Today Microsoft announced 2 new mice designed specifically for Windows 8 users; they are the Sculpt Comfort Mouse and Sculpt Mobile Mouse. What makes these mice tailored to Windows 8 is that they feature a dedicated touch areas that when pressed take the user back to the Start Screen and supports gestures for better multitasking.

The idea of having a Start Button on a mouse isn’t a radically new one but I really think that it will make using Windows 8 much easier for users of a keyboard and mouse. Some have suggested that the features of these mice show Windows 8 doesn’t work on a non-touch screen device but I disagree, as I think Windows 8 works well and I almost entirely remain in the Desktop UI when using a keyboard and mouse.

However, I can there being a significant improvement to having a Start Button on a mouse I decided to see whether I could adapt my Microsoft Wireless Mouse 4000 to be a little more modern. It turned out to be an extremely easy task.

The Microsoft Wireless Mouse 4000 has a a Left Side Button that by default acts as a “browser back button”, but of course this can be changed. All I needed to do was open the Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Centre and set up a new macro for the button that merely had the Windows Button pressed for 10ms. My several year old mouse now acts much more like the new mice that Microsoft is releasing.

I look forward to seeing if this slight tweak aids in my Windows 8 experience, I expect it will. I’d be interested to know if anyone else has set their mouse up in a similar way.

Today, as i am sure you are well aware Microsoft announced the long awaited Xbox One which brings with it much more silicon and power, live TV viewing, Skype and significantly improved Kinect functionality. You can find out more about what Microsoft has announced today including a new Halo TV series at The Verge.

What I want to focus on is perhaps a very small aspect of today’s announcement but it’s one that I think points to a very interesting future for all of Microsoft and that is the new ability to snap apps on the Xbox One just like on Windows 8. It has long been understood that Microsoft is working its way to a single ecosystem for all its apps. Whilst it has pretty much achieved a unified look for all its platforms there is not a yet a way for a developer to write an app that can run across all of Microsoft’s main platforms.

“Blue”, in all its forms (Windows 8.1, Windows Phone Blue and Windows Server Blue), is thought to usher in this very idea and the launch of Xbox One will sit right in the middle of the launches of the “Blue” products. Therefore, I think that we are within a year of Microsoft being able to offer developers the chance to write once and run anywhere. My reason for this thinking is the new snap feature on Xbox One as seen with the Skype app below.

The new snap feature is just like the snap feature on Windows 8 and there are already apps that show that in terms of a UI the snap feature on Windows offers parallels with the UI of Windows Phone apps. Twitter is a good example of this.

Now with Xbox One also featuring the snap view the UI element of apps will offer a single UI for apps that can run on pocket size devices right up to the “big screen”. The only real value I can see for Microsoft to create this single UI for apps that really does work across all its platforms is to allow developers the opportunity to write apps that work across all the platforms. A developer could create an app that has a UI for Windows Phone and snap view on both Windows 8 and Xbox One and an expanded UI for when it goes full screen on Windows 8 and Xbox One.

With BUILD coming up in June I hope we start to hear about Microsoft’s plans to offer a single ecosystem for all their platforms to make the lives of developers much easier and to improve the experience that consumers have when using Microsoft’s platforms. It will start to get confusing that when using platforms that have extremely similar UIs not to be able to access the same apps.

I have to admit that I am very excited for the coming couple of months as I think Microsoft has a lot to announce and I think (and hope) that I am going to like a lot of what they say. I am also massively excited to get the Xbox One later this year when it comes out, I have never owned an Xbox before and it has long been the missing part of my Microsoft Life.

What are your thoughts on today’s Xbox One announcement? Are you excited by the prospect of a single ecosystem and do you think it is likely to happen soon?

There are plenty of rumours doing the rounds at the minute about what devices Microsoft is working on to be released over the coming year but one rumour got me thinking the most. From not having any mobile devices this time last year Microsoft is apparently working on an Xbox tablet, a 7” Surface, a Surface Phone and updated versions of its current Surface devices, that is a rather impressive development.

