The next generation of Windows: Windows 10

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The Windows team shared more Windows 10 experiences and how Windows 10 will inspire new scenarios across the broadest range of devices, from big screens to small screens to no screens at all. You can catch the video on-demand presentation here.

 

Windows 10 is the first step to an era of more personal computing. This vision framed our work on Windows 10, where we are moving Windows from its heritage of enabling a single device – the PC – to a world that is more mobile, natural and grounded in trust. We believe your experiences should be mobile – not just your devices. Technology should be out of the way and your apps, services and content should move with you across devices, seamlessly and easily. In our connected and transparent world, we know that people care deeply about privacy – and so do we. That’s why everything we do puts you in control – because you are our customer, not our product. We also believe that interacting with technology should be as natural as interacting with people – using voice, pen, gestures and even gaze for the right interaction, in the right way, at the right time. These concepts led our development and you saw them come to life today.

Delivering Windows as a Service and a Free Upgrade to Windows 10

Today was a monumental day for us on the Windows team because we shared our desire to redefine the relationship we have with you – our customers. We announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch.*

This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no additional charge. With Windows 10, the experience will evolve and get even better over time. We’ll deliver new features when they’re ready, not waiting for the next major release. We think of Windows as a Service – in fact, one could reasonably think of Windows in the next couple of years as one of the largest Internet services on the planet.

And just like any Internet service, the idea of asking “What version are you on?” will cease to make sense – which is great news for our Windows developers. With universal Windows apps that work across the entire device family, developers can build one app that targets the broadest range of devices – including the PC, tablet, phone, Xbox, the Internet of Things, and more.

For our enterprise customers, we’ll continue to support the way many of them work today, with long-term servicing for their mission critical environments. With Windows 10, a best practice we recommend for many enterprise devices is to connect to Windows Update and be kept up-to-date with the latest security and productivity improvements as soon as they are available. You can learn more about our commitment to enterprises here, with much more to come in the following months.

Everything about Windows 10 – the experiences, delivering it as a service and the free upgrade – means ongoing value to all our customers. The new generation of Windows is a commitment—a commitment to liberate people from technology and enable them to do great things.

New Windows 10 Experiences

Together with our Windows Insiders, we’re well way on our way to making Windows 10 the largest-ever open collaborative development effort Microsoft has ever shipped. Since we launched the Windows Insider Program in September, we’ve been joined by 1.7 million Windows Insiders, who have delivered over 800,000 pieces of feedback. We are truly co-creating the future of Windows with you and we’re humbled by your valuable role in this new open development process.

Today, we shared new details on the experience coming to Windows 10, including:

Cortana, Microsoft’s personal digital assistant, comes to PC and tablet, for the first time with Windows 10. Cortana learns your preferences to provide relevant recommendations, fast access to information, and important reminders. Interaction is natural and easy via talking or typing, with advanced features to control Cortana for more trustworthiness and transparency.

Windows 10 for phones and tablets – Windows 10 for phones and small tablets features a fast, fluid and familiar experience that seamlessly interacts with your PC.

A new web experience for Windows 10 – Code-named “Project Spartan,” the next generation browser was built with greater interoperability, reliability and discoverability, with a new look and feel built just for Windows 10. Advanced features include the ability to annotate by keyboard or pen directly on the webpage and easily share with friends, a reading view that is distraction free, displaying the article in a simplified layout for a great reading experience for Web articles online and offline, and the integration of Cortana for finding and doing things online faster.

Office universal apps on Windows 10 offer a consistent, touch-first experience across phone, tablet and PC with new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook. Designed from the ground up to run on Windows, you can easily create and edit Word documents, annotate slides in real-time with new inking features or easily present PowerPoint presentations, and with new touch-first controls in Excel you can create or update spreadsheets without a keyboard or mouse. The next version of the Office desktop suite is also currently in development, more on this in the coming months.

New universal applications will ship with Windows 10, offering innovative new experience applications, consistent across the device continuum, for Photos, Videos, Music, Maps, People & Messaging, and Mail & Calendar. These built-in apps have an updated design that look and feel the same from app to app and device to device. Content is stored and synced through OneDrive, enabling you to start something on one device and continue it on another.

 

via > blog.windows.com