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
Final Words
There’s a lot to like with the Anniversary Update, and as the first major update since Windows 10 shipped, it’s a good start for Microsoft on their new track of Windows as a Service. We’d already seen a couple of smaller updates since launch, fixing several outstanding items, but the Anniversary Update adds a lot more functionality to the operating system.
With the new Skype, Mail, and other Universal Windows Apps, Microsoft finally has a platform which works across all of their systems. It really has been a long dream, and only with the update to the Xbox One do we really have a universal platform. This should pay dividends going forward, with any app updates being available to all systems. For developers, there’s an opportunity to reach all of Microsoft’s platforms with a single app. Project Centennial should assist with those trying to bring older Win32 apps forward as well.
The updated tablet mode is all about small changes. Using Windows 10 in a purely touch environment is definitely a better experience. Windows 8.1 was pretty good here, but the app selection was weak at best, so Windows 10 is now a superior platform for touch on the Windows side.
The Bash shell was a pretty big surprise at Build, but it makes a lot of sense with the new Microsoft. They’ve embraced open source in a way that didn’t seem possible a few years ago, and their strive to bring developers to the platform has been the driving factor in the addition of a Linux system to Windows. They even call it Bash on Ubuntu on Windows.
Windows Ink is a better way to use the pen. Cortana has improved. But I think the biggest update was to Edge, which really needed extensions to even have a chance of getting use by many users. Edge has always rendered text very well, but it’s lack of extensions made it difficult to use daily. With this update, that should no longer be a problem.
Microsoft made thousands of changes to Windows 10, and there’s no way to go into all of them in a single article, but Windows as a Service has started out pretty well so far. The Anniversary Update really polishes a lot of the aspects of Windows 10, which didn’t necessarily feel rushed, but wasn’t exactly finished either. This update has helped out on a lot of the edges.
The Windows Insider Program has been the driving factor in the development, and it doesn’t appear to be ending any time soon. Microsoft has found a way to tap into millions of people’s feedback and ideas to improve their product. It’s been an interesting road to Redstone, and now that Redstone 1 has shipped we should start to see the new features coming to Redstone over the next several months. For now, the Windows 10 Anniversary Update will start rolling out in waves today, so check your Windows Update.
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.