10 July 2015
Releasing Windows 10 on July 29th .. and new entertainment services playing key role
Windows 10 was built to offer a familiar and secure experience, with unmatched productivity offerings and more entertainment options for Windows fans. Not only will you be able to enjoy great gaming on Windows 10 – including the new Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition beta announced this weekend – but also great first party apps that come with refreshed designs, and that are free and installed on Windows 10 devices.
And today, I’m excited to share how things are shaping up for entertainment in Windows 10, based on the great feedback we’ve received from our passionate Windows Insiders community.
What’s new with entertainment on Windows 10?
Let’s start with Music. Our fans asked for faster ways to access the music they love – quickly, efficiently, and on their favorite devices. And for that, we’re proud to introduce the evolution of our current Xbox Music experience, now titled Groove, with new features we think you’re going to love. Groove describes what people feel and do with music, and is more intuitive for our Windows 10 customers on what they’ll find with the app.
And along with Groove, you’ll also find Xbox Video has also been renamed to Movies & TV, making the content in the app more identifiable for our broad customer base.
For both of these apps, you’ll see the changes come through first on Windows 10 PC’s before rolling out to other devices in the coming months.
We’ve kept a keen eye on our existing entertainment fans to make sure the experiences which they enjoy and subscribe to today, will continue without any interruptions. Here’s a quick overview of the new features you’ll find with both apps in the build coming to Windows Insiders this week.
Groove
Welcome Screen for the Groove app for Windows 10
The Look and Feel: Groove provides an improved experience for listening to and managing your music in Windows 10. Getting into music is faster than ever with easy-to-use menus and navigation controls that work well with both mouse/keyboard, and with familiar touch gestures on touch-screen devices. Pinch to zoom in or out of different views, drag your favorite tracks in to playlists, hover over the Taskbar icon for playback controls, or right click for contextual menus to pin an album to your Start menu. And you can also infuse your personality in to Groove – choose a light or dark theme for the app depending on your mood, or pick an accent color in Windows Settings and the Groove app makes it shine.
Accessing Your Music on your favorite devices: We’re also making it easy to access your content across your favorite devices – with built-in OneDrive integration making your favorite songs only a few clicks away. Upload all your MP3’s to OneDrive, even songs purchased from iTunes, and access them all for free with the Groove app on your Windows devices, Xbox, the web — and even on your Android phones and iPhones (coming soon).
Music and the Windows Store: You can also sign up for a Groove Music Pass subscription – a premium ad-free listening experience with no interruptions. $9.99/month or $99/year gets you complete access to stream and download music from the Windows Store — one of the largest music catalogs on the planet with over 40 million tracks*. Subscribers can also create custom radio stations based on their favorite songs, albums and artists. If you already have an Xbox Music Pass (like me) – don’t worry! This will become Groove Music Pass and you don’t need to do anything.
Check out this information page for more on Groove.
Movies & TV
Movies collections view in the Movies & TV app for Windows 10
Enjoying Videos in Windows 10: You will find the Movies & TV app in Windows 10 better than ever for playing all your personal videos, as well as all the movies and TV shows you love. Import your personal video collection, and play back your content in a fast and elegantly designed app that is optimized for both mouse/keyboard as well as touch. Drag and drop videos between your collections, use right clicks and hot keys for contextual menus, or go full-screen with easy to use playback controls. We’ve also added additional file format support like .MKV too.
The Windows Store: Movies & TV has direct integration with the Windows Store, where you can buy or rent from all the latest movies and TV shows in HD, as well as thousands of other favorites. Weekly new releases, access to TV shows a day after air, deals and discounts, and personalized recommendations just for you. And on Windows 10 devices, Xbox and the web, the Movies & TV app lets you start watching purchased or rented content on one device, and pick up where you left off on another device.
The Feedback Engine
We’re excited to share this first look at the entertainment experiences with Windows 10, and we hope you like where we’re headed.
We’re proud to be building products that light up the fun side of Windows, and it’s been great to see how the feedback from our Windows Insiders has shaped these apps into what they are today.
Windows Insiders who are a part of the Fast ring and upgrade to the next PC build will see these updates in the Store beta first. For anyone else, you’ll get to enjoy these updates with Windows 10 starting on July 29th.
Please keep sharing your feedback with us in the Windows Insider forums and head on over here to sign up for the program if you’re eager to jump in to Windows 10.
26 June 2015
What's New in Windows 10 Mobile build 10149
Windows 10 Mobile build 10149
- Microsoft Edge: The first thing that you'll notice in this build is that the Microsoft Edge branding is now included in this build. This build also has the address bar at the bottom – this is a change that we made based on feedback we heard from Windows Insiders. The option to view websites in mobile view or desktop view is also included in this build as well.
Announcing Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 10149
A new Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview build for Windows Insiders on the Fast ring today – Build 10149. Those of you who chose to stay on Build 10080 and not go back to Windows Phone 8.1 to get Build 10136 will be happy to know that you’ll be able to upgrade directly to this build – so you won’t need to flash your phones back to Windows Phone 8.1.
24 June 2015
WhatsApp finally brings Voice Calling to Windows Phone
WhatsApp is finally rolling out an update for Windows Phone users, which brings the most awaited feature to the app. Announced a year ago and added to WhatsApp beta a month ago, the voice calling facility is finally available on Windows Phone public app. This is not the end, the update brings another important feature to the app, sharing audio recordings. Now you can easily share audio files from the app without using any tricks. Below is the official changelog of the update.
Upcoming changes to Windows 10 Insider Preview builds [UPDATED 6/22]
Over the weekend we saw a few articles about this post and confusion that it caused. I’m sorry for that and want to take a moment to clear up a few things. This is a very complex topic, since we’re managing:
- Multiple versions of Windows
- A new approach to how we are building and delivering Windows
- And a new preview program that is different than what we’ve done in the past.
16 June 2015
Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 10136 is available now !
a new Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview build for Windows Insiders on the Fast ring today – Build 10136. There are a couple of things that you’ll need to pay close attention to in order to upgrade to this build.