Windows Preview Apps for Windows 10

By Ian S.
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

 Share

It's All about the Apps, Apps, Apps  

230 members have voted

  1. 1. Which App Updates are you most excited about? (select all that apply)

    • Office Universal (Touch Office for Windows)
      20
    • Project Spartan (IE Replacement)
      36
    • Office 2016 (Desktop for Mouse and Keyboard)
      17
    • Xbox App (to stream Games from XB1)
      13
    • Photos (updated with collections)
      17
    • Messaging (Skype+/-Other Messaging Services including SMS or MO [Mobile Operator])
      24
    • Settings (Convergence of PC Settings and the legacy Control Panel)
      26
    • Music (Updated from Xbox Music)
      15
    • Cortana (New UI)
      21
    • Store (New UI)
      17
    • Maps (New UI)
      9
    • Lumia Camera (now across all Windows device including HTC phones and laptops and tablets)
      9
    • Video (idk what changed new UI?)
      6

Recommended Posts

Veteran

Ian S.

Posted
Posted

Microsoft announced a slew of apps that are being updated to go along with Windows 10 . Track the development and changes of the apps here.

 

Here we go!

 

Office Universal

http://blogs.office.com/2015/01/22/next-chapter-office-windows/

PowerPoint_UI_900x525.png

 

Project Spartan

-Annotation Capability

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2015/01/22/project-spartan-and-the-windows-10-january-preview-build.aspx

wtzlv5.jpg

j0l1sx.jpg

2d0lz4k.jpg

 

Messaging

-In Line Text Reply

http://blogs.skype.com/2015/01/22/skype-in-windows-10-preview-built-into-windows-10-so-you-can-do-more-with-friends-across-devices/

121aixc.jpg

2d7ahjq.jpg

o7mww1.jpg

 

 

Outlook, Contacts, Calendar

Outlook_UI_900x530.png

microsoft-windows-10-office-calendar-005

w10_pc_people_contactcard_16x9_en-us_lap

 

 

Xbox, Music, Photos

http://news.xbox.com/2015/01/xbox-one-phil-spencer-unveils-new-experiences-for-xbox-one-and-windows-10-gamers

-Plays your collection of Music from OneDrive (The Locker Service that was rumored)

2gtymxh.jpg

hero%20-%200114_outwindows_tv19_011815.j

 

 

5ybx38.jpg

 

 

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1244146-windows-preview-apps-for-windows-10/
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Osiris

Posted
Posted

The circular contact photo reminds me of every second design you see on Dribble and Behance. Not saying its a good or bad thing just many small elements to these changes which rather than evolving with metro to accommodate more options, more choices more doing it seems to be departing it slightly.

 

Design aside these look good and unlike the versions that launched with win8, highly functional. 

 

Ticked music, I mean we haven't seen or gotten any details about it but gees its got to be better than the backwards step of a music player WP8 users got stuck with.

Veteran

Ian S.

Posted
  • Author
Posted

The circular contact photo reminds me of every second design you see on Dribble and Behance. Not saying its a good or bad thing just many small elements to these changes which rather than evolving with metro to accommodate more options, more choices more doing it seems to be departing it slightly.

 

Design aside these look good and unlike the versions that launched with win8, highly functional. 

 

Ticked music, I mean we haven't seen or gotten any details about it but gees its got to be better than the backwards step of a music player WP8 users got stuck with.

The circular icon is used by iOS and Android as well for contacts. Also seen on account.microsoft.com. I found it weird, but a welcome change if they are consistent.  

Grand Master

LUTZIFER

Posted
Posted

I sure in the hell hope there's been improvements for the XBOX Music app. It's god awful on Windows 8.1.

It's the best Windows app there is, and I use it all the time, but it's still very bad. And I mean all of em, not just the ones included with Windows.

There are no apps at all that are 100%. The worst Android app is still better than the best Windows app

Actually the Mail app isn't too bad, it's usable. Simple, but does the job, doesn't crash too often.

I imagine Windows 10 will have a better Store app. Hopefully.

Proficient

nosense

Posted
Posted

It's not coming next week to windows 10. It's coming later , it could be 1-3 months before we get it.

 

Not sure if it's going to be updated through windows store or windows update. I'm thinking it will get updated in windows update.

I think it comes with new build of Windows 10 next week.

 

Not sure it will be available for other Windows such as Windows 7, 8.x

Veteran

Ian S.