What gets me though is with the rumour of an Xbox tablet is that Windows 8 has been designed for work and play and therefore Surface being the ideal device to showcase Windows 8 is also designed for work and play. The rumoured Xbox tablet will presumably run on Windows 8 but will focus on play rather than work which leaves an interesting prospect, what if Microsoft is working on a work focused tablet.

This idea is probably just me wishful thinking but it’s worth remembering that Microsoft has already designed a work focused tablet that was called the Courier. There was a lot of love for the concept of Courier and there still isn’t a product that does what Courier could have done and now that Microsoft is designing and building it’s own devices it makes more sense for Microsoft to create it. Another point to consider is that Microsoft might have an Office based product it wants to launch before it brings the Office apps to iOS in late 2014. To release the Office apps 18 months from now seems absolutely ridiculous especially as there are rumours that the apps have already started to be developed, however if Microsoft wants to have Office apps on its own platforms first it kind of makes sense. It makes more sense though if there was a major product that relied very heavily Office that Microsoft planned to release before apps were made available on other platforms.

The idea of having an Office tablet to sit alongside the Xbox tablet and Surface seems to make a lot of sense to me. The Xbox tablet could really appeal to gamers and consumers with dedicated entertainment features and designs whereas the Office tablet would appeal to businesses through work focused features and Surface would sit between the two and offer a “no-compromise” experience for both work and play.

I really would love to see a return of the Courier concept, maybe it will be possible to buy two 7” Surfaces and snap them together to recreate Courier. What are your thoughts on all these tablets that Microsoft is working on and my hope for an Office tablet.

Over the past few weeks there have been a few announcements and rumours that indicate what Microsoft is working on over the coming months. We know that the company is hard at work on Windows 8.1/Blue and Windows Phone Blue (I guess to be named Windows Phone 8.1) along with a new Xbox. It’s also very likely that the company is busy designing the next additions to the Surface family and maybe a Surface Phone (Nokia has acknowledged that Microsoft could be building a phone). There are also rumours suggesting that Microsoft is working on a version of the Office suite for Windows 8 and a significant update to Office 2013.

Microsoft is certainly up to a lot at the minute and most of the releases and announcements for these products are expected to be in the summer, this has got me thinking about when we could expect Microsoft to talk about its new releases. BUILD, Microsoft’s big developer conference starts on June 26th which I think gives a good indication of when a lot of the major announcements will be made.

We know that Microsoft is planning to offer a prelease version of Windows Blue before launching the final version some time this summer. An update to Windows Phone is also expected this summer although it is unclear if this will be Windows Phone Blue or just a smaller incremental update. It is also expected that Microsoft will debut its new Xbox on May 21st with more information being given at E3 on June 11th. Microsoft announced Surface at event last year on June 18th and if they are going with a yearly update cycle now then it would make sense that the unveiling of an updated Surface would be a similar time this year.

So with all that information it suggests quite strongly, to me at least, that Microsoft will leverage its BUILD event to announce and release many of its new products. The idea of having a single event to announce most things matches up with the idea of Blue bringing everything together which adds credibility to the idea. This is what I am pretty certain will happen during the summer:

May 21st: Special Event – Microsoft unveils the new Xbox, talks about some of the headline entertainment features of the new entertainment hub and shows off a significantly updated version of Kinect

June 11th: E3 – Microsoft announces and demos new games and apps for the new Xbox, shows how the Xbox will be the centre of entertainment within a home and shows off significantly updated SmartGlass apps

June 26th: BUILD – Microsoft announces Windows 8.1 and releases a preview version. Microsoft announces and releases a new update to Windows Phone. Microsoft talks about how developers can create apps for the new Xbox.

August: Special Event – Windows 8.1 released

Later in 2013 – Windows Phone Blue update will be released. The new Xbox will be released. The updated Surfaces will be released.

