Latest Groove Music update brings Project NEON hints

Apr 2, 2017 06:55 GMT  ·  By

We’ve known for a while that Microsoft is working on a visual overhaul for Windows 10 Redstone 3 that’s internally codenamed Project NEON, and more information on this emerges as we’re getting closer to the moment when the company starts shipping preview builds of the next OS update.

The most recent update to Groove Music brings some Project NEON features, as Microsoft is trying to pioneer the introduction of this visual overhaul using its own apps and then encourage developers to do the same thing with their own.

The video below and published by MSPU shows how Project NEON changes the look of Groove Music at this point, and though this isn’t the final implementation of the visual overhaul, it indeed includes design elements that are supposed to become available with Redstone 3.

Project NEON should beautify universal apps with effects like translucency and blur, but also with some new animations, and many consider this to be the second-generation Aero Glass that made the debut in Windows 7 so many years ago.

This new version of Groove Music indeed brings translucency and blur into the sidebar, and this means that there’s a low level of transparency that lets you take a peek at what is running behind the app.

More improvements in Redstone 3 builds

For what it’s worth, work on Project NEON is expected to advance at a faster pace once Microsoft starts shipping Redstone 3 builds, and this is supposed to happen shortly after the company releases Windows 10 Creators Update to retail users this month.

The first builds of Redstone 3, however, won’t bring any major changes, but Project NEON should expand gradually and become available in more apps developed by Microsoft as we get closer to the release of the next OS version.

Redstone 3 is due in the fall and more information on Project NEON should be provided at the Build developer conference this spring.