Windows 10 Mobile: A segmented digital billboard with your updates
The first thing you notice in Windows 10 Mobile is the start screen divided almost uniformly by live tiles of your apps. Live tile of each app keeps switching through new updates specific to the app (for e.g., Mail app tile keeps scrolling through the banners of your new email messages, Photos app tile scrolls through images in your library). The experience is similar to watching a digital billboard. Windows 10, the much anticipated, much hailed “last” version of the old faithful Windows OS. The quotes around “last”, well because lets face it as great as it feels to go out on a high, it is more than likely for Microsoft to cave and bring out future versions in a few years as opposed to just updates to the same old version. After Windows 10 for desktops last July, I was poking around for a way to install Windows 10 mobile (as I happen to own a Lumia phone at this time). When the preview version 10586 of Windows 10 mobile dropped at the end of November, I finally got around to installing it. Windows 10 Mobile was a 1.28 GB download (that much space needed on the 8 GB phone storage on my low-end Microsoft Lumia 535) and first needed a small update to my old Windows 8.1 before I could download it. Had to install the Windows Insider Preview app first. Then use Settings->Phone Update to get the new OS.
It took some 30 minutes to install on my 1GB RAM Windows Phone. Complete upgrade from my old Windows 8.1 Mobile with no loss of data was quite cool but needed a few tweaks. All the phone settings were set for high energy consumption (high screen brightness, all apps running in the background with notifications on). Had to dial all that back. Surprisingly after that, my phone seemed to consume lesser battery power than my phone with 8.1 used to. At one point I was weighing options of rolling back to 8.1 again. Learnt that no way to do that without a complete data reset of my phone (backup all mobile data using OneDrive before rollback). Didn’t need to go through that in the end.
After installation, most of my phone apps were updated by Windows Store. The changes to the Windows 10 mobile over Windows 8.1 mobile can be put in three categories: (i) UI updates (ii) new Windows features and (iii) third party Windows Phone apps. Some details of these changes from my viewpoint are as follows.
(i) UI updates: A lot of similarities exist in the desktop and mobile versions of Windows 10. Notably:
- Interface updates: Apart from live tiles, the Windows main screen can have background images of my choice with variable tile transparency settings. Among new features is the one-handed mode. Press and hold the start button brings down the screen so I can reach icons on top of the screen.
- Intuitive settings: The settings menu is almost the same as Windows 10 desktop with intuitive tabs. For instance, if you are looking to make changes to the start background, color theme or lock screen notifications, you will go to the personalization settings.
- Searchability: If you are not sure how to find a setting that you’ve used before you can just search for it using the keyword on the search bar on top. This search feature is also included in most other system applications such as phone calls, messages.
(ii) new Windows features: The core Windows features for phone calling, messaging, phone storage have all been updated and new apps have been added to support new functionality.
- Contacts, phone and messaging: The Microsoft people application integrates all my phone and Skype contacts into one address book. The Phone app has speed dial included and Skype calls will show up in the call list along with regular calls. The earlier Call+SMS filter option is included under Contacts as the Block and filter app for call blocking. The Messaging application is integrated with Skype with options of responding to messages by phone or via Skype.
- Upgrades to old apps: A comprehensive Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote) is included. In addition to the Lumia camera, storyteller apps (from Lumia Cyan update), there is also the new Lumia Selfie app released at the same time as early builds of Windows 10 mobile. Notable that presets such as night mode are not available in the Camera app. Relying on the Auto mode for good pictures automates the user’s job a bit but offers limited pre-clicking customization options for the user. Cortana is still great. It is integrated with PC. If I have a missed call on my phone, it shows up on Cortana on my Windows 10 PC. Edge browser replaces IE10 as the default browser. It is truly a made for mobile browser. Though applications still need to extend compatibility for Windows phones. For instance, I was trying to edit this medium post from my phone’s Edge browser and it didn’t support. Last but not the least, the File Explorer for mobile has been updated to include a basic folder hierarchy with Documents, Downloads, Pictures and Music. I can also check percentage storage and battery usage for any and all apps on my phone in the phone’s Battery Saver and Storage settings.
- New Windows mobile apps: New apps were downloaded to support some new touch features (Gestures and Touch app), the new Equalizer app for Windows 10 (released with the current build of the OS) with presets to control phone audio output and Microsoft Continuum to project phone onto display screens (Gadgets app). New phone gestures are not quite as exciting as the new multitouch features on Windows 10 PC versions. I was looking for Windows Hello but it seems like my device may not be compatible so didn’t download on its own (wasn’t on the eligible phone list for Hello on Windows website as well). Hello should show up under Settings->Sign-in options. So far nothing there. Maybe Hello is a feature aimed for the surface tabs/phablets. However, this is still a preview build. Hope the final build comes with Hello.
(iii) third party Windows Phone Apps: The Windows team are taking some steps to address third party Windows Phone App stores and the limited reach of Windows Phone app community.
- Universal store: Windows phone apps (including Windows specific features and third party apps) are available under one universal Windows store.
- Windows Phone bridge for Android and iOS: Support for running Android and iOS apps on Windows phone are upcoming with the Windows bridge for Android and iOS. Rollout of these bridges to users is on an invitation only basis as of now with interested users signing up to join the queue on the Windows website (I have).
Phone runs great and though there is a half second lag each time I unlock my screen, I don’t care much about it.
