The news is in. With the launch of the new Windows 10, we’re also getting the free Sway from Microsoft. What does that mean? It means Microsoft has finally gotten around to creating an alternative for its extremely complicated (for some) Office PowerPoint.
But it’s not really a PowerPoint presentation software. No. Sway is much more and at the same time much less. It is, like PowerPoint, a slide based presentation which can be used in a variety of fields to showcase something, a product, a story, a concept, to an unsuspecting audience. It has, unlike PowerPoint, increased interactivity, it can use online maps integrated into its slides, and it does away with all those unnecessary, cliché WordArt.
Instead of the old bolded titles we now have stylish, simple ones, with basic headers designed in a user-friendly fashion. The whole app is extremely user fridly. Microsoft is trying to prove itself more and more open to the market that it is now living in. Satya Nadella, CEO, has completely changed the direction of the company, which now seems to be heading into a more logical direction.
Sway is a proponent of this. And that’s not all. With Sway, Microsoft is essentially flexing its App-making muscles and showing that it can build apps that work, and work well, and can be used on varied devices. Besides the long range of apps Microsoft has so far produced for Android as well as iOS, Sway is already available for iOS wielding iPhones and iPads, as well as for Windows 10, and it has a browser version. Microsoft is obviously also planning on making it available for Android, though a launch date wasn’t specified.
Up until now, Sway had been available only in a Preview version, and a Beta one for Apple devices, but now it’s exited these phases and entered as a fully-fledged presentation creating tool. And the presentations are extremely beautiful. They’re easy to access, from anywhere with an internet connection, and they’re easy to understand. No complicated processes are needed to add media. No tweaks necessary for it to look good.
From the moment you load the app, it already looks good. Add a title, text, images, YouTube videos, Tweets, and the app arranges everything on its own. Pretty neat.
In the end, when you’ve finished your project, you can even upload it to the new document sharing site by Microsoft, Docs.com. There you can upload ANY MS Office file. Arrange it nicely, and it can be found by search engines, and shared on Facebook. What can we say but bravo, Microsoft! This is really a cut above and it’s sure to be used by businesses, students, and conference speakers everywhere.
Image source: windowscentral.com