The platform-ification of Windows continues. Microsoft released a Universal Windows App for OneDrive today, complete with a touch-friendly interface for browsing files.
OneDrive in Windows 8 featured a touch-friendly Windows Store app, included by default, but that disappeared with Windows 10. Microsoft’s renewed focus on the desktop meant OneDrive integrated there instead of inside the slightly separate Windows Store ecosystem. The new app, which you can download here, changes that, The Verge is reporting.
This app doesn’t sync files, instead giving users with limited hard drive capacity a way to browse files without taking up local storage space. Desktop users who want to keep their files in sync shouldn’t bother looking into this application, but some tablet users will be happy to have it.
Click and drag is supported, meaning users can quickly upload a file on their devices to their OneDrive account, and opening Office files works quickly with the mobile and desktop versions of Office.
Microsoft has tweaked OneDrive quite a bit in the past years, dramatically reducing the amount of free storage space offered in an attempt to convince more users to pay for the cloud service. Free users used to get 15GB of free storage, but now only get 5GB. This is in line with what Dropbox offers free users, but will be disappointing to users accustomed to 15GB.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has also been working hard placing first-party applications in its Windows Store. Versions of all sorts of standard Windows applications, from Wordpad to Paint, have started showing up there. OneDrive is, in this way, just the most recent example of Microsoft building out its tablet-friendly interfaces for first party applications.
The Paint version was particularly interesting because of its touch-friendly interface, the first major overhaul of that program in quite some time. Microsoft is building touch compatibility into Windows one step at a time, and it will be interesting to see how users embrace it.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.