What I am less certain about is when Microsoft might show off it’s new versions of Surface and any possible additions to the “Surface family”. I am torn between two ideas, one is that Microsoft holds a special event like last year to announce new version of Surface for Windows 8 and Windows RT. This idea could be where Microsoft’s unveils the rumoured Surface Phone or even the Xbox Surface and because the media would be expecting the event to be about updating the current Surface devices it might allow Microsoft to surprise the audience again. The other idea is that Microsoft would announce new updates to the “Surface family” at BUILD, this would certainly get a lot of attention and maybe it’ll be a freebie for the attendees of the conference to encourage them to go away and build apps making use of the new Surface and Windows 8.1 features.

I would hope that Microsoft has a special announcement for the future of Surface because I hope that they have enough to announce that warrants having it’s own event rather than putting it within BUILD. Also, as Surface is a consumer device it doesn’t really make sense to announce it at a developer event.

I have noticed that over the past few years it has become harder to predict what Microsoft’s plans are as they have become much more secretive so whilst this post doesn’t contain any ground breaking revelations it’s stuff I have been thinking about for the last few weeks so I thought I’d write them down.

I expect that whilst much of what we are waiting for are new devices from Microsoft the services side of the company will continue to push out updates to apps. This will probably be complemented by a steady stream of leaks about Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox, however I doubt we will hear anything about Surface, that team is seemingly watertight.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you expect Microsoft to make announcements and releases sooner or later than I do? Do you have more info than me?

I have to say I am quite excited about Windows Blue following its leak over the weekend and all the information that has been learnt about it such as more resizable tiles, new apps, better SkyDrive integration and IE11. This seems like a great update to Windows 8 and I can’t wait to try it in a preview form and I am excited to see what the rest of Blue brings with it as it isn’t just an update to Windows 8 but also Windows Phone.

However, from the screenshots of Windows Blue there is one thing that concerns me as it seems to show that Microsoft isn’t entirely happy with it’s own design and implementation of search. The Modern UI Settings in Windows Blue will offer far more choices about the whole OS that in Windows 8 allowing people to really move away from the Control Panel found within the Desktop UI. Whilst this is an excellent development the screenshots show that in the top right hand corner there is a search box for the settings.

Microsoft has made a real effort in its app designs to not feature a search box, instead it has mostly made use of the Charms Bar to allow users to search within an app. Microsoft has even pushed its app developers to do the same to reinforce to users how searching on Windows 8 should be done. The appearance of a search box within the Settings app in Windows Blue goes against this fairly key usage scenario of Windows 8 which I find concerning. Either Microsoft doesn’t feel that users know how to search for things within an app on Windows 8 or they feel that the settings are too confusing; both cases really require Microsoft to address those problems rather than compromise the design of a key part of the OS.

If Microsoft is happy to place a search box within a prominent part of the OS then what is to stop app developers from doing the same? As a user consistency is key and if I have to start hunting down how to search within an app because there is no consistent way to offer the functionality then it will lead to a sub par experience.

Obviously this isn’t the final version of Blue, nor is it even a preview build so things could well change over the coming months. I just feel uneasy about the inclusion of a search box within part of the OS and I urge Microsoft not to break with the designs paradigms they have created.

What are your thoughts on Windows Blue and specific the inclusion of a search box in Settings?

Image credit The Verge.

Sorry once again for being so quiet on here for so long, I am sadly much busier now than I have been previously. However, I have good news to share and part of it ties in nicely with this blog and that is that a couple of weeks ago I was elected to be president of the University of Hertfordshire Students’ Union. This is a job that I can’t wait to start and builds on the my last year of work where I have been Vice President Communications and Media at the Union.

I ran as part of a team called RESULT and there were 5 of us in total and I took a lead on our elections campaign and was in charge in making a lot of the promotional material for the campaign. We didn’t all live in the same area and we were campaigning across several sites so we needed a way to be able to effectively and easily share information with each other and, unsurprisingly, I turned to SkyDrive to do this.

