Windows 10 Tech Preview 2 for Phone - Not much to shout about
Friday - like many I updated one of my Nokia Lumia 635s to Windows 10 TechPreview 2 for Phone. While some are calling it build 10051 or 10056..the official version after installing is 10.0.12354.56...
I was running the previous 9941 build along with many of the additional apps I normally run, so Adobe, Banking Apps, Speedtest, etc etc...
The new build showed up as two updates and downloaded and appeared to install fine in about an hour.
But I almost immediately noticed some issues. First the default Mail, Calendar and People apps where missing from the Start screen. Second, Cortana and in fact search of any kind was not working. You would get a tactile response from the search icon - but nothing would happen and it you went into Settings and tried to configure Cortana & Search - nothing would happen. Finally several of the settings categories didn't seem to work correctly or allow activation of specific features. So I knew something was wrong.
After some research with Windows Insider Community and checking the feedback groups I realized I wasn't alone and several had experienced the same issue. Additionally, some Windows Phone sites were recommending actually reverting back to Windows 8.1 prior to installing the new tech preview. Which was not called out by MS...
So since the 635 I have been using was purely a test device - I went ahead and performed a Phone reset - removing all apps, data, accounts, etc and effectively allowing the phone to re-flash the Tech Preview image.
This time the experience was better. Cortana installed - all of the various categories in settings began working correctly. But I decided not to "restore" the phone from a backup and rather configure as a new phone. Sure this is a preview build, but I would have expected a better upgrade experience.
One thing I immediately noticed is that all of what I call the MSN native apps - news, sports, weather, finance, etc - all had the Bing prefix to them. Meaning they were old and not included in the actual build - even thought the install spent quite some time installing "apps" in the post OS configuration wizard.
What is weird is that the Store didn't recognize them as old and automatically try and update them. When I launched each one to get initial content - it flipped to the Store as asked me to update. I had to repeat that for each app..painful when your talking about 8 apps.
The store did update a few apps, like extras, display settings, and a couple of Lumia camera related apps. I also had to re-download Preview for Developers and Windows Insider. Sure this was a new build - but what is odd is that the MS Store really didn't recognize what apps I really had downloaded to this device and used a couple of different methods of updating.
So there is some new stuff with this build. Primarily are the new Outlook Mail, Outlook Calendar and People apps. By default they were not included on the Start Menu - so you had to go add them. These are "Universal Apps" so in theory these apps would also run on under 8" tablets as well.
Personally I don't think the new Outlook Mail app that great and in fact move usability in reverse. For example - while you can configure "swipe" actions - so like swipe left to delete and swipe right to mark read/unread - but when you open an individual email - there is no easy navigation to the next message.
In the old Mail app - I could flip to "unread" for example - scroll to the bottom of the list - open the first message and then use the navigation arrows to flip to the next message - marking the previous one as read. In the new Outlook when you open a message you see icons for reply, reply all, forward, delete, move, etc - but you can't navigate to the next message. You have to back arrow to return to the mailbox.... Also there are not nearly the settings control you had with the previous.
MS is migrating away from "pivot" menus with their apps to hamburger style menus. While I have read some good descriptions of why this change is occurring I also believe it is taking away some of the ease of use capabilities of the Modern UI. So now MS apps look kind of like iOS and Android and with MS creating versions of those apps - it kind of makes sense from a consistency standpoint - but it also shows MS having to concede their place in the market
Similarly the new Calendar app default to an agenda view and provides a day view and today view - it's not bad - but I don't see it as dramatically better than the old one. And as with the new Outlook - practically no settings to control the experience.
The new People app in my opinion is abysmal. The fonts are small, wasting tons of precious real estate and while it does have a "search" bar at the top - again to me this app is less effective than what was in 8.1.
Luckily the excellent clock and calculator apps included in 9941 were kept and there is a new version of Maps. I was a huge fan of the Maps app included in Windows Phone 7.5 and have been disappointed with the overall performance of the Nokia "Here" Maps and Drive apps in WP 8 and 8.1.
This new app is kind of a hybrid. You get a combination of the MSN and Here Drive with a slightly better UI but the same clunky voice you have with Here Drive. I have not had the chance to test it's accuracy - but I am hoping that MS continues to refine this app and allow me to finally 86 the Here apps.
One big piece that is missing is Office. So no Word, Powerpoint, Excel and in fact no way to load them from the Store. Word is that in the coming weeks we'll see the "universal" versions of these apps.
Other native apps like Photos, Music & Video seem to be the same as the 9941 build - so nothing much to report here.
Also several folks have reported issues with Airline mode not working or not be able to turn off/on Wifi or Phone - I have had no problems in that area. I am also still running Cyan firmware. MS/TMO seems to have never updated the 635 for Denim here is the US. I may try updating one of my other 635s to WP 10 just to see if maybe it will force a Denim update - but I'm not holding my breadth.
Overall - as with build 9941 - the phone itself seems to run okay. Albeit when I checked Storage Sense after installing there was nearly 4GB of storage taken by the OS itself. So as I've stated before I am a bit concerned that the only phone that will run Windows 10 really well is the yet to be released new phones that will come out this fall when Windows 10 is released. Several rumor mills have mentioned a 4 Core - 3Gb RAM device which is some 6 times larger that what my old 635 has.
