These are the characteristics with which Spartan will seek to differentiate itself from other browsers
Table of contents:
Yesterday, thanks to Neowin, we had the first screenshots that showed us the design of Spartan, the new web browser that Microsoft plans to include in Windows 10 to compete with Chrome and Firefox. And today, thanks to The Verge, we finally have more information on what will be the exclusive features of this browser, with which Redmond will seek to position it one step ahead of the current market alternatives.
The most important of these, in my opinion, is the integration with CortanaMicrosoft&39;s popular personal assistant will be present in the browser&39;s address/search bar, delivering information and personalized responses based on the Bing engine and personal data our that you have collected in Cortana&39;s Notebook."
"For example, if we start typing flights in the address bar, along with the usual search and history suggestions, an answer box will also appear informing about the status of commercial flights that we are tracking through Cortana."
The integration will be at such a level that, according to The Verge, in this new browser Cortana will completely replace Bing as the interface to give answers and search results. And presumably there will also be support for voice commands.
Support for note taking, tab groups, and frequent updates
Another interesting feature will be support for taking notes, by keyboard or digital ink, directly above of the web pages that we view. These annotated pages will be easily shared with others, and will likely be hosted in OneNote using OneDrive storage, allowing them to be edited even by people who do not use the Spartan Navigator.
It is also planned to implement tab groups similar to those that exist today in Firefox, in order to better organize ourselves and separate the open pages according to themes or contexts.
According to Tom Warren, Microsoft initially considered including support for visual themes, but ultimately dropped it for reasons unknown to us.However, this feature may still be included in a future update.
And precisely regarding the updates, Spartan will have the advantage of being an application from the Windows Store, with which Microsoft will be able to release new browser versions quickly and frequently, just like Google Chrome does today. But despite that, Spartan will not be a universal application, but will have 2 separate versions: one for desktop, and another for tablets and phones, although both will be available in the Windows application store and will offer the same features, but with slightly different interfaces
In the meantime, the old version of Internet Explorer will continue to be available on Windows 10 as a standalone browser, primarily for use on pages that may have compatibility issueswith the Spartan rendering engine.
"Regarding the final name of the browser, in The Verge they say that nothing has been defined yet within Microsoft, so keeping the Internet Explorer name is not ruled out, but the option of making a a clean slate on this plane (which is what has been discussed according to other sources)."
What do you think of these new features? Are there any other changes you would like to see in the Spartan browser?
Via | The Verge
