[ad_1]
With the launch of the Surface Duo, Microsoft has embraced the Android ecosystem in general and Google’s flavor of Android in particular. Anyone familiar with Android devices using Google mobile services – arguably the vast majority of Android devices on sale in the US and Europe – will recognize most apps.
The display of the Surface Duo smartphone at a Microsoft Corp product event. in New York, United States, … [+]
But the Surface Duo also shows how Microsoft has embraced the Android ecosystem itself. Following the loss of Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile, Microsoft has ensured its presence in the mobile market by providing its services on iOS and Android through the application economy.
And you can see that in the initial app load out of the Surface Duo, Gogole’s main apps are there, but Microsoft’s too. Access to Google mobile services requires the pre-installation of a number of applications, such as Gmail and YouTube. The WindowsLatest team has a list of 20 Google apps that will ship with the Surface Duo.
As for Microsoft’s Android applications? You’ll find 15 of them in the Duo (assuming you count Office as one and don’t remove Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and others as separate apps).
If you take a closer look at the suite of apps, you’ll see that Microsoft has its own flavor of the mobile pillars. You have Office and Outlook for individual work; you have teams to work together; have OneDrive for cloud storage; OneNote and ToDo to organize information; more News, Authenticator, Bing, LinkedIn, Swiftkey and more.
And yes, Microsoft does include Solitaire. It’s a Microsoft device after all!
Not everyone will use all of these apps, there are alternatives that will be favored by individual businesses; Slack instead of Teams is a given, as is Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word. It’s also worth noting that Edge and Outlook will be set as the web browser and email client handled in Surface Duo.
While the Surface Duo may be an Android device, it is an Android device in Microsoft’s world… a world that is arguably more connected and more usable than any world created by Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile.
Learn more about the Surface Duo facing the launch of Apple’s iPhone …
[ad_2]
Source link