You will likely feel like this first preview build for phones seems “less complete” or “earlier” than the PC. DON’T WORRY! It will improve as we go and new features, stability and performance improvements, and more polished UX will come at each step. You will see experiences that are clearly just not done yet, and UX that lacks polish at this point. We’re sharing it with you so you can be with us at every step, and provide your feedback to help make this the best release ever - because it’s the one made for you.
This preview is still very much under development and you’re going to see some rough edges. This is the earliest publicly available preview we’ve ever done for Windows on phones. While this one is official, it still comes with a big warning label from Gabriel Aul, the leader of Microsoft’s Operating Systems Group’s Data and Fundamentals Team: Yet those were old builds, and today’s release is the latest we’ve seen. Until this comes in, we needed devices which were configured by mobile operators with sufficiently sized OS partitions to allow the in-place upgrade, and many of the bigger phones have very tight OS partitions.Įarlier this month, screenshots of Windows 10 for phones leaked out, showing a lot of what’s new.
SPEECH TO TEXT WINDOWS 10 MOBILE WHEN TEXTING INSTALL
We have a feature that will be coming soon called “partition stitching” which will allow us to adjust the OS partition dynamically to create room for the install process to be able to update the OS in-place. This is why some “newer” devices aren’t supported yet: Microsoft promises to continue pushing updates to testers’ phones “all the way up to the final build that goes out to all customers.” If you decide you no longer want to participate, Microsoft promises you can roll your phone back to the previous OS “any time you’d like.”Īs for the limited list of supported devices, Microsoft is only supporting phones that have a recovery image available because it wants to be able to support restoring to older versions. They will be made available automatically after they are validated by engineers at Microsoft, who will first use them on their own phones. New Windows 10 preview builds for phones will arrive as over-the-air (OTA) updates. Your device will also need at least 8GB of storage and already have had Windows Phone 8.1 installed at the time of purchase (if you updated to Windows Phone 8.1, the preview won’t work). “Expect the list to grow slowly at first but expand comprehensively over time,” Microsoft wrote. The Windows 10 preview works on the Lumia 630, Lumia 635, Lumia 636, Lumia 638, Lumia 730, and Lumia 830. Today, Microsoft flipped the switch so that Windows Phone users who are part of the Insider program can install the first Windows 10 preview build, as long as they have one of the six compatible devices. Until now, the Windows Insider app only worked for Microsoft employees. That said, Cortana will get better in future builds. In this build, Cortana is U.S.-only, English-only, and lacks some of the features already in Windows Phone 8.1. There is one major limitation worth emphasizing. More powerful Photos app: From your very first launch, Photos will show the aggregated set of all your local photos and all your OneDrive photos.This feature is smart enough to understand when to use “two” the number instead of “too” as in “also.” Your words show up as you speak them - and punctuation appears automatically. Significantly enhanced speech-to-text capability: You can talk to virtually any data field you choose.For example, for text messages, when the toast pops, you can quickly reply inline via text or voice. Interactive Notifications: Notifications are now interactive, allowing you to take action directly, like dismissing an alarm or seeing images for maps.More Quick Actions in Action Center: Windows Phone 8.1 is limited to four programmable quick actions, while Windows 10 gives you an expanded view with up to three rows.Full-size Background Image for Start: A new option to customize the start screen with a full-size background image.More specifically, Microsoft is promising the following: