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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Brett Howse - Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - link
Thanks for the catch on that one :)abhaxus - Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - link
Had a full screen takeover/scrolling ad when trying to read this article. Similar to the Tom's Hardware ads. I don't read that website anymore, and I will stop reading this one if it continues to happen.Anne Druide - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Only 30 minutes in and it is obvious to me that Microsoft has dropped the ball it had picked up with Windows 8.1. (1) Microsoft's efforts at fixing Windows continue to be APITA (a pain you know where)! WHY did they have to completely obliterate the Charms? Why not just have left them along the right side of the new Action Center? I mean really? Did that NOT cross any of the brilliant minds at MS? WHY remove such a distinctive and unique feature of 8.1. Why not integrate it into 10? (2) Furthermore, just as 8.1 had swung maybe (maybe not) too far towards the tiles, 10 has swung WAY too far towards the desktop. Now, to get to the Metro Tiles Menu it takes TWO steps! Why in the world does pressing the offscreen Window button bring up the Start Menu INSTEAD of the Metro Menu? The Start Menu ALREADY has its own Window icon! And what's a TOTAL WASTE is that pressing on the offscreen Windows button while in Tablet mode and on the Metro Menu does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It does not even bring up the Start Menu which would have been a great idea! Duh! (3) Finally, I feel that MS has lied about BRINGING BACK THE START BUTTON! Clicking on the Windows button located where the Start button was in Windows 7 does NOT bring anything up even remotely close to what we had in Windows 7! When I press the Start button I DON'T wanna see tiles; I wanna see all the practical functionality of what came up in Windows 7 when I pressed Start! INSTEAD, I get a very confusing flotsam and jetsam mish-mash of everything under the sun instead of quick access to the Control Panel and Task Bar content and...OMG there's no longer any user control of Windows Update?!!! All in all, my first 30 minutes with Windows 10 has been, as you can tell, VERY disappointing! WHY is it SO HARD for MS to JUST GET IT RIGHT! This is NOT even close to what Windows 10 SHOULD be. This is a limping Windows 9 with the 10 thrown in JUST not to look light years behind Apple's OS X whose TEN has been a thorn in the side of MS for how many years now?!mapesdhs - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Still looks to me like MS wants people to have a phone interface on a desktop, which is stupid. So many things once again look incredibly unprofessional, and the lack of configurability is just ridiculous. It makes the coding of this latest release look so amateurish. The smiley in the very first review image is typical. I could make a list of everything else which is stupid (eg. no Save As from right-button), but who has the time, and I'm sure the 22 pages of comments have covered them all already.I don't want to use an OS that looks like a phone interface. I'll keep using Win7 until MS offers something sensible.
straighttalk - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Totally useless review. No content, just a lot of opinion. Where's the beef? What are the issues? What problems are people who upgrade having?SteelRing - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
WiFi Sense is the antithesis of privacy and security, you should allow it if you are naive or an MS worshipper or both. Should you upgrade from Win8(.1)? For sure... Should you upgrade from Win7? I'd say if it aint broke dont fix it. I'm personally glad that Win10 finally allows me to buy laptop again, laptop that works and not just a toy. I want a keyboard and a mouse with my computer and Win10 finally lets me have it again. People who want to smear their screens with their fingers seem to be happy with Win10 too, none of my business though. If Win10 had not come out I'd be scavanging refurb laptops with Win7, thank goodness I don't have to.Oxford Guy - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Microsoft is apparently doing its best to make sure it is broken. Here is a list I found of patches to avoid, due to things like added in "telemetry" (spying) or bug introduction:KB3075249, KB3080149, KB2505438, KB2670838, KB2952664, KB2976978 (8 only), KB3021917, KB3035583, KB3075249
Notmyusualid - Saturday, August 29, 2015 - link
Thanks, but cleared out a couple of those already.Zak - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
"for most people, they will make the trade-off of less privacy if it means an improved experience. The textbook example here is advertising, where in order to deliver relevant ads to the user (or rather not serve them useless ads) the ad service must be able to learn something about the user and their preferences" -- Are you out of your mind??? Trade my privacy for relevant ads? You ought to be on drugs or MS is paying you to post this drivel. Nobody likes to be blasted with ads, relevant or not. If they system really wants to learn something it is this: NOBODY LIKES ADS.jameskatt - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
The absolutely WORSE thing about Windows 10 is now much it is tracking you - tracking the websites you read, the apps you use, tracking how much time you spend on a web page, etc. And you cannot turn this tracking off. It is totally creepy that Windows includes so much spying.Some parents may love this in that they get a monthly report from Microsoft of every webpage and app their children use.
But for the vast majority of users and parents, this is simply unacceptable.
Someone has to give us a privacy utility to block Microsoft from tracking us so heavily.