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I think it comes with new build of Windows 10 next week.

 

Not sure it will be available for other Windows such as Windows 7, 8.x

That was not really my question, I want to know how the updates will be delivered to Spartan, not how it will be first arriving.

Grand Master

+Zagadka Subscriber²

Posted
  • Subscriber²
Posted

Really looking forward to Spartan, settings convergence, and Cortana.

 

Other things look great, too, but those are the ones I am looking forward to using. Being able to move between devices in the Windows ecosystem - the sync of media etc - is exciting.

 

I'm less excited about the store. I'm not a big fan of centralizing programs under one umbrella. Putting Win 8.1 there was especially bad.

Rising Star

onewarmslime

Posted
Posted

What's really bugging me about the IM app is how much space there is between messages. From the screenshots it doesn't look like you'll be able to read a whole lot of text without having to scroll up. Sadly they've followed the trend of skype and facebook....

Grand Master

BajiRav

Posted
Posted

I sure in the hell hope there's been improvements for the XBOX Music app. It's god awful on Windows 8.1.

It's the best Windows app there is, and I use it all the time, but it's still very bad. And I mean all of em, not just the ones included with Windows.

There are no apps at all that are 100%. The worst Android app is still better than the best Windows app

Actually the Mail app isn't too bad, it's usable. Simple, but does the job, doesn't crash too often.

I imagine Windows 10 will have a better Store app. Hopefully.

My thought exactly. Xbox Music is horrible on phones I hope these new apps address its performance and functional issues.

 

My big question is whether Spartan will be updated through the store or through Windows Update.

Store app

 

Neowin's Sams also noted that Spartan would replace "Modern" IE, a k a the Windows Store/Metro Style IE variant that was part of Windows 8. The Verge's Warren said he's also hearing Spartan will be a Windows Store app -- and one that will actually be downloadable from the Store.

Experienced

Mugwump00

Posted
Posted

I sure in the hell hope there's been improvements for the XBOX Music app. It's god awful on Windows 8.1.

It's the best Windows app there is, and I use it all the time, but it's still very bad. And I mean all of em, not just the ones included with Windows.

There are no apps at all that are 100%. The worst Android app is still better than the best Windows app

Actually the Mail app isn't too bad, it's usable. Simple, but does the job, doesn't crash too often.

I imagine Windows 10 will have a better Store app. Hopefully.

 

No love for Tweetium?

Grand Master

+Zagadka Subscriber²

Posted
  • Subscriber²
Posted

If they do, they really, really need a special page on the store app to stress the important system updates to users who don't know anything (like people not knowing about upgrading to Win 8.1, or then to Spartan, etc)

Grand Master

Osiris

Posted
Posted

I would suggest a combination approach would be the best as until they have a reason to, a lot of people simply don't enter the store they unpin it from the taskbar and forget about it.  MS should have a more standout section though as there are a lot of beautifully designed windows apps but unless you know what they are because you read a review or caught a news item about them on the web they get lost in the sea of crap.  Obvious developer reasons why MS doesn't want to do that but gotta do something.

Grand Master

George P Global Moderator

Posted
  • Global Moderator
Posted

Even if they don't go to the store, for whatever reason, any apps installed will, by default, update automatically. So unless a user changes that setting, which means they'd actually have to open the store app, pretty sure it's in there, then Spartan and other apps will just update without users even knowing or doing anything.

Grand Master

Osiris

Posted
Posted

Even if they don't go to the store, for whatever reason, any apps installed will, by default, update automatically. So unless a user changes that setting, which means they'd actually have to open the store app, pretty sure it's in there, then Spartan and other apps will just update without users even knowing or doing anything.

 

That makes the assumption that they come with the OS.  Some articles suggest Spartan for example will be a windows store download so you'd never get it unless you went and downloaded it.

 

That's not quite the point though I was getting at MS need a way to promote their own apps and quality apps in the store better, eg give people a reason to actually enter the store.

Grand Master

George P Global Moderator

Posted
  • Global Moderator
Posted

Spartan is coming with the OS, all the apps they talked about are core OS apps now, even the Office touch apps. I don't know why there is any confusion over it, when they said it's a store app they use that as a way to show they can update these apps at any time.

 

As far as the store goes, to get more people to use it, you expand it to include more things, which looks to be the case. Xbox music and video looks to be part of it now and I expect they open it up to more desktop apps and games. If you have the apps in there then people will use it more, specially if they can manage legacy apps as well.

