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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tonytroubleshooter - Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - link
they dont care about licensing it, they care about people installing a "OMG free Win 10 upgrade", with Cortanana and privacy settings enabled. Soon as the number of WIn10 installs with express settings goes up, so will the money stacks from advertisers to MS. for shame MS, for shame... shadowing Google like a biznitch....BobSwi - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Sticking with 7, and likely next upgrade will be linux with windows in a VM. Virtual box has let me ttest drive so many OS's, Mint, Debian, Slackware.n0b0dykn0ws - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
I know I'll be in the minority, but this OS suffers from the same flaw that Windows 8(.1) did. It offers little reason to upgrade and takes away things that I use.I still use Windows Media Center because it is the most polished modern DVR platform for Windows. Either products were dumped years ago and are only available as their last release, or there are modern platforms that you have to spend vast amounts of time configuring and when it finally does work you have to pray that the next release doesn't break it.
There is a sliver of hope with SiliconDust's forthcoming DVR software, but until it is in final release and I can finally know the final technical details of the platform I am forced to continue using Windows 8.1 on all three of my desktops.
There just isn't enough 'new' in Windows 10 to make it worthwhile jumping ship. Especially given that features such as Cortana I am no longer interested in using.
vLsL2VnDmWjoTByaVLxb - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
One troubling aspect of this ecosystem is I've had trouble using my Microsoft account, including Onedrive, too many times. What is happening right now and for the past few weeks on my work system is a continual prompt to provide credentials when I save documents. It makes getting work done nearly impossible, and I'm considering abandoning this setup I've had for quite some time.Previously I've had issues with syncing and adding extra space to my Onedrive account. All in all it's the heart of much of this ecosystem and I've lost trust in it, and therefore, much of my trust of Windows in general. It's my data, why must you make me struggle to access it?
basroil - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
"Accessing all apps is different than Windows 7 because there are no folders on the Start Menu. Instead there is just an alphabetical list of all apps that you can scroll through."There ARE folders in Windows 10 start menu/screen, I have ~10 of them ranging from Blender to Visual Studio 2015!
Brett Howse - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
I updated the text. Sorry about that I actually was meaning hierarchical folders like Programs->Accessories->System Tools but I see that what I said was not correct. Thanks for pointing it out!AlexIsAlex - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
It's a shame, I really wanted to like Windows 10, and had it pegged as an upgrade from 7. It's certainly an improvement over 8, but I'm just not seeing anything convincing over 7 for a desktop. For the desktop use case (no touch, no wifi, no apps - full applications only please) where I will not accept an MS Account login (no Hello, no Store, no Cortana, no OneDrive), that leaves precious little. Slightly faster file copies and a nicer task manager, it seems.Then there's the new visual look/design language, which I can't say I really like, personally (this is supposed to be client side software, not a website), and the inconsistent UI between Metro and Desktop - seriously, just try right clicking in the start menu (Metro) compared to the task bar (Desktop).
There's Edge I suppose. Better than IE, granted. Not as good as Firefox.
Oh well. I guess we'll all have to migrate eventually. But until forced, I'm sticking with 7.
Victor84 - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Sums it up pretty well, could not agree more.trparky - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Firefox? You bring that piece of crap up? That thing will gladly eat through your RAM like a pig. I can't stand Firefox anymore and that goes for anything built on Firefox. The engine itself is garbage. Or, and did you hear that Mozilla will be abandoning XUL and thus all existing extensions will be obsolete?You don't need to tie your Microsoft Live Account to your Windows login if you don't want to. All you need is a Microsoft Live Account and Windows 10 will allow you to individually sign into the Store, OneDrive, etc.
You probably have a Google Account. Same thing, different company.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Chrome has been linked to issues with memory leakage. I think Chrome is highly overrated.