A few weeks before the elections campaign started I created a group in SkyDrive and added us all to it so that we had one place to go to for all our campaign materials. I then uploaded a range of concept posters for all of the team to review before we had a meeting, at the meeting we were then able to easily critique my initial designs through the slideshow functionality of SkyDrive. Following the feedback I went away and tweaked the designs and uploaded them to a new folder, even though the other members didn’t all have as much storage as me I knew it didn’t matter how much I uploaded as it only came out of my storage.

We used SkyDrive regularly to discuss iterations of the marketing material I was working on as it allowed all of the team, wherever we were to quickly view the designs.

As we approached the start of campaigning we started to rely on SkyDrive as we needed access to our marketing materials but also because we started using Excel. We used Excel in two different ways; we used it record all of our expenses to ensure that we knew how much we had spent and also to form a loose plan of where each one of us would be at any time.

Just before the start of campaigning I uploaded all the social media material such as banners, avatars and timed images so that each one of the team could access them to use on their Twitter and Facebook profiles. SkyDrive was also used to store the credentials of our shared Twitter page and important information for the team with regards to social media.

Throughout the course of the campaign SkyDrive was very heavily relied upon in order for any member of RESULT to print off posters and hand-outs wherever and whenever they needed to. By using SkyDrive to store the Excel files meant we didn’t need to keep each other updated when one of us bought something or if anyone’s plans changed throughout the course of campaigning as we regularly checked the files.

I’m not saying that we won the campaign purely because of SkyDrive because we need to do a lot in addition to just storing files on SkyDrive but the cloud storage service was a massive help. It meant that we could be a very dynamic team and change location easily but still have access to everything we needed and it was a significant help to not have to send off lots of emails or share files via a memory stick.

The fact that SkyDrive is so readily available on most mobile platforms certainly helped too as we had a range of phones amongst the team. The one downside to SkyDrive’s apps is that the desktop app doesn’t allow access to group folders from within File Explorer, this would have been a massive help for me as I could have directly edited and saved files without having to save them somewhere else before uploading them to the group.

The whole of RESULT were elected into the 5 full time elected officer positions within the University of Hertfordshire Students’ Union. Us winning equates to more than £100,000 and I can’t help but feel that SkyDrive had a role to play in getting us there, if nothing else it kept sharing files stress-free when other things were making the elections very stressful.

I highly recommend SkyDrive and I’d be interested to know if anyone else has relied on SkyDrive for such an important event.

Sorry for being so remiss in writing blog posts over the past few months. Do not fear, I am not disillusioned with Microsoft or anything like that, I am just far busier now than I ever have been. I am still using and loving my Surface (but the honey-moon period is definitely over!) and I am weighing up whether I want the Lumia 920 or the 8X.

However, I thought I would share with you all that I am an MVP for a second year in the Windows Consumer App category. I am very happy about this and thank Microsoft again for giving me this honour. I am really looking forward to the year ahead (as always) to see what Microsoft has planned especially with many rumours circulating about the new Xbox and Windows Blue.

On a side note some of you might be interested to know that one thing that is keeping me busy is a new website I am working on, all will be revealed in the fullness of time.

I hope I can write some posts soon.

From opening the box containing my 32GB Surface and Touch Cover the experience has been exactly as I expected, the hardware is superb and I don’t just mean the build quality but the whole design between tablet and notebook, the software, however, is where the issues lie.

The hardware is superb, I can’t stress this enough, for me the size and weight is great. The build quality is fantastic. The battery has never got close to running out at a bad time. In fact my only concern is that the camera could be better but I am not likely to be taking too many photos with my Surface. The way the Touch Cover and Surface snap together is very reassuring and the fact that I can hold the surface upside down, just holding the keyboard, is comforting. As we know a lot of thought and time went into surface (3 years) and it really does show.

