« Speaking Bing’s language: New Microsoft Translator session at Mix10Bing: “built out to be a much larger player”, will be profitable, says Yusuf Mehdi »

Windows Live Hotmail Wave 4: New screenshots emerge

Jan 31, 2010 5:52 am by damaster | 13 comments

Last week we told you about some of the upcoming new features and changes to Windows Live Hotmail Wave 4. Only a week later, Picturepan2 from LiveSino.net was able to get hold of some screenshots of the new Hotmail, which seems to confirm all the new features we just told you about:

The above screenshot seems to confirm that the new Hotmail will utilise the new Wave 4 header with Web Messenger built-in. From here we can see that the navigation pane on the left has been slightly rearranged, with Inbox separated from the other folders, which are now all grouped under a collapsible “Folders” heading. The new Quick views pane will allow you to quickly view Flagged e-mails, photos, as well as social updates. Oh and look under the “Related places” heading, the link to the Hotmail “Today” page is no more and has been replaced by a link to Windows Live Home (more about that later), which leads us to this screenshot:

Perhaps the most prominent change is the support for Conversation view. Clicking on “Arrange by” will display the following menu, which allows you to select whether or not to display your e-mails in Conversation view (convenient for some who prefers to view emails the old way):

Conversation view

Take notice that in all the screenshots we’ve seen so far, the concept of “Windows Live People” and “Networks” no longer exists. Instead, Microsoft are simply calling them “contacts”, clearing up the confusion in Wave 3 about networks, peoples, friends and contacts. Definitely a great step forward and we’ll have to continue to wait and see how things turn out with the new Windows Live Wave 4. Stay tuned!

Reminder: All screenshots and new features discussed in this article are based on internal pre-release versions, the actual product (beta or final) may or may not look like it at all.

This entry was posted in News and tagged Hotmail, Wave 4, Windows Live. Bookmark the permalink.

http://www.facebook.com/people/James-Portelli/683592092 James Portelli
Cool! Quick Views shows the Flagged option, confirming that Flagged emails will be synced and supported in Live Hotmail! I hope they will be synced with the Mail Desktop and vice versa!
http://www.facebook.com/davidhoush David Housh
This is going to be nice. I use Outlook most of the time, but these newer features give that Outlook taste.
majg
This will be nice. Now if it translates better to Win Mail client then pure win.
name
Ever wondered how much you can hurt a product with early leaks? Guess no more!
http://www.apply-for-a-credit-card-now.com websolutions1
Nice layout of email box. Microsoft is also keeping pace with its competitors.
John
I hope they support categories too! I use Outlook’s categories a lot.. and it would be great to have them in Hotmail :)
jose fajardo
hey whats the “Docs” link at the top next to “Photos”. Has that always been there? Or is that something to do with Skydrive but for documents
- Damaster – LiveSide.net
  You can check out our coverage on the header here: http://www.liveside.net/main/archive/2010/01/04/a-new-wave-a-new-look-first-look-at-the-windows-live-wave-4-header.aspx
  Also more information on Windows Live Docs is available here: http://www.liveside.net/main/archive/2009/08/08/two-new-windows-live-services-coming-soon-documents-and-devices.aspx
- PK
  Docs link is take you to Office products like MSWord, Excel, PPT and Onenote
http://www.geekword.net sheikhali
Conversation feature is the one I was looking for
Jason
Hey, I just noticed the header on the feedback page: It has home, mail, more, and MSN. https://feedback.live.com/default.aspx?locale=en-us Maybe this is a half-way house they are testing as well
JohnCz
I hope the Calendar & People menu items find there way back into the header in the final release. But if doesn’t, then I think the Live team needs to adopt Bing Toolbar and make sure its services can be 1st class citizens. Currently Bing Toolbar is more about MSN than Live. That needs to be balanced out.
http://www.jewellerytips.com/ Jewellery Tips
This is such a nice blog and I use Outlook number of the times, but these never features give that Outlook taste..