Microsoft - page 15

Typing on your iPhone with one hand is about to get a whole lot easier thanks to good samaritans at Microsoft that have invented a custom keyboard for iOS.

Microsoft revealed today that its latest iOS app, Word Flow, just entered the beta testing phase. The new keyboard (which is different than the Hub keyboard introduced last week) brings some of Windows 10’s best typing to iOS users like the ability to swipe out words, and intelligent word prediction to go with its dead simple one-handed mode.

Take a look:

If you’re a fan of custom iOS keyboards and want to add a bit more functionality to your text messaging, check out the newly-released iOS Hub Keyboard from Microsoft.

This nifty keyboard lets you copy and paste recent items, grab and share URLs of Office 365 documents in OneDrive and SharePoint, and easily send contact details.

Apple is 40 years old today. In that time, the Cupertino company has delivered some incredible products and services, and revolutionized smartphones, tablets, and music players. But is it boring now?

Some say Apple’s innovation has stalled in recent years, and it has become too predictable. The surprises we used to see during its big keynotes no longer show up, and despite its secrecy, you can almost predict its product roadmap for the next year.

Are those claims harsh? Is Apple really past its best, or will it deliver groundbreaking new products again that can shake up the consumer technology industry?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we fight over Apple at 40.

Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates may not be fully in support of Apple in its ongoing privacy battle with the U.S. government, but Microsoft is certainly embracing the importance of security.

In its latest update, the Microsoft Outlook app for iOS adds new support for Apple’s Touch ID sensor — meaning that you can set the app to let you read your messages only if you scan your fingerprint first.

Microsoft is taking a page out of Apple’s marketing playbook for its newest ads promoting the Surface Book, and the company threw in a few digs at the Mac while they were at it.

Rather than just focusing on the product, Microsoft’s new ads add a human touch by focusing on how the device has changed some professionals’ workflow. First up is photography Tim Flach, who uses a Surface Book and Surface Pen to precisely edit his incredible animal photography. If owning a Surface Book gave me killer shots just like Flach, I’d ditch my Mac too.

“Being able to use a pen like this on the screen directly with the image gives me a different relationship to it,” says Flach. “And I just can’t do that on my Mac.”

Check it out:

The rivalry between Apple and Microsoft may not be as fierce as it once was, but that’s not stopped the long-time Apple frenemy from firing shots in Cupertino’s direction in its latest series of ads for Windows 10.

Presented by two insect educators called “The Bug Chicks” (because, obviously, Windows and bugs go together perfectly!), the ads look at various features that Apple computers just don’t offer yet. You know, like that whole “blue screen of death” lark.

The FBI’s demand that Apple build a backdoor into a terrorist’s iPhone has done the seemingly impossible by getting Microsoft, Google and Apple all on the same team.

Many of the country’s top tech firms have revealed that they will file friend-of-the court briefs in defense of Apple’s position that no company should be compelled by the government to break its own security and thus put the public safety of millions of users at risk.

Apple might be a rival to other Silicon Valley tech giants, but that’s not stopping the likes of Microsoft, WhatsApp and Google defending Cupertino’s stance against helping the FBI hack an iPhone.

Check out the privacy-minded Apple lovefest from these big companies, as well as groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Amnesty International.

Got an old Android you don’t use anymore? It’s useless to you in the bottom of a drawer, but if you dig it out and dust it off, you can sell it to us for cold hard cash!

We’re buying used and broken Android and Microsoft devices through our new buyback program, and we pay more than Best Buy, Gazelle, and Walmart in most cases. We’ll even buy used wearables, watches, and devices that don’t even work anymore.

After years of avoiding the App Store like the plague, Microsoft’s been releasing iPhone app after iPhone app. Most are pretty good, but Microsoft’s latest app is for the dogs: literally.

Apple has been ordered to pay patent troll VirnetX a whopping $625 million after losing a legal battle over the technology used for FaceTime and iMessage. The Cupertino company says it is “surprised and disappointed by the verdict,” and calls for patent reform.

Microsoft still has a long way to go before it takes down the iPad.

