Microsoft Battles Apple iPhone 5 Week with New Updates of Its Own
Microsoft is really turning on the news this week. Is it a ploy to try and steer attention away from what is to be one of the most anticipated tech events of the year with the release of the iPhone 5 and 4S? We'll find out soon enough. Although I applaud Microsoft for trying to take some of the news early this week before it all goes to Apple Tuesday Oct 4th, are these updates worthwhile?
Hotmail is the first on the list of desperately needed improvements, which Microsoft has finally embraced. The new Hotmail will give you unlimited storage for email, which is following a cloud storage trend seen in Gmail and Yahoo as well. Hotmail will also now include automatic categorization of incoming email, which Gmail users call "Labels" and "filters". A nice addition is the new "unsubscribe" feature, where Hotmail will do the work on unsubscribing you from spam or newsletters, without you having to go to the website and removing your email manually, saving you time. Flagged messages will sit at the top of your inbox for important things, again ripping off Gmail's "Priority inbox" feature. Lastly but not least, you will see instant actions when hovering over a message such as 'delete' or 'flag'. Will these improvements move people back into hotmail? Adding an Android app for hotmail will certainly make it more appealing to some.
The new Hotmail app is now available for free in the Android Market, allowing you to send and receive email right from the application on your Android device. The app supports push email, synced contacts and calendars, as well as folders and multiple hotmail account syncing.
And now for the battle to start between the newly updated Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango" smartphones and the soon to be announced Apple iPhone 5 with iOS 5. Microsoft has been hard at work with the latest WP7 update, and with over 500 improvements to the UI, and early adopter praise, this could be a contender. The Windows Phone 7.5 updates have been rolling out to devices for the past few weeks, slowly, but surely.
Continued on the next page
Follow Technorati