Empowering a new era of personal productivity with new Surface devices

[Yusuf Mehdi]

Today we shared our vision for a new era of personal productivity; unveiled Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2, Surface Studio 2 and Surface Headphones, and announced availability of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update and new Office 365 experiences.

As we work to deliver on our company mission of empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more, we have increased our focus on helping people across their work and personal lives. Offering tools for whole life experiences has never been more important as many of us are living a digital lifestyle that presents more opportunities, yet more demands on our time, than ever before.

Whether you are juggling a career and family; running a family as head of household; or growing your career or education, you tell us your greatest need is simply more time and the tools to do what matters most to you.

Our Digital Lifestyle

The explosion of innovation over the last decade has fundamentally changed the way we live our lives. More than ever before we move fluidly between our work and personal lives as technology is always with us. This shift in lifestyle is centered around three key dynamics:

• There is a blurring of work and life leading to a feeling of being “always on.” Technology has enabled us to be constantly performing work or personal tasks anytime, anywhere, and with all of the benefits that brings, many of us are unable to find the right balance.
• The constant battle for our attention is making it hard to focus and is challenging our ability to be productive. Many of us check our phones between 150-1,000 times – each day, spending 3-6 hours daily on screens. And some of the apps and services we use are designed to capture our attention and mine our personal data – ultimately taking our time, versus giving us time back.
• Finally, there is an increasing desire for meaning and purpose in our work and lives. All around us we are seeing a redefinition of success. Many of us are viewing our careers less as a ladder and more as a lattice, where we can grow from new experiences, and pursue multiple passions. We see these today in the rise of the side hustle, the gig economy, and the success of companies that focus on giving back.

Empowering a New Era of Personal Productivity

We believe Microsoft can uniquely help you manage this digital lifestyle by delivering technology that empowers you rather than overwhelms. We are centering on our area of strength and passion to empower a new era of personal productivity in every aspect of your lives. Not just at work, but also in how you live, learn, and play. We will help you make the most of your time, with experiences that help you across your whole life and across all of your devices. This journey begins today with announcements across five areas.

1. Surface is the purest expression of our entire Microsoft experience and is designed to work across your whole life, keeping you in the flow so you can be productive. Today we announced new Surface devices that continue to push the boundaries on technology that fades into the background, enabling you to focus on what’s important. New additions to the Surface portfolio include: Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2, Surface Studio 2, Surface Headphones, and a new way to purchase Surface devices with Surface All Access.
2. In today’s multi-device world, you should be able to pick the phone you want, the laptop you want and have best of breed. With features like the Your Phone App and Windows Timeline, we will help you move seamlessly across all your devices and bridge the gap between your iOS and Android devices and your PC. No matter where you are, what device you are using, or where your content lives, you should always be ready to be productive.
3. Because nothing is more valuable than your time, we will help you organize your whole life using our unique strength with Outlook and calendar, and our understanding of your time spent at work. For example, today, we are integrating To-Do’s with Skype and Outlook.com to help you manage your time better than ever before.

1. Peace of mind can be as simple as the security of your data and identity, to being fully present at the dinner table with your family, free of distraction. We will leverage our enterprise-class Intelligent Security Graph and machine learning to help ensure the security of your identity, your data, and the people that matter most with features like Family Safety in Microsoft Launcher.

1. Finally, we will enable you to unlock your creativity. Life is not a solo act, and our best moments are when we create and collaborate with others. In a world dominated by consumption, we will utilize the power of everyday AI, the innovations in our devices such as the Surface Pen and Dial, and Office 365 features like Inking in PowerPoint and Word, Embedded 3D Animations, as well as our collaboration tools to unlock your creativity in completely new ways.

These experiences are enabled by new innovations in Office 365 and the Windows 10 October 2018 Update which is available today.

With the new Surface devices, Windows 10 and Office 365, we are beginning our journey to empower you in this new era of personal productivity. We recognize our incredible opportunity and responsibility as a technology company to help you make the most of your digital lifestyle. We’re just getting started, but you can expect to see more as we focus on meeting your needs across your whole life and engaging in responsible product making that has inclusivity and empowerment at the core.

For more information on the story behind how we make great products, please read this blog from the Chief Product Officer, Panos Panay.

Yusuf

Surface Product Announcements:

Surface Pro 6
The iconic form factor that established the 2 in 1 category, is now 67 percent faster with Intel 8th Gen Quad Core processors and available in an elegant Black color option. Offering the ultimate in portable mobility for today’s digital lifestyle, Surface Pro 6 offers hassle-free connectivity, uncompromising mobility, and exceptional power and performance. Surface Pro 6 offers all-day battery for up to 13.5 hours [1] of work, fun or both. The full friction hinge enables seamless transitions between Laptop Mode, Studio Mode, and Tablet Mode for the versatility you need to create and be productive from anywhere. The 12.3” PixelSense Display and multi-screen docking present content beautifully and Surface Pro 6 now includes a 8.0 MP auto-focus camera. You can pre-order your Surface Pro 6 beginning on Oct. 2, starting at $899[2].



