Lots of news out of Microsoft yesterday which can now be confirmed instead of just speculated…
I believe the highlight and best news is that Windows 7 and 8 users will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free during the first year. So far an important piece of the puzzle remains to be answered but rumour does have it that Windows 10 minimum requirements will be the same as that of Windows 7 and 8, which should mean the same computer that they are running on today will be good for Windows 10 when it comes out.
Now if you’re done giggling about being able to get it for free the next big bit of news from yesterday has to do with Microsoft’s Augmented Reality (AR) which is known as the HoloLens this headset along with the programming driving it are being hailed as a huge leap forward, as it not only renders holograms but also uses something like furniture from the real world in combination with the hologram, so you can punch a hole in the wall to see some type of lava flowing behind it, tickle a sheep on a table which causes it to jump off. Other neat demonstrations like someone installing a light switch with the help of someone on Skype guiding the other person through AR by pointing to the tool they should use and what needs to be done are interesting and reports have already been circulating that the auto sector has a new development tool ready to go for creating the vehicles of the future by manipulating the parts etc. in the holographic world. Here’s a demonstration video.
Next on the list of features is the return of the Start button whose disappearance could be almost entirely blamed on for the lack of success with Windows 8, Windows 10 almost sounds like the Operating System that should have come between Windows 7 & 8 as it’s more subtly bringing some of the new stuff found in Windows 8 while keeping some of the more familiar stuff from Windows 7 and previous versions all while introducing new stuff that’s found in neither currently as well.
One of the great things for Windows 10 is that it will be almost identical across any machine that uses it, from mobile devices like phones/tablets to desktop computers this will be known as continuity. It will also recognise what you are using and change itself accordingly to accommodate that device, this means for the most part that a program you might use on the desktop will be just as familiar when you are using it on a tablet or phone reducing the learning curve and the time it takes to adapt between the situations as users jump back and forth. There are slight differences when switching between tablet mode and computer mode but not major ones from what I’ve read and seen. Here is a simple video demonstration.
Most smart phones now a days have some type of assistant available that through voice commands can manage to do quite a bit, Microsoft’s Cortana is one of these and has been available on some devices already but with Windows 10 it’ll be available on all the devices, provided you have a microphone for input and even speakers to hear the output would probably be nice as well. Cortana has made headlines in its ability to predict the outcome of sporting events which are typically based on the statistics and tend to be the favourite shown in those stats. Either way it’s just the beginning of how humans will interact with computers as our input options continue to evolve with motion gesturing with holograms for example and one day more than likely by our thoughts alone.
Among other new features is two different browsers available and these reports tend to be vague at the moment, Spartan and IE12 which are supposed to be different but yet some reports are saying that Spartan could replace IE12 have yet to be clarified. Most tend to say that there will be an IE12 available by default with the system while Spartan will be an optional download. Spartan reportedly will use a different rendering engine and should be lighter and faster than IE12 and is also supposed to be Microsoft’s answer to the growing percentage of Chrome users that are growing daily. Some of the main reasons for this exodus to Chrome has to do with all the faults that are continuously reported with IE mainly in the forms of security holes for the average user, the headache gets bigger for web developers as not only do they have to contend with creating websites that will work across all the other web browsers but Microsoft has a history of drastically changing the way their very own browser renders HTML with each version of IE they’ve released, in the past this was an attempt to control the web standards and it worked in the beginning while they held a major percentage of users but as other browsers gained momentum the standards set by the W3 Consortium have taken precedence and Microsoft’s fight to distinguish themselves has slowly come to a crawl or an end hopefully. By adhering to these standards rendering across all browsers will eventually be more consistent and similar making the developers life a bit easier by not having to test every single browser or versions of IE. What Microsoft plans for its web browsers still remains to be seen at the moment, if Spartan becomes IE12 or if it’s separate there are a few things that it will bring to the table, one of them is a reading mode which will present just text making it easier to read articles without all the extra flashy garbage developers put in the page. It will also place your offline content on OneDrive making it accessible across all the devices you use, allow you to draw on the webpage your visiting to highlight information for example and lastly it’ll be able to utilize Cortana as well.
Lastly Xbox gamers might be happy to know that they’ll be able to play their favourite games on any of the Windows 10 devices available on the same network through streaming.
Now that we’ve covered the stuff the media has brought forward from yesterday’s news release, here are some of my thoughts. First off this is a great way to start off a campaign by offering the free upgrade for the first year Microsoft is making a major attempt in keeping their customers satisfied, by reducing their costs for the OS on mobile devices in the past they’ve also made a huge attempt to become competitive in the mobile market as one of the disadvantages were the price. It appears that they’ve addressed some other major concerns in the mobile market by making everything more compatible and reducing the learning curve with switching between devices.
With Windows being 3rd in the mobile market, I think a lot of articles have dismissed them from being competitive or even having a chance to bounce back, some have quickly forgotten how long Microsoft has been at the top or even how innovative they are and I feel yesterday’s news might just be a reminder of that. Recent articles claiming that the PC is dead because of tablet sales soaring don’t reflect that at all in my opinion, they merely show that PC’s haven’t advanced as fast as they used to meaning older PC’s are still up and running just fine without the need for a new one which only someone utilizing heavy processor loads or graphical loads would really be able to take advantage of. Tablet sales have also begun to cool off showing a similar pattern as users were just jumping on the train to get something new, neat and flashy at first, now after a few generations have come and gone they to aren’t advancing as much as they used to either, being thinner just isn’t cutting as much as it used to because it’s at a point where it’s sacrificing its durability which just isn’t worth it.
This brings us to the real difference future sales will be based on which will more than likely become software or Operating Systems and how easy it is to use along with how powerful the software is, Chromebooks lack the luster that Windows offer with the amount of stuff you can do with it mainly involving the software available and where it’s ran locally or over the net which tends to be a lot slower compared to local processing power and information, previously the only advantage was price which Microsoft has addressed. The next part that Microsoft has now addressed is how easy it will be for a Windows user to pick up a mobile device and start using it along with synchronization between the different devices. As far as Apple goes right now they have an advantage with a friendly user interface and tons of Apps but this can and probably will quickly change with Windows 10, since Windows is on almost on 90{463c70c279fb908728b910a090d44fbe4ae7aabcd875de9c1a518a8c8e2be8bd} of the computers out there and a lot of apps will work on any device running the new Windows 10 it’s just a matter of time before the apps really start to flow in this huge market. With the price advantage going towards Microsoft now I feel that this time around they are actually making/taking the proper steps to start increasing their mobile market share but only time will tell…