Apart from announcing new partners and features for Windows Phone, Microsoft was also on stage at its media conference in Mobile World Congress 2014 to talk about Windows 8. The company then announced a new update for Windows 8.1 that will be released to customers this spring.
Admitting that Microsoft has made a big bet on touch with Windows 8, Joe Belfiore who is now in charge of Windows user’s experience on top of his existing Windows Phone responsibility, stated that one of the update’s main focus is to improve mouse and keyboard experience for non-touch users. This is done through the addition of several new elements into the UI such as title bar and close button on top of Windows 8 (a.k.a Metro/Modern-style) apps.
Users will also have the ability to launch or switch between these apps as well as traditional desktop programs directly from the taskbar. Microsoft will also be adding right-click context menu on Start Screen for mouse users. Not to forget, the power and search buttons will be much more visible soon since they will appear on the top right section of the Start Screen once the update is implemented.
Additionally, the update will lower down the operating system’s minimum requirements to 1GB of RAM and 16GB storage space. In general, this move will enable OEM partners to deliver Windows 8 devices at much lower price point. The update will also come with several tweaks to improve IE8 compatibility in Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 8’s enterprise users.
Since it is going to be a while before this update rolls out to users, we expect to see more features and tweaks to be added into it. We are definitely looking forward to see how all these new implementations will hold up once they arrived in our hands later this year.
[Source: The Windows Blog]
