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
powerarmour - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
Indeed, and likewise nor is it fair to say 'Chrome is a battery hog' when plainly isn't on a Chromebook.BurntMyBacon - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
@powerarmour: "Indeed, and likewise nor is it fair to say 'Chrome is a battery hog' when plainly isn't on a Chromebook."Agreed. It's similar to how Safari is a much different program on MAC OS than it is anywhere else. It almost deserves a different name. Chrome is much different on a Chromebook than Windows. Certainly battery life issue are not the same for every platform and they are working to improve it. For instance, Android for a long time made use of Android browser rather than Chrome by default. While Chrome was a more fully featured browser, it also sucked far more energy to do its job. Now, the difference has depreciated to the point that Chrome is the default browser in newer Nexus devices. That said, android chrome still isn't the equal of the Windows and Linux versions and only the Windows version can be compared to Edge (which was the original topic of discussion here).
Murloc - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
chromebooks are hardly relevant for most users, and the discussion is clearly about windows laptops since it's being compared to edge.nikon133 - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
Also works better with touch, imho. I mostly use Chrome on my desktop and (docked) laptop... but on Surface, it is basically 100% Edge.faizoff - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
As everyone have answered @retrospooty, I have an unbranded 10.1 tablet that has 2 GB RAM with an Intel Atom CPU Z3735F BayTrail-T 1.33GHz. So Edge works great on that but the only thing stopping me from using it was adblock.Even on my desktop Chrome is a memory hog where I find each tab takes about 150-250 mb of RAM and surprisingly recently rediscovered Firefox takes a total of 350 MB with at least 10 tabs open.
So yeah Edge is the fastest among them all in terms of initial load plus browsing but the ads.. the ads kill my experience.
Brett Howse - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
As I said in the article, Edge renders text better than other browsers, especially on a high DPI device like Surface Pro 4 / Surface Book.Alexvrb - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
That's a huge plus too... and that's AFTER the upgrades Google made to Chrome a while back in terms of text rendering. Couple years back Chrome's text rendering at ANY resolution was really mediocre.Socius - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
Edge has the smoothest scrolling of any browser. It's also surprisingly fast, with ad-block enabled. The only downside to it is that there is no 100% popup block feature or addon.Lerianis - Monday, August 15, 2016 - link
Edge is great if you block ads.... especially VIDEO ads that even MSN loves to put 3-5 video ads ON THE SAME PAGE and slow Edge to a crawl.I finally did that in my hosts file for a short period and only rescinded that when websites started going to that blocking you from using their websites if you have adblock enabled.
andrejg - Tuesday, August 23, 2016 - link
I use Edge almost all the time, unless there is app or site, that doesn't support Edge. i found very few that I use besides some pages from bank, that use also external certification via smartcard... or so... Really, i just use Edge as it was installed and only few times i was forced to use IE for compatibility reasons... I have found Fox and Chrome to add only complitations for normal use unless there is something special, that needs that particular browser.