Whilst the hardware is great I feel that there are a few issues with Windows 8 that have affected my experience with surface. Over the last week I have been using my surface as much as I can. I have been using it to take notes and minutes during meetings, triage emails, browse the internet, watch iPlayer, play games, etc. I have used it so much that I have barely used my proper notebook in my flat. This sustained usage has allowed me to come to conclusions, more about windows RT and 8 rather than surface.

The hardware

The size and weight of Surface has been excellent, it’s small enough and light enough to fit in my bag and carry around with me with getting an achy shoulder, the same cannot be said for my notebook. The battery easily lasts on a single charge from when I first wake at 7 to when I go to bed with constant and prolonged use throughout the day. As many have already pointed out the connector to charge Surface could be better, it can be a fiddly process and one that should have received more attention.

Obviously though with Surface the most interesting and perhaps exciting feature is its cover which doubles as a keyboard. I have only use the Touch Cover and have found it to be excellent, it took a few days to really get used to typing on a keyboard with no travel but now it feels perfectly normal. I can type on this keyboard just about as fast as I can on a normal keyboard, which is fantastic to be able to do on a device that is designed to be so mobile and on an operating system that is designed to be touch first.

One minor thing that I really like about the Touch Cover is the texture on the outside of it, it’s very nice to hold and offers a lot of grip when everything I folded away and the Surface is being carried around.

The 22° angle of the kickstand provides an excellent angle to view the screen whether in a space constrained area such as a fold out table on a train or in a spacious area such as at a work desk. I would have liked to have seen a depression on the right hand side to be able to get the kickstand out, having it only on the left can be a little annoying at times.

In terms of the hardware there is not a lot else for me to say really, it really is a premium device. If you get a chance to hold a Surface I would encourage you to do so to understand how it feels.

The software

I think I might be being picky with some of my concerns about the latest version of windows, in fact I think many of my concerns don’t really come from limitations within Windows but more the inconsistencies between Windows and Windows Phone. Using Surface has been the first time that I have actually been able to use Windows 8/RT on a touch screen device and so I have come to a few conclusions about the experience.

Windows 8 on a touchscreen device works. Windows 8 with a mouse and keyboard works. Surface, through offering both a touchscreen and a keyboard and track pad, works. Much has already been said about Windows 8 and Windows RT and how the two might cause confusion in the market. I agree with most of the sentiments so rather than repeat what others have said I shall instead share with you my chief issues with Windows 8 and even some suggestions for how they could be resolved. Don’t get me wrong though I really like my Surface and so far haven’t rally found it lacking, sure it doesn’t have a proper desktop but then I am not actually missing it.

I think my biggest complaint with Surface running Windows RT comes from the keyboard, this is mainly about the on screen keyboard. The on screen keyboard, in my eyes, should work the same as the Window Phone keyboard. These two OSes are meant to complement each other but in fact I keep going to do something on surface only to find the keyboard shows something different from what I was expecting.

For example, the smilies keyboard is massively different and I don’t understand why it is, surely on windows 8/RT the smilies keyboard should work just like it does on Windows Phone. I know that the keyboard on Windows is meant to work just like a physical keyboard would but I don’t think that really makes sense. For example with a new sentence the shift but is “pressed” by default to capitalise the first letter of the sentence, however, it’s not just the letters that change but also the symbol keys, this is confusing. Also, it’s not actually how a physical keyboard or the Windows Phone keyboard works.

Another inconsistency between Windows and Windows Phone is the way users can position the cursor on the screen. On Windows Phone it is easy to hold your finger on the screen and move the cursor to where it needs to be, however, on Windows this type of functionality isn’t possible, all holding a finger on the screen does is bring up the context menu. Instead users on Windows have to place the cursor near their target and then press arrows to move to the right place, seems a rubbish way to do it to me.

