Why Windows 10 Users May Never Use Google Again

4 minute read

Microsoft’s new Windows 10 software, out Wednesday, is effectively a sneak attack on Google, packing a new desktop search bar that can field just about any question under the sun. And it’s powered in part by Microsoft’s own Bing search engine, meaning the move could help Microsoft gain even more of the search market share against its foremost rival.

Windows 10’s search features are a welcome change to the myriad search options currently sprawling across our digital lives. Right now, search looks a little like this: Want to search the web? Go to Google. Your calendar appointments? Open your calendar app. Your local files on a phone, tablet or PC? Launch finder windows, one by one. Microsoft aims to replace all of those searches with a single, comprehensive search bar that scans everything — your device, your apps, your cloud and the web — in one fell swoop.

The result is a more versatile search experience, but one that users may find momentarily disorienting. After all, we’re used to rummaging through digital compartments and wielding search like a spotlight. At first glance, the search bar in Windows 10 looks like yet another circumscribed spotlight. That is, until you start typing in commands. The scope of answers soon expands well beyond your expectations.

File searches work not only by name, but by file type. Type in “.ppt,” for example, and a list of PowerPoint presentations crops up in a pop-up menu, sortable by most recent or most relevant and accessible in one click. Searches for the names of apps extend beyond your device and into the Windows Store, fetching not only the apps you’ve installed, but the apps you may want to download, too.

See How Microsoft Windows Has Evolved Over 30 Years

Microsoft Windows 1.0
Windows 1.0 The seminal version of Windows released on November 20, 1985. Users could run programs in multiple windows simultaneously, sparing them the nuisance of quitting one application before launching another one.Microsoft
Microsoft Windows 95
Windows 95 released on August 24, 1995, equipping users with their first Start menu, as well as minimize and maximize buttons. Roughly 8 in 10 of the world's PC's were running Windows at the time of its release.Microsoft
Microsoft Windows 2000
Windows 2000 launched on February 17, 2000. Rocker Carlos Santana performed his song "Smooth" at the launch party, but the rollout proved bumpy due to several hack attacks that made headline news. Microsoft was forced into defense, releasing security patches throughout the product's lifecycle.Microsoft
Windows Vista
Windows Vista released on January 30, 2007, on the heels of the massive success of Windows XP. Vista proved to be a harder sell. Despite security improvements and graphical flourishes, such as transparent window panes and smoother animations, corporate users blanched at the initial price tag and the onerous licensing requirements. Adoption rates flagged as users stuck to their older versions of WindowsMicrosoft
Windows 7 released on October 22, 2009 to rave reviews and a palpable sense of relief that Microsoft had recovered from the missteps of Windows Vista. The system introduced a new "Snap" feature that enabled users to easily snap windows into place, side-by-side, for easy multitasking. It also debuted touch gestures in response to the burgeoning market for touchscreen devices.Microsoft
Windows 8 released on October 26, 2012, attempted to radically redesign the start screen with "Live Tiles," a grid of commonly used apps designed for easy touching. The vast majority of Windows users continued to use the desktop PC's, however, and found the redesign, particularly the loss of the Start button, disorienting.Microsoft
Windows 8.1 released on 17, 2013, attempts to bridge the chasm gap between touch and PC interfaces, offering users their choice of Start screens. By now, tech pundits have a theory: every release of Windows alternates between hits and misses, setting expectations high for the next version, Windows 10.Microsoft
Windows 10 which released on July 29, 2015, blends the familiar layout of Windows 7 with touch features from Windows 8. The Start menu makes a grand reentrance, with Live Tiles discreetly tucked inside. Cortana, Microsoft's speech-activated assistant for smartphones, will also debut across all devices.Microsoft

When it comes to web searches, you may not regularly visit Bing, though it recently reached 20% of the search market share in the U.S. Windows 10 brings Bing to the forefront, fetching answers faster than you can type the word “Google.” Open-ended questions, like “what’s the meaning of life?” automatically opens up the relevant results on Bing’s landing page. As you type, Bing will autopopulate frequent search phrases (Life lyrics? Life of Pi?) before zipping the question out to the web.

Questions with more definitive answers, like “what’s 2+2,” come even faster with an assist from Cortana, Microsoft’s new voice-activated digital assistant. Cortana pulls the answer, (four, in case you were wondering), directly into a pop-up menu above the search bar, circumventing the web browser entirely.

And that’s where things get interesting, because Cortana can also use machine learning to display everything you wanted to know, but were too busy to ask. Microsoft’s group program manager for Cortana, Marcus Ash, showed TIME his personalized suggestions from Cortana during his recent visit to Manhattan. A stack of cards in a pop-up menu displayed nearby restaurants in Midtown.

“[Cortana] knows I’m in New York and knows it’s roughly lunch time,” Ash said as he scrolled through a list of pubs and delicatessens. “The list will change for happy hour and change for dinner later on.” Throw in stock price gyrations and flight cancellations, and the very idea of search as most of us know it starts to look outdated.

Read More: Here’s What Really Makes Microsoft’s Cortana So Amazing

Windows 10’s personalized search feature isn’t exactly a breakthrough. Google Now users have been seeing similar results since 2012, and Apple’s next big Siri upgrade offers similar functionality. But it’s a field open to competition, and winner of the search wars in the years ahead is likely to be the one that delivers the best personalized results right when you need them. In a sign of how far Microsoft has come, this writer, for the first time ever, used a Bing Map, despite my historical preference for Google, simply because it popped up first in a Windows 10 search menu. If that’s true of other Windows 10 users, Microsoft’s new operating system could prove an unexpectedly successful trojan horse for the company.

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