Microsoft Support & Discussions

Kicking off Day 2 of Build today, I had the pleasure of expanding on the news and vision that Satya, Scott and Terry shared yesterday. We built upon the big ideas and bold ambitions from Day 1 when we announced our intention to create a world of 1 billion Windows 10 devices, and to create the most attractive development platform ever through the Universal Windows Platform (with new “bridge” toolkits) and the power of harnessing data in the cloud. We took the next step today by grounding these concepts in practical business conversations and code. Add in some announcements of our own, and we were able to show real-world scenarios and solutions from some of our partners to …

ABI Research has taken apart the Apple Watch's S1 computer-on-a-chip. Let's get this out of the way — it's going to be really hard to properly identify what Apple's doing withe S1 due to the amount of custom silicon they're doing these days, but it's still interesting to see the educated guesses that are surfacing about the heart of the Apple Watch. This time it's ABI Research, and what they found was surprisingly similar to the iPhone and iPad: "The design is an obvious variation from Apple's smartphones, with many high-end functions / chips included that normally would not be found in a simple watch," comments Jim Mielke, VP Engineering at ABI Research and head…

If you have an Apple Watch, the Activity app lets you track activities and view your progress both on the Watch and your iPhone. Looking for more fitness data than the Workout and Activity apps on your Apple Watch can provide? Look no further than your iPhone: All the data you collect on your watch will automatically be synced with a companion Activity app on your smartphone. This is where you can view further information on your daily movement goals and activities, as well as workout summaries and any achievements you've earned along the way. Follow along and we'll show you how! How to view daily progress and workouts with the Activity app for iPhone Launch the…

Two Namco Bandai game franchises, the space shooter Galaga and the fighting game TEKKEN, get mashed together in a new game for the iPhone and iPad. Galaga : TEKKEN 20th Anniversary Edition is a free game designed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the TEKKEN series by putting its characters inside a version of the classic Galaga space shooter. Here's what players can expect from this odd mashup: Tekken and Galaga are teaming up! Take control of the fighters from Tekken as they join the world of Galaga for a frantic shooting game frenzy like you've never experienced! Fight back against the endless onslaught by swiping left and right to blow them to bits! …

Amazon has updated their Instant Video app for iPhone and iPad, adding support for streaming in HD, along with watching video over a cellular connection. You can now turn on the ability to watch video over cellular in Amazon Instant Video's settings. There, you can set the video quality, and choose to receive alerts when you start using your mobile data. This update also lets you stream in high definition in the app for the first time. You can see the full list of changes below: Watch videos using your mobile data plan Control your mobile data usage settings Control your download quality settings Watch videos in HD Amazon Instant Video 3.0 is availab…

T-Mobile customers will get MLB at Bat 2015 free again, thanks to T-Mobile being the official wireless partner of the MLB. For the past couple of years T-Mobile has offered its customers a free season of MLB at Bat, and they are back with the same this year. Beginning on May 1, T-Mobile customers can download the MLB at Bat 15 app on their devices and receive a free season pass, a $19.99 value. The premium version gives access to: Stream the MLB.TV Game of the Day (blackout restrictions apply) Track every pitch Watch in-game highlights Access live look-ins on key plays You will need to download the app while connected to T-Mobile's network, not Wi-Fi…

During today's Build 2015 keynote address, Microsoft revealed a new developer app called Visual Studio Code. This is a free and lightweight version of the company's Visual Studio tools but can run natively on OS X and Ubuntu as well as Windows. This is a major announcement for software developers as it will allow those creators that use OS X or Ubuntu some Visual Studio tools on that OS for the first time. It will be released for free sometime later today and is basically a new member of the Visual Studio family Stay tuned as we will have more news from the Build 2015 keynote throughout the day Continue reading...

The popular Mac text editor BBEdit also supports EditorConfig in this new release. BBEdit's a powerful tool for Mac-based app and web developers. The latest release makes it even better. What's more, it's a recommended download for current users. Other improvements include a new CSS/SCSS language module, Arrange submenu and Save All In Window command. There's more besides. Git is a powerful distributed revision control system used by developers. Michael Tsai, developer of the popular SpamSieve anti-spam software for Mac, explained why having the new Git menu in BBEdit is so handy. "First, it makes for a smooth workflow where I can check the blame, view th…

The Apple Watch's limited screen real estate makes app organization more important than ever. Fumbling around the tiny screen of an Apple Watch to hunt down a single app isn't very convenient or practical. You don't have the help of Spotlight, a keyboard, or folders to help find and organize apps like you can on iPhone and iPad. You can always use Siri, but if talking to your watch would be awkward or inappropriate, a better home screen layout can make it much easier to find apps. Show us your home screen layout 1. Honeycomb, helix, and stacks Since the Apple Watch was released, people have been organizing apps in all kinds of crazy and interesting ways…

Twitter says that they are partnering with Apple to bring tweets to Apple's Spotlight search on iOS and OS X. Update: The feature is live! You can now search Twitter @names and #hashtags right from Spotlight on iOS and OS X. Not all searches are returning results yet, but that will hopefully improve as it rolls out. During Twitter's earnings call yesterday, CEO Dick Costello noted that the company would be partnering with Apple, bringing Tweets to Spotlight. Spotlight is Apple's built-in searching mechanism found on both iOS and OS X. From Seeking Alpha's transcript of the call: And finally, we are also working with Apple to surface great Twitter content and a…

Apple has updated their App Store review guidelines to ensure that medical testing apps meet ethical standards. Apple's latest rule in the iOS App Review Guidelines comes on the heels of the public introduction of ResearchKit, an open source framework for building medical research applications. Rule 27.10 now requires apps meant for research on human subjects to gain approval from an ethics board before they will be approved for the App Store. From Apple: Apps conducting health-related human subject research must secure approval from an independent ethics review board. Proof of such approval must be provided upon request. After its limited debut in March,…

Cloud computing started as a cost-effective, flexible way to consume storage and compute, but over the last few years it has become so much more. Higher-level services are taking center stage, ushering in a new era of “intelligence” – powered by automation and driven by data insights – that is transforming how business is done. Enterprises, startups, hobbyists and developers of all types are helping to fuel this transformation. Today at Build 2015, we announced new tools and services to help developers of all types advance this transformation and create more intelligent apps that easily leverage massive amounts of data. With Microsoft Azure, these developers are able t…

Apple's latest data shows that iOS 8 is now installed on 81% of devices as of April 27, 2015. When last measured, iOS 8 adoption stood at 77%. While this shows fairly steady continued growth for Apple's latest major release, iOS 8 is still behind iOS 7's adoption rate, which was around 87% at this time in 2014. Most of the gains for iOS 8 come out of iOS 7, which is now installed on 17% of devices. Older versions of Apple's mobile operating system, such as iOS 6, sit at 2% of installations. This data comes from Apple, using data taken from the App Store. Source: Apple Continue reading...

If privacy matters more to you than convenience, you can make sure your notifications only expand when you want them to. By default, the Apple Watch will show short look notifications — the originating app and a snippet of context like sender name or alert type — but if you keep your arm raised, they'll auto-expand into long look notifications — the contents of a message or email. If you want the convenience of simply being able to raise your arm and read your notifications, this isn't for you. If you'd rather be in control of when and how you see more detailed notifications, however, you can tell your Apple Watch to wait for you to tap the screen before it expands. Al…

Are your friends showing you up with their fancy Apple Watch sketching ability? We've got a few tips to improve your finger-painting game. Rene and I are not-so-secret hobbyist cartoonists, and we've been trading sketches on the Apple Watch all weekend. Here are some of the tips I've been using to beat his ridiculously awesome-looking Batmans, Hulks, and random robots — hopefully they may help your burgeoning sketching efforts as well. Practice, practice, practice Drawing with your finger is hard. Drawing with your finger on a canvas you can't really see or zoom on is harder. Your first couple of drawings are going to be terrible, and that's okay. And if you're…

Popular Mac image editor Pixelmator has been updated to version 3.3.2, bringing support for Photos for Mac, a new repair tool, and more. Pixelmator lets you easily access your images from the new Photos app on OS X. You can access your library from Photos in Pixelmator's photo browser, letting you quickly open any image in the app. You can also send your work in Pixelmator to Photos. Additionally, the app now has support for the new Force Touch trackpad found on the new 12-inch MacBook and 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, along with a new, more powerful repair tool. You can find all of the changes and improvements in Pixelmator 3.3.2 below: Now you can…

Having trouble getting your most used apps and services to play nice together? There's a zap for that! Zapier is an integration and automation service that helps you tie together the services and apps that you already use. Tired of manually creating tasks from recurring emails? Zapier can do that for you. Maybe you want to automatically save email attachments to Dropbox. It can do that too. Zapier lets you automate what can be automated so you can free up more of your most valuable resource, your time. I stumbled across Zapier while looking for a way to get some of the services we use around here at Mobile Nations to play nicer together. We rely heavily on serv…

Dropbox has made collaborating on shared documents easier with the introduction of comments. While Dropbox for Business early access users have been able to comment on documents since late March, the company has now made this ability available to all users. Comments are available for any file stored in Dropbox. You can bring in others to comment with Twitter-like "@" mentions. You can also get notifications for new comments, and even turn off comments on a particular file if necessary. From Dropbox: Bring anyone into the conversation with mentions. When you type @, followed by someone's name or email address, they'll get an email notification — even if they don'…

Double Fine has released the long-awaited followup to their adventure game Broken Age, with the full game now available on both Mac and iPad. The first part of Broken Age debuted last year. It's the latest effort from the folks at Double Fine and Tim Schafer, the designer behind classics such as Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle. For those that don't know, Broken Age tells two parallel stories. One story follows Vella, a young woman seeking to end her society's ritual sacrifices to the beast Mog Chathra. Shay, on the other hand, is a young man bored of his sheltered and solitary life on the starship Bossa Nostra. How these two stories relate is left to the p…

The SURFACE Case is the ultimate low-profile iPhone 6 hard cover; combining a super-slim design with a protective outer shell. The exterior features a soft coating that provides additional grip to help prevent drops, too. Choose your favorite color and save 43% Continue reading...

Ed: Welcome to this week's edition of The Pixel Project: a weekly comic from Diesel Sweeties' Rich Stevens on Apple, technology, and everything in-between. Today: It's Too Soon to Tell Read more comics from the Pixel Project on iMore.com. Continue reading...

Sprint is launching a new promotion that will cut its monthly tablet data by 50 percent. The promotional deal is for customers who buy a new tablet and activate or upgrade to a new smartphone at the same time. The offer is available via Sprint's retail stores from now until June 11. Here are the details: The 50 percent off tablet plan offer is available with 100MB and 1GB data plans, bringing the cost down to $5 per month (100MB) or $7.50 per month (1GB) for six months (excluding taxes and surcharges). Keep in mind that the 50 percent tablet data discount ends for users after six months. After that time period, the data rates go back up to their normal p…