One thing that can be a bit confusing on Windows 8/RT is where to find the settings, obviously each app has setting through the Windows Charms but some of the OS settings can be tricky to find. For example users can view Wireless settings in PC Settings but they can’t view all wireless networks, that is done in the wireless section of the Settings Charm. In addition to any confusion about where settings are there is also duplication which I hope isn’t a sign of inconsistencies already working their way into this new version of Windows. For example a user can turn WiFi on or off from the PC Settings and the Settings Charm.

Moving on from my picky nature finding small things with Windows 8 I wanted to talk briefly about the apps available for it. Nowadays an ecosystem is made or broken on the apps available for it and this is obviously true for Windows 8. Whilst there aren’t 750,000 apps there are now well over 10,000, not bad for a two week old OS and whilst I would like to see some specific apps in the Store (BBC iPlayer) the apps that are available are so far meeting my needs. Some apps could do with some work but I believe that the reason they aren’t at their best is because the developers hadn’t had a chance to test the app on Windows RT before so it shouldn’t be too long until their performance is excellent.

One other area that deserves more attention is the contracts that developers can use, the file picker contract between apps makes life so much easier than the Windows 7 implementation. I can see a lot of potentially for apps using contracts so that the more apps a user has the more useful their Surface (or other Windows 8/RT device) becomes.

Summary

I am sure that over the coming weeks and months I will elaborate more on my experience of using Surface but for now these are man thoughts about Surface. It really is a great device but wanted to be sure of that before I wrote this article which is why it has taken me two weeks to write it. The article has been written entirely on the Surface and started off on a long train journey and I have now just finished it.

I look forward to using Surface and being able to use Windows 8 on a touchscreen, I especially look forward to playing with all the new apps that are no doubt being built. I am pretty sure that Surface will be going everywhere with me, it has done for the past two weeks and I see no reason why I wouldn’t continue bring it with me. If you get a chance I would urge you to play with a Surface and if you want a very mobile productivity device then I think Surface is probably for you.

Do you own a Surface? What are your thoughts about it?

Later today Microsoft will be holding several events around the world to announce Windows Phone 8 and I shall be attending the event in London. The event will have a feed from the event in the San Francisco where the new mobile OS will get its grand unveiling. I believe that in the UK we will then get the opportunity to see all the new devices that will go on sale here over the coming weeks (perhaps as early as next week). I don’t know if I will get an opportunity to live blog/tweet the event but I will if I can.

Let me know on Twitter if there is anything you want me to find out about.

Microsoft has announced that in addition to all the Windows 8/RT and Surface excitement this week it will also be releasing some significant updates to Xbox. These updates aren’t just for the Xbox 360 device but are instead updates to Xbox as a service something that Microsoft has been talking about for a while but will only now come to fruition.

The Xbox 360 will be receiving an update to the Xbox Music app will be updated alongside the Windows 8/RT version of the app on Friday. This will bring many new features to the apps to offer the full Xbox Music experience, as announced last week. This update will also bring SmartGlass functionality to the apps.

SmartGlass will also be launching this week and with it Microsoft is looking to usher in a new way for people to interact with Xbox. On Friday when all the apps are updated SmartGlass will for the first time be usable across the 3 screens allowing users to interact with what is being on the Xbox 360 through their Windows 8/RT device or Windows Phone.

SmartGlass will initially offer new experiences for:

• TV and films
• Sports
• Music
• Internet Explorer for Xbox
• Games

The above video shows how some of the experiences will work and it looks great.

What the updates of the next week will mean for Xbox is that users don’t actually need an Xbox 360 to be able to enjoy aspects of Xbox. Having an Xbox 360 does enhance the experience when coupled with SmartGlass but it isn’t necessary. This is what Microsoft wants as they look to use the well known Xbox brand as their all encompassing entertainment brand, hence the demise of Zune.

Whether SmartGlass is more of gimmick than a re-imagining of the way we can interact with the content on a TV I am not sure, one thing I do know though is that I need to get myself an Xbox. What do you think of these updates to the Xbox ecosystem and its positioning as a service and not a device?