Surface Laptop 2
Surface Laptop offers style and speed in a slim, elegant, ultra-light, fast-charging laptop that fits easily in your bag. Beautifully designed and crafted, Surface Laptop offers the blend of texture, subtle details, and clean, elegant lines—plus the luxurious touch of our Signature Alcantara material-covered keyboard. Announced today, Black joins the rich tone-on-tone color combinations of Platinum, Burgundy and Cobalt Blue. And Surface Laptop 2 gets supercharged with Intel 8th Gen Quad Core Processor, while offering up to 14.5 hours of battery life [3] and faster and quieter typing. The 13.5” PixelSense Display screen offers an immersive touchscreen for faster, more natural navigation, with an edge-to-edge display and ultra-thin bezels. Surface Laptop 2 includes OmniSonic speakers for premium sound.

Surface Laptop 2 will be available to pre-order beginning on Oct. 2, starting at $999[4].



Surface Studio 2
Surface Studio was widely regarded as an innovator and category creating device. Designed for creativity, Surface Studio lets you turn your desk into the ultimate creative studio. With 50% more graphics performance, Surface Studio 2 is the fastest Surface ever made offering professional grade power and performance. The 28” Brilliant PixelSense Display is stunning and adjustable offering a brilliant screen, or huge canvas, for your ideas. Now offering USB-C support and Xbox Wireless built in gaming-class performance, Surface Studio 2 includes the latest Surface Pen with tilt sensibility and 4096 levels of pressure. Of course, Surface Studio 2 offers Surface Dial [5] integration and rich Ink experiences with a wide variety of software, including Office[6]. Surface Studio 2 will be available to pre-order beginning on Oct. 2nd, starting at $3,499[7].



Surface Headphones
Microsoft’s first premium and smart headphone experience offer the attributes you have come to expect from Surface: premium design, expert craftmanship, and integration with the services and experiences you love. Surface Headphones offer a smarter way to listen, with spectacular rich audio and hands-free calling. Surface Headphones make it easy to block out the world to get more done with adjustable noise cancellation, so you can focus on your task or just relax with your favorite music. With automatic pause and play, they will even pause the movie or video you are watching when you remove them from your ears. Cortana, a hands-free digital assistant, is built in to offer you proactive guidance, read you emails, or kick off your conference call. Surface Headphones are $349[8] and will be available later this year.



Surface All Access
One way we can support the digital lifestyle is by making it easier to purchase and use the best of Microsoft across work and life. Surface All Access offers the option of paying monthly for the Surface product of your choice, starting at just $24.99 per month for 24 months^, complete with an Office 365 subscription, access to in-store training and top-tier support. Surface All Access is available at Microsoft retail stores in the U.S.

Windows 10 & Office 365 Announcements:

Your Phone App
Pausing a task on your PC to respond to a text or notification on your phone can instantly break focus and take you out of your flow. The Your Phone App brings instant access to your texts and photos from your Android phone right on your PC, enabling you to stay productive and maintain your focus.

Windows Timeline on Phone
As we move fluidly throughout our day switching between work and personal tasks on our PCs and phones, it has become more challenging to find files and documents or web pages across our devices. Windows Timeline has been available on your Windows 10 PC since April, and we have now brought it to your iPhone or Android phone, enabling you to scroll back in time and find the files and websites you were using across your devices.


To-Do Integration with Outlook.com & Skype
It’s simple to make a long list of To-Do’s, but much more challenging to actually make time to complete each task. With To-Do integrated with Outlook.com, you can easily drag a task into an open slot on your calendar and block time to complete it. If you receive an email that has a task associated with it, you can even drag that into To-Do to automatically create a new task, keeping you organized and in flow.

In Skype, just select the message and tap “Create a task” to open the tasks pane. From here, you can add, edit, and check off tasks. Tasks will be saved and available in Skype, or in the To-Do app.

Family Safety for Microsoft Launcher
With Microsoft Launcher installed on your family’s Android devices and a Microsoft family group of accounts set up, parents can stay up to date on their kids’ location and rest easier knowing they are safely where they should be. Parents can also check in on kids’ app activity on their Android device, including which apps are accessed and time spent on each app. With Xbox One or a Windows 10 PC set up in your family portal, you can also view their activities on those devices through Microsoft Launcher.

Inking in PowerPoint
We’ve been infusing Microsoft Office[9] with AI with two goals in mind: to make everyday tasks easier and your content more beautiful. With today’s updates we’re making it easy to create and ideate using just your digital pen and your touch enabled device:

• An inked bulleted list will transform into perfectly formatted text.
• If you’re inking a flow chart or diagram, you can draw both words and shapes, and PowerPoint will convert them into text and snapped shapes in one fell swoop.
• Or, you can let our intelligent design engine do the work for you. Simply start with a blank canvas, design your slide using ink, and Designer will use AI to recommend slides for you to choose from.

Inking in Word

With new intelligent functionality in Ink Editor, you can add a word, split words or add new lines to your document without touching a keyboard. Now, you can edit a Word document from start to finish using your digital pen and your touch enabled device.

Embedded 3D Animations
In PowerPoint and Word, dynamically animated movements are now built into 3D objects, making it effortless to use 3D and animation to bring your projects to life.



[1] Up to 13.5 hours of video playback. Battery life varies significantly with settings, usage and other factors.

[2] Estimated retail price; actual retail prices may vary.

[3] Up to 14.5 hours of video playback. Battery life varies significantly with settings, usage and other factors.

[4] Estimated retail price; actual retail prices may vary.

[5] Sold separately.

[6] Sold separately.

[7] Estimated retail price; actual retail prices may vary.

[8] Estimated retail price; actual retail prices may vary.

[9] Sold separately.

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