Usman

Level1Techs put out a video that hits the nail on the head surrounding the Windows 11 start menu, bing search and forced edge usages.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRwdoo9kNTw I highly recommend giving it a watch, there are some things that really blew me away. I was familiar with the idea to increase metrics on Bing and MSN, however, I was shocked by the actual user experience. Nothing connects or integrates well, it's almost as if no care was given to give the best user experience. The"fraud" descriptor really comes into play when the metrics are presented. The Bing product team didn't create a compelling product to create an engaging sticky userbase, the video shows that the user experience is fairly terrible and no one in their right mind would willingly use that user interface. Unfortunately, the reported metrics will show that Bing search is increasing whereas in reality it's only done so by the misdirection of Windows search to bing. They didn't build these features to give a good user experience, it's just there to prop up metrics for Bing. That to me is the sinister part Wendall is a pretty level headed person, he's praised Edge on Linux for being a decently good browser. The problem I'm seeing that he's also raised is that they're losing the merits of having good software and services by letting lower-performing business divisions hijack and leach off of them to artificially prop up their services.  

Seeing as people were surprised by Notepad receiving a facelift, I wanted to point out that these app updates have been hinted at in the videos posted on Twitter.

I think they’ve been too slow to roll out so its possible that we could see the following apps updated in the future

https://imgur.com/9H3p6gC

We have seen Calculator, Clock / Focus Sessions, Notepad, Snipping Tool, Photos, Paint, Terminal, Teams, and Store.

We know about the following apps receiving updates:

• Edge Canary having the Mica in the menu bar like File Explorer and in the right-click context menu
• We’ve seen a new media player app UI which could be used in both ‘Films & TV’ and the ‘New music app formerly known as Groove’
• There’s an updated Your Phone app UI here: https://twitter.com/bojorchess/status/1444351050413080592

The following we haven’t seen much of the following:

• Calendar: This is surprising because Mail isn’t on this grid. It is possible that the new Calendar app will get refreshed and the existing Mail app is replaced by One Outlook.
• Camera: Possibly another UI refresh but hope there are some functionality improvements like a virtual camera that uses the Teams blurring/background that can be used for all applications.
• News: I think this could be replaced with the new Microsoft Start -https://twitter.com/vigneshponnuvel/status/1435252030113681415
• To Do: Either a WinUI refresh or a PWA wrapper for the Web Version
• Voice Recorder, Maps, Weather: Possibly a Win UI Refresh

 

I use Edge as my main browser but seriously Microsoft needs to respect their users. I use their product, I don't want them to put a pop-up asking me to switch to bing as default when I have gone out my way to not use their default search engine. https://imgur.com/a/fwCVlmu

I saw this was retweeted from the walkingcat, which is a highlight of some UWP built apps / utilities, I'm just going to focus on the interesting projects listed rather than it being UWP / Windows only.

The ones I found interesting were mostly the honourable mentions / unreleased projects:

• DynamicShell
• I use taskbarX (previously falcon) to get a centered taskbar, this just gives the overall taskbar UI a new undocked and newer make over
• Project Input / Project Screen
• I have been trying to find something similar for Windows, which will let me use an external surface that's lying around as a makeshift pen digitiser. Very niche use case, but at least there will be a utility to do that now.

Another project I found as part of the group project page is WinDynamicDesktop which replicates the time of day wallpapers found in MacOS.

So the BBC launched the beeb assitant as beta on the Windows Store and it only runs on 20H1. The interesting thing in this beta is that Beeb app uses an API in 20H1 which lets it respond to 'Ok Beeb' even when it's not running. The app is a UWP runtime app, so it seems there is a way for native third party voice assistants to hook into keyword wakeup.

I know this is for a very limited market of users, but capability is something new I haven't heard of, only that Cortana was being set as a standalone app.

This is pretty interesting, Gab is given a notice for violating Azure’s Acceptable Use Policy, That’s just surprising to me that Azure would step in, at that point.

I understand if it were for other legal based issues (copyright, local laws) but I’m surprised by this.

What if another Twitter/Facebook/Youtube is built on Azure. Is it that social network’s responsibility or is it also the cloud providers responsibility?

Also as a developer, we’ve been told constantly to treat the cloud like a utility, all the microsoft evangelists have constantly said that Microsoft doesn’t care what you run in their cloud as long as you’re using their cloud.

Why do they care of the content is hosted on their platform provided it is legal.

I couldn’t care much about Gab, however what about Reddit, would the same policies apply to reddit for the content on the sub-reddits if they were hosted on Azure?

I’m interested to hear other people’s take on this.

So Linus uploaded a video regarding an Asus prototype with dual screens, with Asus saying it's targetted for 2019, which seems to line up with the timelines for CoreOS and Andromeda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxVeBqvbGWY

They've turned on Skype for Outlook.com beta, it's using the new cross platform UI (used in mobile apps, new desktop client thats built in ReactXP). There is no more side pane, the chats are pop up windows, similar to how messages on facebook work.

So I pre ordered cuphead through the store and it says I can't play it until 2PM UK time.

Is this common across Windows Store releases? It's a bit absurd for it to do that.

Right before build, Tom Warren revealed that there were plans around something called a “home hub” similar to an Echo show or mini surface hub and mini jamboard.

Is this another Cortana speaker issue where it won’t see the light of day until it’s too late?

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/9/15596488/microsoft-windows-10-homehub-feature-screenshots

With Windows 10 Cloud being a thing, I thought I'd give edge a try after upgrading to the creators update,

I still see there are issues with the app on numerous PCs. Most notably is when I open a new Windows (regardless of ctrl + N or clicking new window from the elipses), the new windows are burried under the current one.

It doesn't appear to that at first, but it will eventually. There's times the new window actually appears on top of the current window, but then shortly this bug kicks in again.

I don't know if there are any replication steps, over than use the browser and hit ctrl + n

I've got a screen shot of multiple open windows that are below my current window, they're glowing orange because they haven't been opened.