Welcome back to our weekly “Windows 10 news recap” series where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Microsoft’s latest operating system. This recap is especially exciting because of all the announcements surrounding Windows 10 and its Creators Update. Let’s get started.
Insider Build 14955 for fast ring insiders released
Just a day before the Windows 10 event, Dona Sarkar, together with her Ninja Cat pressed the red button releasing the Insider build to fast ring Insiders. There are virtually no new features, but instead, a gigantic bugfix list featuring fixes for a lot of annoying bugs that Insiders have reported for ages.
Microsoft announces the Windows 10 Creators Update
Microsoft kicked off the Windows 10 event by announcing the Creators Update. If you missed it you can go on and rewatch it here. If you rather have a visual recap you can follow this link. The update will include a lot of new features like 3D integration and a lot more. In fact, there are so many news that we should probably break them down into separate parts.
- The Surface Studio has been announced and it blew everyone’s heads off. It features Windows 10 (obviously) and a new accessory called the “Surface Dial”. You can take a closer look at it here.
- Microsoft may start selling Themes via the Windows Store. This is something that wasn’t officially announced, just like some other news below, but it did appear on stage while Microsoft was presenting other features and products, which is suspicious and most probably means that it is either not yet decided if the feature will appear or if it wasn’t significant enough to actually announce it.
- Edge may get some major improvements in the form of completely new features. Microsoft seems to be taking the browser market more seriously now and with the latest pictures we’ve seen of it on stage, it seems like it may be getting some exclusive features soon.
- Another highly requested feature since Windows 8.1 is the manual selection of the accent colour. Instead of different presets, Microsoft may now allow for a fully customisable colour picker to choose what theme your system should have.
- The Action Centre may also receive some refinements. Some images shown on stage suggest that the rumoured redesign of the Action Centre may be true. The notification shade has not changed significantly since Windows Phone 8.1 where if first debuted, and this may be the next step for it.
- How could we not include Paint 3D? Paint 3D is the software that is the core, the heart, of Microsoft’s new 3D ecosystem. Paint 3D will be used to create 3D objects easily on any device.
The Creators Update will be rolling out to regular consumers around March 2017 and Insiders should see the new features coming to fast ring in the coming weeks.
Skype brings several new features for Fast Ring users
A new feature for Skype Preview is drag and drop. Desktop users can finally drag files from one program, and drop them into skype to send them quickly. Ironically, the pop-up announcing this feature shows up on Mobile too, where the feature obviously can’t be used. We can call this the “power of UWP”.
Spotify finally supports native control options on Windows 10
For years, Spotify has used their own music control methods instead of using the built-in Windows Media API’s. This finally changes as Spotify updates their PC app to support the native methods. This helps the app to feel more native and less like a macOS bootleg.
MEGA seems to be working on a UWP app, will deliver it “ASAP”
MEGA Online Storage has always shown great support for Microsoft’s platforms, and now, they are doing it again. MEGA reveals, in a Tweet, that they are indeed working on a Universal app and they are planning to deliver it as soon as possible.
Facebook Messenger finally get’s voice and video calling on PC
Some people have always had it, some have never seen it on their systems, but it seems like everyone finally has access to Facebook’s calling functions built into Messenger. The voice and video calls work as expected, where you can call someone via voice chat then switch to video if you so desire.
Other users can also call you instantly so it’s not just a one-way solution, but a fully working feature. We can now hope that the rollout is finished and that everyone finally received it.
That’s it for this week’s news. Make sure to stay tuned and follow OnMSFT for the latest news. See you in a week.
