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Updates Coming Tuesday for Built-In Windows 8 Apps

While a big update for Windows may be coming this summer, small-bore improvements for Windows 8/RT are coming tomorrow.

Brandon LeBlanc posted Monday in the Windows Experience Blog about changes coming to the Mail, Calendar and People apps. The updates to the apps will be available for free from the Microsoft Store.

One element in the Mail app I'm eager to try is the ability to search the server, not just the default two-week local cache, for an item.

Other changes LeBlanc describes include:

  • Users can flag e-mails and find the items in a new "Flagged" folder.

  • Draft e-mails show up automatically at the top of the Inbox.

  • It's possible to add, edit and delete hyperlinks when composing messages.

  • Editing and deleting bulleted and numbered lists are supposed to be easier.

  • Effort has been put into maintaining formatting for content posted into Mail from Word or other sources.

  • Solid blocks of colors have been removed to make the Calendar app more readable.

  • There's a new "work week" view in the Calendar.

  • Appointment scheduling is getting more robust.

  • The People app "What's New" feed can be filtered by social network.

These aren't groundbreaking changes by any means, but it's good to see Microsoft attempting a faster cadence of improvements to the built-in apps.

Posted by Scott Bekker on March 25, 2013


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