After a year of effectively offering (almost) everyone a free upgrade to Windows 10, whether they want it or not, Microsoft is about to roll out the anniversary update for its major operating system. We’ve seen some minor tweaks in the last 12 months, but the anniversary update coming in a few days will mark some of the biggest changes yet.
Several features are well worth noting here. First, Windows Ink will deliver substantially better pen support. That’s great news for the all the Surface users out there who want to do a little more with their stylus in Windows 10. You’ll get a central location to discover all the apps that will take your pen. Extensions are coming to the Microsoft Edge browser, plus the ability to right-click on the back button to bring up a recent history.
Cortana will now work in some capacity through the lock screen, letting y ou play music or set reminders. The dark theme lets your windows blend into your black bezels, Windows Hello will let you log into websites without entering passwords, and Bash on Windows 10 delivers a Linux command line for people who want that kind of thing.
Perhaps one of the most exciting new features will be smartphone notifications. Working with both Windows and Android smartphones (sorry iPhone users, but you’re probably on a Mac anyway), this feature will push notifications from your phone to the notification area on your Windows 10 machine. From the Action Center, you can reply to messages, nab photos and more.
Say what you will about how Microsoft handled the “forced” update, but Windows 10 is really coming together as one of their best operating systems to date. And thanks to the nature of organic updates like this, it can only get better as time goes on.
Source: The Verge