The iPad Pro absolutely dominated the Microsoft tablet lineup, selling more units than the Surface Pro 4 and Surface 3 combined, according to the latest estimates from IDC which revealed that the iPad Pro was the clear winner this season as the top selling detachable tablet.

As rumors swirl that Apple is considering subscription-only content for its News app, Microsoft is also looking to get in on the iOS news game. On Tuesday, they released a new app called News Pro, which boasts the tagline “hyper-relevant news for your work.”

The other day, we learned that Microsoft’s next app would be an iOS keyboard called Word Flow. But today, we can do one better. We can show you what it looks like running on an iPhone! And it turns out to have a really cool mode for one-handed texting.

Under new CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has been releasing all sorts of software for iOS, including Office and lesser apps like Microsoft Selfie. But the next app you install from Microsoft on your iPhone could be a replacement keyboard, ripped straight out of Windows Phone.

There’s no shortage of people in Silicon Valley wanting to connect themselves in some way to Steve Jobs, whether it’s driving the same type of car as Apple’s late CEO, or rocking the same John Lennon glasses.

Now Reed College, the liberal arts school Jobs famously dropped out of, is planning to offer its first undergraduate degree program in computer science — courtesy of a special grant from … Microsoft?

Microsoft is excited, as it’s almost got as many installs of Windows 10 as there are iPads. Of course, the Redmond-based tech company didn’t put it in as many words, rather shouting out that Windows 10 is on now on a ton of devices.

“As of today,” writes Microsoft on its website, “there are more than 200 million monthly active devices around the world running Windows 10.”

That’s surely a lot of installs, showing significant growth.

It’s been a terrific year for gaming. The next-generation consoles now offer a library of spectacular games that somehow keep getting better and better, while PC gaming just gets greater every year.

2015 brought exciting and long-awaited entries to wonderful franchises like Fallout and The Legend of Zelda, surprising indie smash hits like Rocket League, and must-play platform exclusives like Blooborne and Super Mario Maker.

Here are the best games that we couldn’t put down this year.

Microsoft Cortana is now officially available on Android and iOS following its beta run. The digital assistant, which has long been baked into Windows Phone and now Windows 10, hopes to compete with Siri and Google Now for a place on your device.

When it comes to innovation, American-based corporations are pushing the envelope more than any other nation and Apple is leading the charge.

According to the latest rankings from Boston Consulting, Apple was the world’s top innovator for the tenth year in a row, followed closely by Google.

A mysterious Gmail bug is putting a skull and crossbones emoji inside users’ inboxes. Hovering over the icon displays creepy messages like “Component Spy,” “Chat Spy,” and “Data Spy” — but it’s actually totally harmless, and Google is already working to fix it.

Microsoft’s rivalry with Apple heated up this year when the company opened a flagship store on Fifth Ave in New York that looks a lot like an Apple Store. In the spirit of Christmas though, the company is calling for peace, and to show they mean it, they sent their employees caroling to the Fifth Ave Apple Store.

In Microsoft’s new holiday ad, employees selected across the country gather at the new Microsoft 5th Ave Store and join NYC’s children’s youth choir to spread some holiday cheer. Their march ends at the steps of the iconic Apple Store on Fifth Ave where they sing “Let There Be Peace on Earth” before being rewarded with a rousing round of high-fives from the Apple gang.

Watch the full ad below:

Sony has revealed that it is developing an official PlayStation 4 Remote Play app for Mac and PC, giving gamers the ability to play their favorite titles on their desktop. The announcements comes just days after an unofficial Remote Play app was made available for Windows.

Apple might have once owned the tablet market, but Microsoft is making rapid advances in sales — and may even be approaching iPad numbers by 2019, according to a new “Tablet Operating System Forecast” report by Strategy Analytics.

Summarizing the first nine months of 2015, and extrapolating the trends to try and predict the next few years, the report reveals how sales of Windows tablets are up 58 percent compared to 2014, and are on track to sell 22 million this year. That’s 10 percent of the market, compared to Apple’s 22 percent.

Microsoft has brokered a deal with automaker Volvo to co-develop a driverless vehicle, according to a new report — putting it in competition with Apple’s rumored “Project Titan” Apple Car.