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Microsoft demos Windows 8 apps for Mail, Calendar, People, Messaging, and Photos

Sep 13, 2011 6:06 pm by damaster | 17 comments

Early this morning we just posted about what we know about Windows 8 and the future of Windows Live, and now Microsoft’s Harrison Hoffman, Product Manager on the SkyDrive team (and one of the early founders of LiveSide), posted on YouTube two videos demoing how the Metro-styled Mail, Calendar, People, Messaging, and Photos apps work on Windows 8. These new Metro-styled apps are powered by Windows Live, but similar to Windows Phone, they also support other services too (for example, the Photos app supports Facebook and Flickr as well as SkyDrive photos). Check out the videos below:

Stay tuned for more news coming your way!

This entry was posted in Featured, News and tagged BUILD, Calendar, Contacts, Mail, Messenger, Photos, SkyDrive, Windows 8, Windows Live. Bookmark the permalink.

http://twitter.com/Andrew_ww Andrew W
If only touch was useful for any screen that you want to watch movies or tv on.
Dave
He sort of brushed over SMS at the end of the first video. So Windows can send text messages out of the box? Does it need to be connected to my cell phone?
- Damaster – LiveSide.net
  Yep Windows 8 will support sending text messages, but only if your device supports it (i.e. tablets with cellular connectivity).
Hal9000
I installed Windows 8 but can’t find any of those apps. Where are they?
- http://www.about.me/liamdaly Liam
  The Windows Developer Preview with developer tools English 64-Bit (4.8GB download) mentions it includes 28 Metro style apps including the BUILD Conference app. Are they not included with that?
  Then again if your machine doesnt support it will these features even appear?
  - Hal9000
    I inastalled the big ISO, the Build app is there, as is Socialite, Tweet@rama etc. but can’t find Calendar/Mail/People. Why should my machine not support those features? It meets the minimum requirements and has sufficient screen resolution.
    - http://www.about.me/liamdaly Liam
      Apologies I meant the sms app etc. Not the Calendar/Mail/People not sure why that is not appearing. I haven’t gotten around to checking it out yet as it’s still installing…. I will let you know if they appear on mine.�
      Maybe you need to add an email account for them to appear? Is anything mentioned in the developer guide that you can get from the site?
      - Hal9000
        I logged in with my Windows Live ID which has Hotmail. I will have a closer look at the guide after lunch. Good luck with your installation :) I had to manually load the Intel RST drivers cause Windows was giving errors formatting my SSD, but all went fine after that :)
      - Damaster – LiveSide.net
        Unfortunately, these Windows Live Metro apps won’t be in the Windows 8 Developer Preview. Here’s according to Steve Sinofsky on the B8 blog:
        The preview build does not include every feature shown this morning. Shown but not in the Developer Preview release include the Windows Store, Windows Live Metro style apps, and some of the user interface features. The focus of the preview is the API and development tools for building Metro style apps.
        http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/13/welcome-to-windows-8-the-developer-preview.aspx
      - Hal9000
        ohhh i kind of missed that, read misleading reports. too bad, but ok, looking forward to the beta version then :)
  - Hal9000
    I inastalled the big ISO, the Build app is there, as is Socialite, Tweet@rama etc. but can’t find Calendar/Mail/People. Why should my machine not support those features? It meets the minimum requirements and has sufficient screen resolution.
http://doctorwhofan98.wordpress.com/ doctorwhofan98
These look great, but I do wonder how well the Metro apps will work with just a mouse and keyboard. I was going to get Windows 8 now, but I’ll wait until beta because of the lack of Windows Live apps.
- http://jvd897.blogspot.com jvd897
  I’m guessing (hoping?) they’ll be as usable as the Zune software is today, which is to say, very.
http://w1ngnut.myopenid.com/ w1ngnut
The 1st video is awesome!!! They’ve brought the wonderfulness of WP7 to W8! Sweet!
Galileo Vieira
Out of curiosity, what would make a great “modern” email app in the opinion of you all? Take “modern” to mean what you personally feel is relevant given today’s (and tomorrow’s) tech tendencies.
- Damaster – LiveSide.net
  To me, it’s important that the app is well integrated with the email services I use, whether that be Hotmail, Gmail, Exchange, or others. The ability to easily access emails from all these services, and also able to manage/transfer emails between these services, all in one place is particularly important.
  What’s even more important is to be able to find the information I need. For work, I file all my emails into folders, but for my personal email I leave everything in one place. Regardless of how I use the email app, a “modern” email app should surface what’s most important to me / what I’m searching for easily and effortlessly.
  Looking into the future of e-mail, the concept seems to tie in nicely with things like Voicemail or Video Messages – they all serve the purpose of sending something which the recipient will read later (in contrast to IM/SMS/Voice Call/Video Call, which is instant communication). So perhaps a “modern” email app should not just look at text-based “emails”, but also voice and video too (and at the same time be able to search through these too)?
  - Galileo Vieira
    I’m with you on all points, especially the last one. I don’t know if the term “e-mail” will ever be replaced, but the fact is that in the not-too-distant future we’ll have all kinds of communications that should be easily aggregated by a service. Hopefully this will happen sometime soon!