This I think is going to be the conundrum with WP 10. It is brand new OS designed to support many platforms including Intel Atom based phones & tablets. To get the best experience - you are almost going to have to upgrade devices. Sure WP 10 will run on many "legacy" devices - so the shock won't be quite as bad as the move from WP7 to 7.5 to 8 - but I'm not 100% that I will have an excellent experience with WP10 on my 635 or 735. It will just be okay...not great...
A few articles recently have commented on this being the last gasp for Windows Phone and documenting the exodus from the Windows Phone Ecosystem by several prominent app developers.
Unfortunately I tend to agree with that prognosis. While I believe MS was hoping to attract more developers by saying if you develop for Windows 10 Universal - it will run on Desktops, Tablets, Phones and TVs - I fear it's too little too late. An even if universal apps do gain some traction - any/all non Windows 10 devices won't be able to take advantage of them...
By the time WP 10 ships, the modern Windows Phone will be almost 5 years old. MS has spent at least 8-10B$ over that time just with Nokia alone and has yet to garnish more than 5% WW market share.
In this writers opinion - nothing I have seen so far with Windows 10 is a compelling enough reason for Apple or Android users to switch or even WP users to stay with the brand....
I believe as with Windows 10 for Desktops & Tablets, that WP10 is pretty much feature complete - so the work is around cleanup between now and launch. That means converting many apps to Universal, some additional packaging & cleanup and most likely some upgrades to camera apps and the like to support the new hardware coming this fall.
If I am accurate in my view - then WP 10 is not going to move the needle that much in the mobile space for MS - especially in the US. Sure it will sell - but I doubt the WW Market share will exceed 6%. The competition is simply too far ahead at this point...
The question will also be will MS be able to produce a phone that can compete with Samsung, LG and Apple. That has yet to be proven. MS/Nokia made one Flagship phone the 1020 and one Phablet in the 1520. And while great devices - the reality is they really didn't sell well enough.
MS have not produced a high end phone now for nearly two years and I believe the market has moved on. Other partners like BLU, Sony, Lenovo, HTC and Asus have yet to really penetrate the market at all. These products barely measure on any of the market share charts.
For me I am going to continue to test WP10 loads on my 635 but to be honest I am not sure that come the next time I am in the market for a phone that I will consider a Windows Phone.
With MS apps now available on iOS and Android devices and the fact that many 3rd party apps either don't exist or the iOS/Android versions are much better - MS has really not moved the needle in terms of differentiating Windows Phone.
I was running the previous 9941 build along with many of the additional apps I normally run, so Adobe, Banking Apps, Speedtest, etc etc...
The new build showed up as two updates and downloaded and appeared to install fine in about an hour.
But I almost immediately noticed some issues. First the default Mail, Calendar and People apps where missing from the Start screen. Second, Cortana and in fact search of any kind was not working. You would get a tactile response from the search icon - but nothing would happen and it you went into Settings and tried to configure Cortana & Search - nothing would happen. Finally several of the settings categories didn't seem to work correctly or allow activation of specific features. So I knew something was wrong.
After some research with Windows Insider Community and checking the feedback groups I realized I wasn't alone and several had experienced the same issue. Additionally, some Windows Phone sites were recommending actually reverting back to Windows 8.1 prior to installing the new tech preview. Which was not called out by MS...
So since the 635 I have been using was purely a test device - I went ahead and performed a Phone reset - removing all apps, data, accounts, etc and effectively allowing the phone to re-flash the Tech Preview image.
This time the experience was better. Cortana installed - all of the various categories in settings began working correctly. But I decided not to "restore" the phone from a backup and rather configure as a new phone. Sure this is a preview build, but I would have expected a better upgrade experience.
One thing I immediately noticed is that all of what I call the MSN native apps - news, sports, weather, finance, etc - all had the Bing prefix to them. Meaning they were old and not included in the actual build - even thought the install spent quite some time installing "apps" in the post OS configuration wizard.
What is weird is that the Store didn't recognize them as old and automatically try and update them. When I launched each one to get initial content - it flipped to the Store as asked me to update. I had to repeat that for each app..painful when your talking about 8 apps.
The store did update a few apps, like extras, display settings, and a couple of Lumia camera related apps. I also had to re-download Preview for Developers and Windows Insider. Sure this was a new build - but what is odd is that the MS Store really didn't recognize what apps I really had downloaded to this device and used a couple of different methods of updating.
So there is some new stuff with this build. Primarily are the new Outlook Mail, Outlook Calendar and People apps. By default they were not included on the Start Menu - so you had to go add them. These are "Universal Apps" so in theory these apps would also run on under 8" tablets as well.
Personally I don't think the new Outlook Mail app that great and in fact move usability in reverse. For example - while you can configure "swipe" actions - so like swipe left to delete and swipe right to mark read/unread - but when you open an individual email - there is no easy navigation to the next message.
