Fall update will bring Continuity- & Universal Clipboard-like features to Microsoft's Windows 10

At its ongoing Build conference on Thursday, Microsoft revealed early details of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, which will notably incorporate new features linking up with Apple's iPhones and iPads.

Pick Up Where You Left Off — connected to Cortana and the update's Timeline feature — will let users resume app sessions across multiple devices, including not just Windows hardware but iOS and Android, Microsoft said. The technology is similar to Continuity/Handoff for macOS and iOS, which for instance lets someone writing with Pages on a Mac keep going on an iPad.

Microsoft is also working on a cloud-based clipboard that will let people quickly copy and paste between Windows, iOS, and Android apps. The idea appears identical to Apple's Universal Clipboard, though that option is limited to Apple devices, whereas Microsoft's SwiftKey keyboard will enable pasting in virtually any mobile app if it's enabled.

Some other features of the update will include OneDrive Files On-Demand — letting people grab individual files without syncing or downloading whole folders — and Fluent Design, an aesthetic coming to all Microsoft software.

The Fall Creators Update will likely go live in September.

Today Microsoft also revealed that by the end of the year, iTunes will be available on the Windows Store. iTunes has been on Windows for well over a decade, but has been absent from the Windows Store since the latter debuted with Windows 8 in 2012.

Showing up in Microsoft's store should not only increase Apple's exposure but ensure the relevance of iTunes to users of Windows 10 S, a stripped-down OS limited to Windows Store titles.

13 Comments

Metriacanthosaurus 880 comments · 8 Years

About 7 years ago

It would be nice if iCloud for Windows allowed universal copy&paste to extend to your Windows computers.

pepe779 84 comments · 10 Years

This is the company that dominated the industry for decades. Now they even proudly say they have 500 million Windows 10 users (a huge chunk of it being kiosks, corporate users and forced upgrades or PC bundles in my opinion), which is not even half of iOS users in comparison, so that's where MS ended up in 2017. I also think Satya Nadella has done more damage to the company in 3 years than Steve Ballmer did in all of his 14 years. Many people believed in some of his visions when he took over in 2014 but with every passing year it is clearer that he's not the visionary they were hoping for and instead the company is simply becoming more and more irrelevant.

mcbanjo 11 comments · 9 Years

Metriacanthosaurus said:

It would be nice if iCloud for Windows allowed universal copy&paste to extend to your Windows computers.

Totally agree. Apple should be showing up Microsoft by building a seamless end-to-end iOS experience.

Locking users into an ecosystem is a cheap tactic. Attracting users to an ecosystem because it's better is setting a better example.

danvm 1475 comments · 9 Years

pepe779 said:

This is the company that dominated the industry for decades. Now they even proudly say they have 500 million Windows 10 users (a huge chunk of it being kiosks, corporate users and forced upgrades or PC bundles in my opinion), which is not even half of iOS users in comparison, so that's where MS ended up in 2017.

500M users is not that bad at all. It even surpassed all versions of OS X / macOS combined. Plus MS still a dominant players in many industries, like the enterprise, cloud, gaming and is the largest software developer of the world.

pepe779 said:

I also think Satya Nadella has done more damage to the company in 3 years than Steve Ballmer did in all of his 14 years. Many people believed in some of his visions when he took over in 2014 but with every passing year it is clearer that he's not the visionary they were hoping for and instead the company is simply becoming more and more irrelevant.

With Ballmer as a CEO, MS stock went down 40% (http://www.businessinsider.com/ballmer-era-stock-price-2013-8) and miss the mobile wave. On the positive side, he did very good with the enterprise. But still the company went so slow in innovation, was depended too much of Windows / Office. Plus looks like he was a person hard to do business with, and didn't adapt to new technologies, specially open source and Linux.

Nadella turn around the company in a way few people think it was possible. Azure, Office 365 and cloud business is growing quickly. Xbox One sales are ahead from Xbox 360 (even though PS4 is far ahead), and the Surface line is doing a great job with innovation. Plus MS stock is doing very good too. I don't see how Nadella is doing more damage than Ballmer.

danvm said:

pepe779 said:

This is the company that dominated the industry for decades. Now they even proudly say they have 500 million Windows 10 users (a huge chunk of it being kiosks, corporate users and forced upgrades or PC bundles in my opinion), which is not even half of iOS users in comparison, so that's where MS ended up in 2017.

500M users is not that bad at all. It even surpassed all versions of OS X / macOS combined. Plus MS still a dominant players in many industries, like the enterprise, cloud, gaming and is the largest software developer of the world.

pepe779 said:

I also think Satya Nadella has done more damage to the company in 3 years than Steve Ballmer did in all of his 14 years. Many people believed in some of his visions when he took over in 2014 but with every passing year it is clearer that he's not the visionary they were hoping for and instead the company is simply becoming more and more irrelevant.

With Ballmer as a CEO, MS stock went down 40% (http://www.businessinsider.com/ballmer-era-stock-price-2013-8) and miss the mobile wave. On the positive side, he did very good with the enterprise. But still the company went so slow in innovation, was depended too much of Windows / Office. Plus looks like he was a person hard to do business with, and didn't adapt to new technologies, specially open source and Linux.

Nadella turn around the company in a way few people think it was possible. Azure, Office 365 and cloud business is growing quickly. Xbox One sales are ahead from Xbox 360 (even though PS4 is far ahead), and the Surface line is doing a great job with innovation. Plus MS stock is doing very good too. I don't see how Nadella is doing more damage than Ballmer.

Sure, 500 million is not bad but certainly also not where MS was hoping to be now imho. I know I'm comparing desktop products with mobile now, but even Nadella himself said he wants to be mobile first and I just don't see it happening. Most (if not all) of the products you listed already started under Ballmer, I don't quite see any truly innovative or game changing ideas from Nadella.