First Looks: Windows 8.1 Preview

(Editor's note: This article is based on Windows 8.1 Preview, which means Microsoft may add, alter, or remove features right up to official availability. For those interested, Microsoft's very own Windows Experience Blog is a good source to find out about the latest features in the OS.)

Windows 8.1: Advancing the Windows 8 Vision

Today marks the start of the 2013 edition of the Microsoft Build Developer Conference. Running till June 28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Build is a developer event that targets software and web developers developing for the Windows and Windows Phone platforms, and other Microsoft technologies. So, what has Build 2013 got to do with us - the typical consumers - then? Well, like how Build 2011 saw Microsoft released a developer preview of Windows 8, Build 2013 sets the stage for the company to officially announce the Windows 8.1 update, and release a public preview.

Remarkably, this Windows 8.1 preview comes just eight months after the general availability of Windows 8; and if you think this and its dot one release naming mean that it’s going to be a minor update, you couldn’t be more wrong. Whether Windows 8.1 is to advance the vision Microsoft has set forward with Windows 8, or - as some naysayers would put it - to right the latter's many wrongs, there’s no question that Windows 8.1 is a major update.

Even before today, new features of Windows 8.1 have been leaked; with even more being officially disclosed by Microsoft itself. But, first things first: the OS update will be available for free if you’ve a device running Windows 8 (including Windows RT). Once it hits GA (which is geek speak for saying the software is ready for sale), it’ll be delivered over the Windows Store. If you're buying a new device after it's released, it'll most likely come with it pre-installed (else, just do the free update). The official names for the updated OSes are Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1. Like how you’d download a Windows 8 app from the Windows Store, you can continue to use your Windows 8 PC while you download the 8.1 update. For those adventurous enough and wish to find out what’s new as soon as possible, you can download the Windows 8.1 Preview, which is available starting today. More details can be found over at preview.windows.com.

Alternatively, you can continue reading this article, where we highlight some of the newest features in Windows 8.1 Pro Preview (build 9431) that we've been running for the past day. Without further ado, let’s dive right in.

'The Best Experience for 8-inch Tablets'

It’s no secret that Microsoft is working with PC OEMs to make smaller Windows 8 tablets. In fact, during Computex in June, Acer announced the Iconia W3, which is the world’s first 8.1-inch Windows 8 tablet. Windows 8.1 is designed (in addition to desktops and laptops) to work well with tablets sporting 7 to 10-inch screen sizes, especially in portrait mode, which is the orientation such tablets are usually used in. To improve reading experience, the built-in News app is updated so that it looks great in portrait mode. The New York Times app and the Amazon app for Windows 8 are two third-party apps that are also updated so that they look great on tablets with a small screen.

The touch keyboard also sees several improvements in Windows 8.1. As you type, suggestions now show up directly under the letters. And instead of moving your fingers away from the on-screen keyboard to select a suggested word, you can swipe along the space bar to toggle between the suggestions, and then tap to select the word. And the top row of keys can now be used to select numbers: just tap a key and swipe upwards.

Windows 8.1 also enables devices to use the latest standards like Bluetooth 4.0 LE. And InstantGo is a feature that’s available on devices that use Intel’s 4th-gen Core CPUs and Atom Z2760 SoC. Essentially, when the device is in connected standby mode, network connection is maintained so that data, apps, and tiles can still be updated. With InstantGo, waking a device from connected standby mode takes no more than 300ms.

More Personalization Options

In Windows 8.1, the lock screen can be used to display a slide show of your pictures (whether they’re on the PC or in the cloud), effectively turning your device into a digital photo frame. Some logic is applied too, so that relevant images (instead of a mishmash) are shown. For example, if this month is your birthday, it'll start showing photos from your last birthday. There’s also a camera shortcut: just swipe down to start using the camera. And Skype video chat can be initiated even if the device is locked.

For the Start screen, setting the background is no longer done via the Personalize section under PC settings. Instead, when you bring up the Settings charm, you’ll see a Personalize setting listed on the right. Through this setting, you can select a Start screen background, as well as the background color and accent color. And with motion accent, some of these backgrounds will animate to convey a sense of motion as your swipe the screen. Since the Start screen Personalize menu is just a pane on the right hand side, and isn’t part of the PC settings app that runs in full screen mode, you can see your selection being implemented on the Start screen in real time.

In Windows 8, you can make a square tile larger by doubling its width or a rectangular tile into a square tile - and that’s about it. In Windows 8.1, there are four tile resize options: Large, Wide, Medium, and Small. Wide is your rectangular tile (the size of two square tiles side by side), and Medium is your usual square tile. Small is also a square tile, just that it’s a quarter of the size of Medium. In other words, if you so desired, you now can cram 24 tiny square tiles in the same space you used to put three rectangular tiles. Also, under Settings charm > Tiles, there’s a Show more tiles option. Turning it on decreases the tile scaling factor even further. On our Surface Pro, it allows us to put two additional rows of Small icons. Of course, having tiles this small affects readability on a small screen, but we can see this being used a lot on large external displays. And lastly, a Large tile is the size of four Medium square tiles.

The method of selecting a tile is changed too: instead of swiping down on the tile, you press and hold it. And when you do that, you will also notice that you can name the tile groups. This is certainly more discoverable than the current method, where you need to go into a zoomed out view to select the group you want to name. Better yet, if you’ve more than one tile selected, you can now move them en masse. Our minor gripe now is that the touch-and-hold method of selecting a tile isn't implemented system wide. For example, in the Photos app, to select a photo, you still use the touch-tile-and-swipe-down gesture.

