Windows 11's built-in apps are about to get a boost — here's what's already in testing

Some of the oldest and best-known apps on Windows 11 are about to receive an update, and Windows Insiders can already try the upcoming features.

It's a busy time for Windows Insiders. Microsoft revamped the channels of the Windows Insider Program and now rolls out builds at a quick pace. On top of the six new builds, Microsoft shipped at the end of last week, the company updated several of Windows 11's built-in apps.

Calculator, Camera, Clock, Media Player, Paint, Photos, and Sound Recorder all have updates awaiting Insiders.

Latest Videos From

Windows Insiders in the Experimental, Experimental (26H1), and Experimental (Future Platforms) channels will receive the app updates when running the latest build.

The Microsoft Learn site now has sections dedicated to apps. Within the column on the left side of the page, you'll see a dropdown menu and shortcuts to apps like Calculator, Camera, and Media Player.

Calculator Release notes

• More accurate square-root results — Fixed rare cases where a calculation that should equal zero (like sqrt(2.25) - 1.5) returned a tiny leftover value instead.
• Readable text in High Contrast themes — Settings text now shows the correct colors in the High Contrast Aquatic and Desert themes.
• Fixed layout for right-to-left languages — For languages like Arabic and Hebrew, the graph, number pad, equation fields, and scroll buttons now appear correctly oriented.
• Reliable launch after upgrading — Fixed an issue where upgrading from much older versions could leave outdated settings that stopped the app from opening.

Camera release notes

• Zoom slider works on more cameras — The zoom slider now works on the latest cameras, respects your system zoom settings, and updates instantly when you change those settings.
• Full range of zoom levels — Fixed an issue where the zoom slider only showed three steps on some devices that zoom in finer increments.
• Front camera works on more devices — Resolved a problem that blocked the front-facing camera on certain wide-angle devices.
• More video resolution choices — You can now pick video resolutions that were previously hidden; the app shows a heads-up warning instead of removing them.
• QR links you can still use — When a scanned QR code points to something with no matching app, the link is now copied to your clipboard (with a notification) while still offering a Store search.
• Smarter default settings — When you haven't set a preference, the app now follows your system settings by default.

Clock release notes

• Timers keep counting after they hit zero — When a timer runs out, it now keeps counting up (for example, -00:27:31) so you can see how far past the time you've gone.
• You can turn off the daily goal — Focus Sessions now include an "Off" option so you can skip setting a daily goal entirely.
• New 15-minute snooze option — Alarms now offer a 15-minute snooze interval.
• Run up to 3 countdowns at once — The Countdown Widget now supports three simultaneous countdowns, up from two.
• Timer Widget notifications now appear — Fixed an issue where the "timer finished" notification didn't show when the timer was started from the widget.
• Less clutter in Focus Sessions — Tasks you've already completed no longer show up in the Focus Session task list.
• More accurate focus progress — Fixed a rounding issue that could show your daily focus progress as a minute short (for example, 49 minutes instead of 50).
• Smoother World Clock comparisons — The World Clock compare page now loads dates as you scroll, so it feels more responsive.
• Up-to-date World Clock locations — Refreshed country and city names to match their current names.
• Correct sun and moon icons during midnight sun — Fixed an icon that wrongly showed a moon during all-day daylight in polar regions.
• Fixed back-button behavior in clock comparisons — Pressing back once now takes you back as expected, instead of jumping the date to 1926.
• Corrected the Newfoundland time zone — Newfoundland now uses the right time zone (St. John's).
• Disabled alarms stay looking disabled — Editing a turned-off alarm no longer makes it appear turned on.
• Cleaner timer cards — The expand button is now turned off on timer cards that have no time set, preventing actions that wouldn't do anything.
• Clearer theme setting — Updated the wording to "Choose your preferred app theme."
• Smoother Settings links — The "About" links in Settings no longer trigger an unexpected "switch apps" prompt.
• Fixed spacing in Spotify settings — Corrected uneven spacing in the Spotify settings card.
• Better focus visibility in High Contrast — The focus highlight in World Clock is now clearly visible in the High Contrast Aquatic and Desert themes.
• No more double announcements — Screen readers no longer read the timer value twice.
• Countdown names read correctly — Screen readers now properly announce the name of each countdown.
• Keyboard focus stays put — Focus no longer disappears after you press the Timer Reset button.
• Clearer alarm toggle for screen readers — Tidied up how the alarm on/off switch is announced.