Guest

Posted
Posted

Some of the new apps / versions are awful and do not follow the Metro guidelines at all. No MODERN or AUTHENTICALLY DIGITAL at all.

 

Alarms looks like a piece of crap now. The one in 8.1 is beauty.

Calculator shouldn't be uninstallable. Now I don't have a calculator.

Sound Recorder looks like crap.

Games is still a complete and useless mess. It shouldn't exist when the new Xbox app is here.

Using Maps crashes my Hyper-V connection.

Veteran

Ian S.

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Some of the new apps / versions are awful and do not follow the Metro guidelines at all. No MODERN or AUTHENTICALLY DIGITAL at all.

 

Alarms looks like a piece of crap now. The one in 8.1 is beauty.

Calculator shouldn't be uninstallable. Now I don't have a calculator.

Sound Recorder looks like crap.

Games is still a complete and useless mess. It shouldn't exist when the new Xbox app is here.

Using Maps crashes my Hyper-V connection.

Not to mention the new OneNote app fills your screen with garbage, they should have a enter Full Screen Mode and switch to the older UI that fills your screen with just the blank canvas.

 

I mentioned this, but the Store is horribly grey with horizontal and vertical scrolling, and a very cluttered UI.

 

There STILL is no Files app for the Modern UI.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Posts

    • Micron reveals AI companies are spending billions to lock up its memory years in advance

      By Karthik Mudaliar · Posted

      Micron reveals AI companies are spending billions to lock up its memory years in advance by Karthik Mudaliar The demand for more memory is far from over, and Micron is turning the AI-driven memory shortage into a much more predictable business. The company has revealed that it has signed 16 strategic supply agreements backed by roughly $22 billion in customer deposits and other financial commitments. The contracts cover DRAM and NAND deliveries over several years, with some running through 2030. With the AI boom, demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) has grown so quickly that large customers are now prepared to help finance future production in exchange for a guaranteed supply. According to Micron’s latest financial results, the company received commitments worth about $22 billion across its new agreements. Around $18 billion is expected to arrive as cash deposits, while the rest will come through other financial arrangements. Micron says the agreements could generate approximately $100 billion in future contracted obligations. They cover around 20% of its expected DRAM shipments and one-third of its NAND shipments during their respective terms. It should be noted that although AI infrastructure is the main force behind the current shortage, not all 16 agreements with Micron involve AI companies. Micron said the customers also include consumer electronics and automotive businesses, two sectors that increasingly compete with data centers for the same manufacturing capacity. HBM is consuming an increasing share of that supply. Unlike conventional desktop or server RAM, HBM stacks multiple memory dies vertically and places them close to an AI accelerator. This gives GPUs and other AI chips access to data at much higher speeds, but it also requires more complicated manufacturing and packaging. Micron says its 12-layer HBM4 memory is now shipping in high volume for a lead customer, with samples also supplied to other companies. The chipmaker has already generated more than $1 billion in HBM4 revenue and says the product is ramping twice as quickly as its earlier HBM3E generation. Samsung has similarly warned that the memory shortage could continue into 2027 and beyond. Consumer memory companies have also had to address sharp increases in DDR5 pricing, suggesting the effects are already reaching beyond the data center. For consumers, that could mean the AI memory crunch lasts longer than expected, even as manufacturers invest heavily in new production.
    • XnConvert 1.112

      By Copernic · Posted

      XnConvert 1.112 by Razvan Serea  XnConvert is a cross-platform batch image-converter and resizer with a powerful and ease of use experience. All common picture and graphics formats are supported (i.e. JPG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, Camera RAW, JPEG2000, WebP, OpenEXR) as well as supporting over 500 other image formats. Also available within the batch operations include rotating, adding of watermarks, adding of text along with many image-adjustment features such as brightness, shadows and more. Among the features included are: Batch adding of files and folders Support for drag and drop of files Batch rotating, cropping, resizing and more Adding of photo masks Preserving or removing image metadata in conversions Multipage image file support (i.e animated GIF, APNG, TIFF) Command line integration via NConvert Filters - such as 'Blur', 'Gaussian Blur', 'Emboss', "Sharpen' and much more Effects - such as 'Old camera' and much more Download: XnConvert 64-bit | Standalone | ~30.0 MB (Freeware) Download: XnConvert 32-bit | Standalone Links: XnConvert Website | Screenshot | Release Announcement Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Microsoft updates Visual Studio Code with chat cost tracking and multi-agent chats