In the old Mail app - I could flip to "unread" for example - scroll to the bottom of the list - open the first message and then use the navigation arrows to flip to the next message - marking the previous one as read. In the new Outlook when you open a message you see icons for reply, reply all, forward, delete, move, etc - but you can't navigate to the next message. You have to back arrow to return to the mailbox.... Also there are not nearly the settings control you had with the previous.
MS is migrating away from "pivot" menus with their apps to hamburger style menus. While I have read some good descriptions of why this change is occurring I also believe it is taking away some of the ease of use capabilities of the Modern UI. So now MS apps look kind of like iOS and Android and with MS creating versions of those apps - it kind of makes sense from a consistency standpoint - but it also shows MS having to concede their place in the market
Similarly the new Calendar app default to an agenda view and provides a day view and today view - it's not bad - but I don't see it as dramatically better than the old one. And as with the new Outlook - practically no settings to control the experience.
The new People app in my opinion is abysmal. The fonts are small, wasting tons of precious real estate and while it does have a "search" bar at the top - again to me this app is less effective than what was in 8.1.
Luckily the excellent clock and calculator apps included in 9941 were kept and there is a new version of Maps. I was a huge fan of the Maps app included in Windows Phone 7.5 and have been disappointed with the overall performance of the Nokia "Here" Maps and Drive apps in WP 8 and 8.1.
This new app is kind of a hybrid. You get a combination of the MSN and Here Drive with a slightly better UI but the same clunky voice you have with Here Drive. I have not had the chance to test it's accuracy - but I am hoping that MS continues to refine this app and allow me to finally 86 the Here apps.
One big piece that is missing is Office. So no Word, Powerpoint, Excel and in fact no way to load them from the Store. Word is that in the coming weeks we'll see the "universal" versions of these apps.
Other native apps like Photos, Music & Video seem to be the same as the 9941 build - so nothing much to report here.
Also several folks have reported issues with Airline mode not working or not be able to turn off/on Wifi or Phone - I have had no problems in that area. I am also still running Cyan firmware. MS/TMO seems to have never updated the 635 for Denim here is the US. I may try updating one of my other 635s to WP 10 just to see if maybe it will force a Denim update - but I'm not holding my breadth.
Overall - as with build 9941 - the phone itself seems to run okay. Albeit when I checked Storage Sense after installing there was nearly 4GB of storage taken by the OS itself. So as I've stated before I am a bit concerned that the only phone that will run Windows 10 really well is the yet to be released new phones that will come out this fall when Windows 10 is released. Several rumor mills have mentioned a 4 Core - 3Gb RAM device which is some 6 times larger that what my old 635 has.
This I think is going to be the conundrum with WP 10. It is brand new OS designed to support many platforms including Intel Atom based phones & tablets. To get the best experience - you are almost going to have to upgrade devices. Sure WP 10 will run on many "legacy" devices - so the shock won't be quite as bad as the move from WP7 to 7.5 to 8 - but I'm not 100% that I will have an excellent experience with WP10 on my 635 or 735. It will just be okay...not great...
A few articles recently have commented on this being the last gasp for Windows Phone and documenting the exodus from the Windows Phone Ecosystem by several prominent app developers.
Unfortunately I tend to agree with that prognosis. While I believe MS was hoping to attract more developers by saying if you develop for Windows 10 Universal - it will run on Desktops, Tablets, Phones and TVs - I fear it's too little too late. An even if universal apps do gain some traction - any/all non Windows 10 devices won't be able to take advantage of them...
By the time WP 10 ships, the modern Windows Phone will be almost 5 years old. MS has spent at least 8-10B$ over that time just with Nokia alone and has yet to garnish more than 5% WW market share.
In this writers opinion - nothing I have seen so far with Windows 10 is a compelling enough reason for Apple or Android users to switch or even WP users to stay with the brand....
I believe as with Windows 10 for Desktops & Tablets, that WP10 is pretty much feature complete - so the work is around cleanup between now and launch. That means converting many apps to Universal, some additional packaging & cleanup and most likely some upgrades to camera apps and the like to support the new hardware coming this fall.
If I am accurate in my view - then WP 10 is not going to move the needle that much in the mobile space for MS - especially in the US. Sure it will sell - but I doubt the WW Market share will exceed 6%. The competition is simply too far ahead at this point...
The question will also be will MS be able to produce a phone that can compete with Samsung, LG and Apple. That has yet to be proven. MS/Nokia made one Flagship phone the 1020 and one Phablet in the 1520. And while great devices - the reality is they really didn't sell well enough.
MS have not produced a high end phone now for nearly two years and I believe the market has moved on. Other partners like BLU, Sony, Lenovo, HTC and Asus have yet to really penetrate the market at all. These products barely measure on any of the market share charts.
For me I am going to continue to test WP10 loads on my 635 but to be honest I am not sure that come the next time I am in the market for a phone that I will consider a Windows Phone.
With MS apps now available on iOS and Android devices and the fact that many 3rd party apps either don't exist or the iOS/Android versions are much better - MS has really not moved the needle in terms of differentiating Windows Phone.
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