Redmond promised some goodies this Tuesday, and smack on time, the company has released another major Windows 8 app update, bringing a bunch of new features to the core apps of its new OS.
Insider sources hinted a month or so back that Microsoft was working on this update in order to prepare Windows 8 for the debut of the upcoming Blue — the first major revision of its flagship operating system due sometimes in August.
Built-in modern apps like Mail, Calendar and People have now received plenty of new enhancements, which Microsoft detailed in a post on the official Windows blog:
“Flagged emails will show in your inbox (or any other folder in the account) and in a “Flagged” folder within the Mail app so you can see all flagged email messages.”
The Mail app obviously is one of the most (if not the most) popular Windows 8 Modern apps and it has received a lot of improvements to help users create and manage email folders without leaving the Metro user interface.
Other improvements include enhancements pertaining the sending of new emails with the options to manage (add, edit and delete) hyperlinks, along with bullets and numbers list and searching of emails. Regulation stuff, but much needed, nevertheless.
The Calendar app gets a completely new design and settings to make the various features of the apps easier and efficient to use:
“Visually, the Calendar app has been updated to make looking at your calendars easier to read. Gone are the solid blocks of colors – instead, those colors are reflected in a small bar on the left of each appointment.
The Calendar app now accommodates the use of scheduling assistant for business accounts that use Microsoft Exchange. Anyone used to scheduling meetings in Microsoft Outlook and being able to see a person’s availability will be able to see the same thing in the Calendar app.”
And finally, good news for those of you that use the People app regularly — Microsoft has introduced a new navigation bar along with feed options to control social networking accounts.
As always, these updates are available in the Windows Store (instead of say, Windows Update), so you will need to launch that and hit the dedicated “Updates” section at the top of the screen. And if I were you, I’d expect more goodies from Microsoft with regards to the core apps, soon.