It’s also easier to see the apps you’ve installed. Just swipe upwards on the Start screen (your finger can be on a tile) to get the Apps view. You can now sort them by name, date installed, most used, or category.

The Return of the Start Button (Sort Of) & Booting to the Desktop

In Windows 8.1’s desktop mode, you’ll find a familiar Start button at the bottom left hand corner of the taskbar. Clicking it doesn’t bring back the Start menu of old, but return you to the Modern Start screen. At the Start screen, this Start button will also popup when you bring the cursor to the same corner; clicking on it brings you back to the desktop environment. More customization options are offered at the Taskbar and Navigation properties menu. For example, you can choose to use the same desktop background for your Start screen; boot to the desktop instead of the Start screen during sign-in; and even show the All Apps view by default instead of the Start screen. With resizable and live tiles, the various app views, and powerful system-wide search, there’s no doubt that Windows 8.1’s Start button is the most flexible and (arguably) most powerful Start button implementation yet.

Super-smart Search

The Search charm in Windows 8 aims to quickly find what you’re looking for, be it a file on the PC, a control panel setting, or an installed app. You can also direct a search query to a specific app. In Windows 8.1, the Search charm - powered by Microsoft’s own Bing search engine - is on steroids. It attempts to search (almost) ‘everywhere’ in one place (or rather, in one search box), be it a document on the PC, a photo on SkyDrive, an app in the Windows Store, a website, or images and videos on the Internet. It’ll show all relevant search results in a nice Modern-style, Search Hero view. For example, when we searched for Taylor Swift, Search gave us the options to play her top songs using Xbox Music, read more about her using the Wikipedia app; returned related album and video results, images from the web, and news articles. It also showed us Taylor Swift-related apps in the Windows Store. As another example, when we searched for San Francisco, it returned weather and population information of the city; gave us the options to view it on a map (via the Maps app) or explore the area (via the Travel app); returned search results of some local attractions, and a list of San Francisco-related apps, website previews, and news articles. For web images, you can even specific you want images based on certain criteria, such as size, color, type (photo, clipart, or line drawing), layout (square, wide, or tall), and people (just faces or include head and shoulders).

Of course, with so much available information coming in at once, it’s difficult to go through all of them in one sitting. The new Reading List app lets you save what you’ve found so that you can return to it later. Websites and app content can be added to Reading List via the Share charm. Powered by the cloud that's SkyDrive, your Reading List bookmarks will sync across Windows 8.1 devices. Currently, saving the content offline can't be done.

Multiple Window Snap States

In the Modern environment in Windows 8.1, there’s no more view states. This means that app sizes are determined by you, and more than two apps can be snapped side by side. A minimum width of 500 pixels is still required, though apps can indicate that they support a smaller minimum of 320 pixels. Still, how many apps you can snap depends on the display size and its resolution. On the Surface Pro that has a 10-inch, 1,920 x 1,080-pixel screen, since a 140% scale is used, the maximum number of Modern-style apps you can snap side by side is still two. On a larger, full HD monitor where no scaling is applied, you can snap three apps side by side. To snap four apps side by side would require a 3,200 x 1,800-pixel screen.

And oh, multiple DPIs across monitors is now possible in Windows 8.1. And since desktop scaling factor of different displays can be set independently, there will be no comically oversized desktop elements on the external monitor when we connect it to a HiDPI device like the Surface Pro.

New PC Settings & Built-in Apps

Of course, what we've listed above is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of new features and improvements in Windows 8.1. The built-in apps in Windows 8.1 in particular are also receiving major updates. For example, the Xbox Music app is now organized around your music collection, as opposed to helping you discover new music, which is the focus of the current version. There's also a new Radio feature that lets you create stations with a dynamic playlist. No subscription is needed for this service. Another feature that's coming before the end of the year is the ability to go to any website with a playlist, and use Xbox Music to create an instant playlist, instead of you copying and pasting the titles manually. To put it even simpler, it'll 'scrape' the website for you.

For the Xbox Video app, you can watch a video, and then use the Devices charm to directly stream the video to the Xbox One. This streaming function also works for music. And since Windows 8.1 supports Miracast, peer to peer wireless streaming of 1080p content (with 5.1-channel surround sound, no less) is also possible.

There's also a hands-free mode in the Food & Drinks app, which lets you swipe your hand in front of the camera to advance a page (say, of a recipe), so that you don't dirty the screen. The Sports, News, Weather, Finance, and Travel apps are also being updated. Also worth mentioning is that Windows 8.1 is the first OS with built-in support for 3D printers.

And how can we forget Internet Explorer 11 (we've a separate article just for that), with new features such as roaming tabs and (almost) unlimited tabs per window, and the revamped Windows Store, with its redesigned user interface that puts apps front and center. Other new features include support for consumables, as well as Store value and gift cards (this will be available in 41 markets, including Singapore). In addition, app updates and new in-app offers now get pushed to users automatically. You can't select which apps get auto updated and which don't - it's all or none. Also, the app roaming limit will be lifted (Update: the new limit is 81 devices). In other words, you can install an app on all the devices you own (the current limit is five). For developers, the app package size for submission has been increased to 8GB. But through app bundles, you're able to separate the core package from the resources (e.g. HiDPI assets and localized data), so that users only download what's necessary. We will explore IE11, the new Windows Store, and some of the built-in apps in greater detail in the coming weeks.

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