      By zikalify · Posted

      Microsoft updates Visual Studio Code with chat cost tracking and multi-agent chats by Paul Hill Microsoft has just launched Visual Studio Code 1.126, its latest weekly release. This time, the company has focused on letting you see the total cost of chat sessions to spot expensive conversations; enabling multiple chats per session that run side-by-side in one agent host Copilot session; and letting you browse new folders safely in restricted mode. We have now reached the stage where free AI in IDEs is coming to an end. To help you keep track of your costs, VS Code now lets you see the entire cost of a chat session, rather than just individual turns. This should give you more transparency about which sessions consume the most credits, so you can better manage your usage over time and spend less. For those of you using the Agents window, you know it is possible to run and manage multiple agent sessions at once. In this update, a Copilot session started from an agent host can hold several chats at once. Explaining how this feature works, Microsoft writes: Finally, from this update forward, Microsoft will remove the pop-up when opening an untrusted folder. When you open a new folder now, it will automatically open in Restricted Mode. You will see a banner that lets you manage the trust level of the folder. Microsoft has made this change so that it’s easier to start inspecting code without giving it trust right away. If you have VS Code, you can check for updates within the app now to get this new version. Otherwise, you can download it from the Visual Studio Code website.
    • Anthropic accuses Alibaba of using 25,000 fake accounts to copy Claude's capabilities

      By Karthik Mudaliar · Posted

      Anthropic accuses Alibaba of using 25,000 fake accounts to copy Claude's capabilities by Karthik Mudaliar Anthropic has accused Alibaba of using nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts to extract capabilities from Claude on a huge scale. According to a report from Reuters, Anthropic told US lawmakers that operators linked to Alibaba and the company’s Qwen AI team generated 28.8 million exchanges with Claude between April 22 and June 5, 2026. That is a lot of Claude conversations, but Anthropic says this was not ordinary chatbot use. The company believes the accounts were part of a coordinated effort to collect answers that could help train or improve rival AI systems. The alleged campaign reportedly focused on some of Claude’s most valuable skills, including software development, multi-step reasoning, and agentic tasks. In practical terms, that means getting an AI model to plan and complete work across several stages rather than simply answering a single question. This is called 'distillation,' where AI companies use outputs from a larger model to train a smaller and cheaper one. The smaller model learns to imitate useful parts of the more capable system without needing the same amount of computing power. The distillation process isn't automatically suspicious, but the problem comes when one company gathers another provider's outputs without permission and at an industrial scale. Also, this does not mean Alibaba obtained Claude’s source code, model weights, or original training data. Instead, Anthropic claims the accounts repeatedly asked Claude carefully designed questions and collected the answers. Those answers could then be used as training material for another model. Anthropic has made similar accusations against DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax earlier this year. As Neowin previously reported, Anthropic said those three companies collectively generated more than 16 million Claude exchanges through roughly 24,000 accounts. Anthropic says the new campaign produced almost twice as many exchanges in a matter of weeks. Anthropic reportedly told lawmakers that the campaign could help Chinese AI developers approach the capabilities of its Mythos Preview model. Mythos is focused on advanced cybersecurity work, including finding and exploiting complex software vulnerabilities. via Reuters | Photo via DepositPhotos.com
    • Apple and Tesla Supplier Tata Electronics Confirms 630 GB Data Theft: iPhone Specs on Dark Web

      By +TRS-80 · Posted

      An Indian manufacturer that assembles roughly one-third of Apple's iPhones and supplies semiconductor components to Tesla confirmed Monday that attackers had stolen and publicly published a 630-gigabyte cache of confidential files — including engineering blueprints stamped "TRADE SECRET," a 52-page quality inspection document for iPhone circuit board components, and cryptographic certificates that security experts say could be weaponized in follow-on attacks. https://www.techtimes.com/articles/319019/20260624/apple-tesla-supplier-tata-electronics-confirms-630-gb-data-theft-iphone-specs-dark-web.htm

  • Recent Achievements

    • Rookie
      krychek57 went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Grand Master
      Jaybonaut went up a rank
      Grand Master
    • One Year In
      Philsl earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • First Post
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      First Post

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      441
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      176
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      133
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      79
    5. 5
      Xenon
      77
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!