Media Player Release notes

• Custom captions — You can now personalize how closed captions appear, with caption styling tied to your Windows caption settings, plus a quick link to open those settings directly.
• "Indexing" banner in the play queue — When your media library is still being scanned, a banner now explains why some items may not appear yet.
• Fixed the look of selected items — Corrected a layout glitch with selected items in lists.
• Fewer playback failures — Improved how the app recognizes supported file types, so more files play without issues.
• Playlists need a name — You can no longer accidentally save a playlist with a blank name.
• Cleaner look for empty playlists — Improved how a playlist appears when it has no items yet.
• More stable play queue edits — Fixed a crash that could happen when changing the play queue while the app was switching between sessions.
• Clearer "missing codec" message — Improved the dialog that appears when a file needs a codec you don't have, with clearer guidance on what to do.

Paint release notes

• Adjustable eraser transparency — You can now control how transparent the eraser is.
• Cleaner stamp brush strokes — Fixed visible color shifts and artifacts when using stamp-style brushes.
• JPEG photos save in place — Opening a rotated JPEG and pressing Save now overwrites the original instead of unexpectedly prompting "Save As."
• No more crash on bad image files — Opening a damaged or invalid image, from within the app, by double click, or commandline, now shows a clear error message instead of closing the app.
• Classic selection behavior restored — The selection outline now hides while you move, resize, or rotate a selection, just like in classic Paint.
• Tidier AI image panel — Fixed missing spacing at the bottom of the AI image generation panel for a cleaner layout.
• Visible button hover in light theme — Toolbar split buttons now show a clear hover highlight in the light theme.
• Snappier toolbar — Streamlined how the ribbon lays out, giving a small speed boost at startup.
• Fewer background crashes — Fixed a crash that could happen while background tasks were finishing up.
• Stable app shutdown — Prevented rare crashes when closing the app.
• Fixed layer removal glitch — Deleting the active layer no longer leaves the layers list in an inconsistent state.

Photos release notes

• AI watermarking — AI-generated or edited images can now carry a visible Copilot watermark. You choose Never, Always, or Ask Every Time in Settings, with a confirmation when saving. The watermarking is off by default in settings.
• Better viewing of small images and pixel art — Tiny images (like 16×16 pixel art) now zoom in far more to fill the screen and stay crisp instead of looking blurry.
• Select scanned text with the keyboard — When text is detected in an image, you can now navigate and select it using the arrow keys, Shift+Arrow, Home/End, and Ctrl+A, with a clear focus highlight.
• Fixed a crash in text recognition — Resolved a crash that could close Photos while detecting text in images; the app now recovers gracefully.
• Easier keyboard navigation — Tabbing through the navigation bar no longer stops on hidden controls, so it takes a single Tab to move past it instead of three.

Sound Recorder release notes

• Waveform shows with Bluetooth mics — The live waveform now displays correctly when you record using a Bluetooth audio device.
• No more stray scrollbar — A non-working horizontal scrollbar no longer appears at the bottom of the waveform unless you've zoomed in.
• Mark button ready right away — The Mark button no longer looks grayed out until you hover over it after opening the app.
• Markers hidden for WAV files — Markers are now turned off for WAV recordings, since that format can't store them — so they're no longer lost silently.
• Smoother deleting — Quickly pressing Delete and Enter to remove several recordings in a row no longer triggers a "file doesn't exist" error.
• Fixed a memory issue — Resolved a memory leak that occurred each time a recording started.

None of the updates are massive on their own, but it's nice to see attention paid to Windows 11's built-in apps. The update to the Clock app is surprisingly feature-rich.

Microsoft is in the early stages of making more native apps for Windows 11. The apps that just received updates for Insiders are already native, as far as I can tell.

"In-box apps," which are apps included in Windows 11, need to be optimized and native. The new Outlook and Clipchamp showed us how bad things can get when Microsoft makes web apps.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.