As promised earlier today, several members of Microsoft"s Windows development team took part in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session to answer questions from an online audience about the just launched OS update, Windows 8.1. Some of the answers were very informative, and others were just meant to be a little funny. Here are some of the more interesting exchanges:
- Microsoft team member Jason Beaumont was asked if a notification center was in the works. He replied, "Notification center is something we"ve talked a lot about, and I kind of have to leave it at that for now :) ."
- Beaumont was also asked why there was no "Me" Live title for Windows 8.1. He stated, "Great question. I have my wife and family contacts pinned to my Start screen but I never thought to pin myself. I like the idea. Luckily that team is just down the hall and I"m literally going to walk down there after lunch and give them your suggestion."
- A person who asked if Microsoft was going to offer its own eBook store for Windows, much how Apple has iBooks and Google sells eBooks via Google Play got a response from an unspecified Windows team member, who said, "Definitely on the radar and something we"re working on!"
- Windows team member Ian LeGrow was asked about being able to publish Windows 8.1 apps for smaller businesses internally through a company without needing to go through the public Windows Store. LeGrow replied, "Great question on the distribution, we"ve gotten a lot of feedback that we need to make it easier for smaller organizations - nothing to say yet, but we"re figuring this out."
- Windows team member Katie Frigon was asked about adding support for pinning music albums to the Windows 8.1 Start screen, which is already supported by Windows Phone. Frigon replied, "We are working on pinning. In addition to pinning albums and playlists, we"ve got a lot of great improvements in the works for Xbox Music on Windows. In fact, the team hopes to release much more frequent updates."
- Frigon was also asked if support could be added to sharing something via the Share charm to the clipboard. She replied, "Good feedback! We"ll look into it."
- Finally, Frigon was asked to reveal something about Windows 8.1 that few people know about. She stated, "A little known fact outside of our team is that for all the design mock ups of SmartSearch we used Katy Perry as an example. Our conference rooms were covered with Katy Perry images for a year!"
Source: Reddit | Image via Microsoft