14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently released a new beta version of Microsoft Launcher for Android, and the changelog includes several new exciting features.
Microsoft Launcher 4.11 beta comes with more improvements for family accounts, as parents are now allowed to show and hide kids in the Family card. This means the Family card is more easily customizable, keeping things clean and organized especially when having multiple cards configured.
The same launcher also comes with improvements for reading news articles with Microsoft Edge browser, and while no specifics were provided here, it seems the application launches faster whenever a new link is clicked.
Starting with this version, Microsoft Launcher also includes Visual Search, a new feature that Microsoft announced earlier today and which enables users to search the web using their phone’s camera. Launcher now features a small camera icon in the search bar that allows them to launch Visual Search, then being able to perform a search by taking a pic of a landmark or object.
New Cortana features
Version 4.11 beta also brings Cortana refinements, including support for calling and what Microsoft describes as multi-turn SMS. There are no specifics as to what this feature does, but we assume it allows Cortana to send a text and then have the digital assistant reply to further messages as part of the conversation.
Bing Search also includes a new voice animation for voice search, while Launcher features UI improvements on the welcome page, settings page, widgets, and context menu. And last but not least, this version introduces support for removing screens in overview mode via drag and drop.
Needless to say, this new version is still in beta stage, so not everything might work exactly as expected, though in most of the cases, these early builds were pretty good. The stable release should follow in the next few weeks to bring all these improvements to everyone.