Microsoft may have given up on making smartphone operating systems. But sometime next year the company may make it easier to run smartphone apps on a Windows laptop, tablet, or desktop computer. According to Windows Central’s Zac Bowden, Microsoft is “toying with” the idea of “bringing Android apps to the Microsoft Store,” and the feature […]
microsoft store
Lilbits: Microsoft’s app store, Google’s 5G network, and Fedora for phones
Apple and Google have been taking a lot of heat for their app store policies recently, with developers bristling at the companies’ insistence that apps distributed through their respective stores follow very tight restrictions that many see as anti-competitive. Microsoft, meanwhile, also has an app store. You probably don’t use it very much, and developers have […]
Microsoft is closing all of its retail stores
Almost 11 years after opening its first bricks and mortar retail store, Microsoft had 83 stores around the world at the start of this year. Now the company says it’s closing them all and instead shift its focus to online sales through the existing Microsoft.com as well as the Microsoft Store apps for Windows and […]
Microsoft releases Windows Terminal preview (with tabs, GPU acceleration, and more)
Microsoft’s new Windows Terminal app is here… or at least a public preview is. First announced in May, the new app provides a bunch of features that Microsoft’s earlier command line tools lacked. It also brings all those command line tools together in one place: you can use Windows Terminal to interact with the Windows […]
Win32 games are coming to the Microsoft Store
Microsoft has been trying to make Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps a thing since it launched Windows 8 and the Windows Store in 2012. Seven years later, Microsoft isn’t officially giving up on UWP… but the company is also acknowledging that developers and users aren’t particularly keen on the platform. So after years of insisting […]
Periodic reminder that you DRM means you don’t really own eBooks, movies, or other content (Microsoft’s eBook store is shutting down)
A few years ago Microsoft built support for reading eBooks into its Edge web browser, and began selling eBooks through the Microsoft Store. Today the company stopped selling eBooks. It’s canceled pre-orders. And it’ll start issuing refunds for any books you might have purchased. While that last bit sounds downright consumer-friendly, this next bit doesn’t: any […]
Microsoft Store will stop pushing app updates to Windows 8.x phones next summer, Windows 8.x computers in 2023
If you’re one of the handful of folks still using a smartphone running Windows Phone 8 or Windows Phone 8.1, starting next summer it’s going to be an even less useful operating system than it already is. On July 1st, 2019, the Microsoft Store will stop distributing app updates to Windows Phone 8.x. Developers will […]
Report: Microsoft Movies & TV coming to Android, iOS, and other platforms
Microsoft may have gotten out of the digital music business by killing its Groove Music app, but the company continues to sell movies and TV shows through the Microsoft Store. There’s one small catch though: you can only watch them on Windows devices including a Windows PC, a Windows 10 Mobile phone, or an Xbox […]
Apple brings iTunes to the Microsoft Store
Most Apple software is designed to run on Apple devices. But the company has been offering a Windows version of iTunes for more than 15 years, which makes sense because there are a lot of people who use Apple phones and tablets with Windows computers. While iTunes for Windows has a reputation for being a […]
Kodi media center now available for the Xbox One (coming full circle)
Kodi is a popular, open source application that turns a PC, an Android device, or many other gadgets into a full fledged media center with a TV-friendly user interface for accessing music, movies, photos, and more. It got its start many years ago as a project designed to turn the original Xbox game console into […]