Image: AP
Microsoft has now renamed its ‘Technical previews’ to ‘Insider previews’, and with that comes its latest build – 10074. The preview build 10074 comes with subtle changes and improvements in the design, along with some more evolved features. The company is reintroducing some Aero Glass elements in the UI, and also promises to make changes depending upon user feedback.
Here’s a quick look at what’s new:
Improved UX: Adding to the improvements seen in the last build, one will find a new Live Tile animation for Start. You will also find some performance and stability improvements for Live Tiles. The new build also claims to have added better support for high DPI displays. “We know many Windows Insiders are running multi-mon setups – often with 2 monitors with different DPI. You will start to see some work we’re doing to make sure core UX components in Windows scale correctly on both your monitors so things look nice regardless of DPI,” the company explains in a blogpost. Considering user feedback, the company is also working to add some Aero Glass elements from Windows 7.
Continuum: The team has been working at making Continuum better along with a simplified taskbar. Now, when you close an app in Tablet mode, you will be taken back to the Start screen instead of the desktop. “You will see general polish on snapping, and the shared divider between two snapped windows now let’s you adjust the size,” claims Microsoft.
Multi-tasking: The company has also refined further the multi-tasking experience with Windows 10. “Check out Alt-Tab, Task-View, and Snap Assist. Snap Assist also now supports the ability to close a window during Snap Assist,” the company writes in the blogpost.
Cortana: Cortana gets a visual refresh in this build. Firstly, Start and Cortana are now more tightly integrated. On searching for an app from within Start, Cortana will take over and bring back the right result, claims the company. Now, the new Windows split view control has also been added to Cortana’s left rail, adding quick access to functions like Notebook, Reminders or Feedback on how Cortana’s doing.
Cortana!
One will also find some new and updated experiences in Cortana powered by Bing Instant Answers. Cortana will try answering the questions while the user is still typing.
Music and Video Preview apps: The Music Preview app (updated to version 3.6.999.0) comes with UX improvements including a more immersive Now Playing experience with a full screen mode. The Video Preview app (updated to 3.6.999.0) lets you download movies, TV shows, and TV seasons and check progress, pause, resume, cancel the download. Now, it also lets you download, delete, and even re-download videos as many times as you want on up to three devices. The company is also looking at increasing the number of devices supported.
Xbox app: The Xbox app for Windows 10 has also been updated with Game DVR for PC games, screenshots, a Live Tile, user profiles, and real-name sharing. The drivers for Xbox controllers are now being included with Windows 10.
Windows Store Beta: Aimed at delivering a single unified Store experience in Windows 10, the Store Beta also get new improvements. It is now a blue tile instead of grey. “Xbox Live games should be working and so are in-app purchases. Apps you purchased on a PC running Windows 8.1 will now show up in the Store Beta on Windows 10 as owned (and vice-versa),” explains the blog. The Store Beta is also expanded to new markets such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, among others.
Discovering features and apps in Windows 10: The company has also introduced tips and tricks on the Lock screen. It would help users discover high quality apps through Start, the Lock screen and Cortana.
It has also fixed several bugs such as now a user can launch Win32 (desktop) apps from the Start menu, download music in the Xbox Music and Music Preview apps and so on. However, Microsoft points out at some bugs that still need to be fixed.
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