Windows 10 gets taskbar badge notifications in summer update

By Brad Jones Published April 4, 2016

Windows 10 — Greg Mombert/Digital Trends

Last week at Microsoft’s Build 2016 conference, the company made a point of showcasing its upcoming Windows 10 Anniversary Update with a host of announcements and demonstrations of new and amended functionality. In fact, there was so much to talk about that some details got lost in the barrage of news coming out of the event.

With a few days having passed since the Moscone Center closed its doors, Windows users and Microsoft personnel alike have had some time to reflect on this massive amount of new information. In the case of software engineer Jen Gentleman, that means throwing the spotlight on a perhaps overlooked feature quietly announced last week.

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In a tweet posted on Saturday, Gentleman drew attention to the addition of taskbar badge notifications for apps using the Universal Windows Platform, as reported by Beta News. This smartphone-inspired functionality is the latest example of Microsoft’s strategy of picking and choosing features made popular on mobile devices to fold into the abilities of its flagship OS.

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Taskbar badge notifications will give developers another way of delivering at-a-glance information to users. While it’s already possible to deliver similar notifications via the taskbar at present, it’s understood that the Anniversary Update will make the process much quicker and easier to implement.

Notifications seems set to be one of the areas Microsoft is focusing on with its biggest update to Windows 10 since the launch of the OS in 2015. Toast notifications and improvements to the Action Center are two other examples of the company’s efforts to improve this area of the user experience.

At present, there’s no firm date on when the Windows 10 Anniversary Update is set to be distributed. However, developers enrolled in the Insider program can now access the upgrade’s SDK preview and begin coming to grips with the new features set to be added this summer.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…

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