Microsoft looks like it’s renovating many of its products with the new Windows 10 operating system. Even though the focus is on the version for desktops and notebooks there is also another edition of the newest operating system, the Windows 10 Mobile.
Windows 10 Mobile won’t impose much competition for Mac OS X from Apple or come installed on the next Surface Pro, however. It’s designed completely for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. It’s a successor to Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 RT.
Windows 8 launched back in 2012, and while tablets had been already available on the market for quite some time, tablets released by Microsoft were mostly disappointing. Windows 7 on a tablet was truly a pain to use. Closing an application with a finger was simply horrifying and the whole interface, as a matter of fact, wasn’t finger friendly at all. Windows 8 fixed most of those problems and issues but Microsoft still made a vital error. It still kept the Desktop of its operating system so that certain devices could still use Microsoft Office. This mistake really stands out when looking at the approach towards tablets by Microsoft in the past.
Microsoft finally plans to make its Office suite more touch-friendly in a new version of the well-known productivity suite. The version is called Gemini and we most certainly will hear more about it during Microsoft’s Windows 10 Media Briefing. With a more finger friendly version of Microsoft Office, the company plans to remove the Desktop from Windows 10 devices regardless if they use an Intel processor or not.
If Microsoft is really going to do this, this means that users will be a lot less confused by Windows 10 when compared to the old Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 operating systems. Windows 10 Mobile is intended for tablets, which probably means that people won’t be able to install iTunes or other apps intended for Desktops on their tablets.
Even though there aren’t a lot of things known about the mobile version of Windows 10, we are aware of some things.
It’s claimed that Microsoft will release this February a preview of the Windows 10 Mobile operating system for smartphones. This means that all people who are in the Windows Phone Insider program will be able to download and test the new update on their smartphones. Microsoft did confirm last year that all smartphones running Windows 8.1 will receive an update to Windows 10 Mobile.
Other details are still unknown. It’s unclear whether people who use tablets with Intel processors will have to pay for the upgrade to Windows 10. Microsoft hasn’t discussed anything about prices and we don’t expect them to do such a thing until closer to the date of release.
The Surface RT and Surface 2 are pretty unique devices. Initially, Microsoft decided to use ARM processors and they developed the Surface and Surface 2. In return to losing the compatibility with Desktop applications such as iTunes, the Surface RT and Surface 2 had longer battery lives and notifications were available when those devices went into sleep mode.
Windows 10 is predicted to replace the Windows RT operating system on ARM devices. Because of this, Surface 2 tablets could work a lot differently when using Windows 10 Mobile. It’s unclear whether the Surface RT will receive an upgrade or not.
It wouldn’t be the first time Microsoft cuts support for older devices altogether. Smartphones running Windows 7.5 did not receive an update to Windows 8.1, even though these phones were still being sold on two year contracts by partners of Microsoft. It would be odd of Microsoft not to discuss how the Surface RT and Surface 2 customers will upgrade to Windows 10.
Windows 10 should be Microsoft’s big hit. It’s the company’s chance to lure in customers away from rival companies such as Apple and others that use Android. Microsoft will probably emphasize on how using Windows across different platforms will affect users. (As they have done in the past…)
Windows 10 is believed to arrive this fall on new smartphones. Most probably it will coincide with the time when smartphone manufacturers will upgrade their Windows Phone 8.1 devices to the new Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile operating system. Windows 10 for notebooks and desktops will probably arrive at around the same time as the mobile version.
A unified Microsoft operating system across different platforms really sounds great, and is exactly what the company has to do in order of making its smartphones a success. However, they failed on numerous occasions to do exactly this. It’s not only that Microsoft continuously fails to do such a thing, but it keeps promising they will do it.
Every time Microsoft came out with a Desktop operating system they claimed that OS integrates great with Windows Phone or Windows Mobile devices. But this is never the case, it never was and it never works great. It’s enough to make you rethink how much of their promises are indeed true and doable.
Now, Microsoft claims they built its new operating system on a single “core”. It’s known as the “OneCore”. The company claims this allows Windows 10 to work across different platforms such as tablets, phones, large screen displays such as the Perceptive Pixel multi-touch screen devices, personal computers and, of course, Xbox One.
OneCore is a lot more than a common kernel, said Microsoft. Along the kernel, OneCore also has DLLs and other parts of the main operating system integrated. Windows 10 claims to be able to target the same environment across platforms, which means that apps will function on a variety of devices with different screen sizes. Apps will be in a single store, instead of separate stores for Xbox, Windows Phone and Windows for Desktops.
OneCore doesn’t mean, however, that there will only be a version of Windows 10 available. Even if the company refers to the upcoming OS as “Windows 10” regardless of what device they are talking about, the operating system will still come in different versions and it will be priced and optimized in accordance to the device type and its screen size.
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