to build a Windows Runtime (UWP) app as the development tools won't move to it.API's (some of them) previously only available to Store apps have been made available to Windows/Win32 applications like the inking API so I don't think freezing out Win32 apps by moving new features to WinRT/UWP and to UWP apps only would work or be desirable either. Would only cause fragmentation and vendors would start to replace deprecated or stalled API's with their own stuff which might just make it more difficult to develop for the platform with more stuff you need to support, but probably not as difficult as porting to UWP but still frustrate users and developers.
Achaios - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
Still on windows 7 for my main PC. My old laptop still runs Windows XP.Can't see myself ever upgrading to Windows 10, except when a DX11 game absolutely requires Windows 10 (and DX 11) to make 60 FPS. Even so, I'd return back to the Windows 7 partition after gaming on Windows 10.
Michael Bay - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
I can kinda sorta understand this 7 attachment, but why would you need the fossil?SteelRing - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
There is nothing I need to do that cant be done in Win7, or even WinXP for that matter. Not having that b1tch Cortana in the background spying on you the whole time is a huge relief.smilingcrow - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
XP? Yikes, you can keep that 32 bit over-rated POS and yes there was a 64 bit version which was hardly supported.Achaios - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
My 2003 laptop can't run anything else. Specs below:CPU: Intel Pentium 4@3.06 GHz with HT (1 core two threads)- GPU: NVIDIA Geforce4 460 Go AGP 64 MB DDR RAM - MOBO: Intel 845 PE chipset based - RAM: 2GB DDR RAM@333 MHz -
http://i.imgur.com/Y9oQ6xW.jpg?1
This laptop is all I need to work. It can run Firefox with Ad Blocker, MS Office, and GOM Player and it comes with a 16 inch screen too.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
Your reasoning is perfectly sensible. If your laptop works for you with its given OS and hardware, then you should continue to use it in a way that suits your needs.The point of computer technology from its inception was to assist people in accomplishing tasks more efficiently. To that end, the computer should kowtow to the needs of the person using it by fitting a variety of requirements for mobility, interface, and functionality. I think we've lost sight of a lot of that since the industry has grown in size and gained something of a life of its own. Windows 10 seems something of an outgrowth of computers being mistreated as devices that serves the company making the software they runs rather than supporting the needs of the end user. In the end, Windows 10's master is Microsoft rather than the system owner. The justifications Microsoft will offer are numerous (telemetry gathering, system security, ease of use, following the trend of closed-system modern phones, etc) and other tech companies are just as guilty of lacing services they offer with self-serving capabilities (thanks for being the industry leader on that one Google/Alphabet) that simply don't benefit the end user. What you end up with is a mutually-destructive relationship where end users aren't happy and companies offer polarizing, unsatisfactory products in an attempt to incorporate their own needs into things that are supposed to be all about the customers they serve.
sadsteve - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
Well, I was borderline with my install of Windows 10 but there are just too many negatives vs positives with this release so I regressed my system back to Windows 8.1. I"ll stick with 8.1 till end of support. I just want to operate my machine my way, not Microsoft's way.I did like the idea of the Linux subsystem but that would have been the only plus. As it is, I can continue using MSYS2 for my 'Bash'ing on my Windows box.
And speaking of Bash, I've had Mint Linux on my Vista era laptop for ~9 months and it seems to do everything I need for my daily computing needs (no gaming or Photoshop are done on the laptop). There's even a device driver from Brothers for my multifunction printer.