Software: Reviews

Reviews

  • Enterprise guide to Windows 10

    Windows 10 is now available for consumers, but for IT executives thinking about enterprise deployments, here's what the upgrade path from Window 7 or Windows 8/8.1 looks like.

  • Windows 10 review: It's familiar, it's powerful, but the Edge browser falls short

    We may as well refer to Windows 10 as a date, or an hour, as much as an operating system. It's a moment in time. A month from now, it will have changed, evolved, improved. But right now? Microsoft has shipped an operating system that was meticulously planned and executed with panache, but whose coat of fresh paint hides some sticks and baling wire.

  • Microsoft Word for iOS review: This classic word processor shines on every device

    A few months back, when Microsoft first released Word for iPad, there were wildly varying responses, from, "Who cares and who uses Word any more?" to "I've been waiting forever for this!" to "Wait, what? I have to pay to use this app?" But, no matter what camp you were in, there was one reality: Word for iPad was (and is) an excellent iOS word processor--an Office app for your iOS device that offers substantial document creation and editing tools, with an interface that's clutter-free, so creating and editing documents on your iPad is a cinch.

  • iTunes 12 introduces new look, less intuitive interface

    It's been two years since the last major update to iTunes, with changes I called "the most radical alterations to the program's interface since its inception." I could use those same words to describe iTunes 12, which features yet another interface overhaul.

  • First impression: The real surprises in iOS 8 are the little things

    Like probably millions of others today, I upgraded my iPhone 5 to the brand-spanking-new iOS 8. I'm still wrapping my head around the major new features, like the problem-struckHealthKit, and I haven't been able to really fiddle with the major camera upgrades yet. But in just a couple of hours of normal usage, it's really the little tweaks to the experience that are standing out to me.

  • Vellum: App offers a sleeker way to build ebooks

    Since the early days of the .epub and .mobi formats, writers and publishers have been trying to find better ways to make ebooks. Some writing apps included primitive built-in options. A few design apps offered limited-functionality exports. But few apps have thoroughly focused on building ebooks.

  • Windows 8.1: New version, same mess

    Windows 8.1 follows Windows 8 in typical Microsoft "version 2.0" fashion, changing a bit of eye candy and dangling several worthwhile improvements -- but hardly solving the underlying problem. Touch-loving tablet users are still saddled with a touch-hostile Windows desktop, while point-and-clickers who live and breathe the Windows desktop still can't make Metro go away.