Windows 10 Build 14959 - The Creators Update starts
Today, Nov 3, MS released the first of the newly named "Creators Update" (previously known as Redstone 2) builds to Fast Ring Insiders. The build number is 14959 and is for PC and Mobile platforms.
14959 contains about half a dozen or so fixes for both PC and Mobile.
Specifically for Mobile this release used MS's new Unified Update Platform (UUP) to deploy.
UUP is designed to shrink the size of the cumulative updates normally released by creating a "differential" download package based on only the differences between the current build you are on and the new one.
What I noticed was that it took a while on Mobile from the time you clicked on check for updates, saw the new build and then the build actually starting to download. In fact for a few minutes I thought I may have experiencing the same 0% download problem that plagued build 14951.
I really can't say that the download itself or the update preparation phase were any quicker using UUP than previous builds. It still took about an hour to download, prep and update - over WiFi. Now sure my 2 year old Lumia 735 is not a rocket ship, but it's not an unnecessarily slow device either.
MS plans to move forward with UUP in the coming builds for both PC and Mobile- so we'll see if it truly speeds up the process. Especially on some of my low power devices like my Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet.
While all devices updated to 14959 fine - I did experience one small annoyance on my desktop. The MSN News, Money and Sports live tiles disappeared from the desktop after update. MSN Weather and all other live tiles were exactly where they were prior to the update on build 14955.
It was simple enough to re-add them since the apps themselves were still in the All Apps menu - but it shouldn't have happened. It did not happen on either my laptop, tablet or phone.
This opens up a new set of comments on the MSN apps and Live tiles. I'll use News as an example. So these apps are the latest UWP apps from MS and the current version I am running across all platforms is 4.16.22.0 released on Oct 26.
The News app has been around since Windows 8 released back in Oct of 2012 and while it along with all of the other "MSN" apps have certainly changed quite a bit since then, one of their main attributes is the live tile as a part of the "Metro" or "Modern UI" that MS introduced back then.
The problem is inconsistency. Sometimes the live tiles update well, sometimes they don't and sometimes they never do and so you just get a red News tile.
Similarly one of the newer features was relevance - so you saw an image on the tile, touched it or clicked on it and you were taken directly to that news item.
Sometimes it works - sometimes is doesn't.
Additionally trying to "reset" the start screen or the tiles isn't intuitive.
On Windows 10 Mobile you have the ability to restart the "start screen" by holding the back arrow and then closing Start - which forces a restart. Sometimes that helps refresh the tiles - sometimes not. With Windows 10 PC, the only option you have it to "reset" the app via Settings and that is buried in the settings app.
This is a part of the challenge with Windows 10. Sure these are just apps developed by a different team at MS and are part of the Store. But if MS can't get them to work consistently how can they ask 3rd party developers to do the same and be confident of the result ?
Since some 3rd party apps still haven't been updated to UWP - the tiles don't work at all. The whole point of Live tiles was to save you the effort of having to launch the app just to see recent content. Glance and Go. That was especially true with mobile and honestly was one of the true differentiators that MS had. But if it's not consistent, then you have to argue why have them at all.
The same problem exists for Mail and Calendar which has a hard time updating the live tile consistently and accurately to show you unread message count or rotate through actual unread messages. To me it's just sloppy.
And what's even funnier is that none of the Office apps use Live tiles at all.
And this whole thing is not just because I'm an Insider and am constantly installing new builds, the same problems exist on 14393 the Anniversary build. And it's been going on for 3 years now.
While MS can hold various customer and industry events and point to some new bells and whistles like Ink, Cortana, Hello, Surface Studio and Surface Dial, etc., if they can't consistently get the basics right, then nobody is going to care.
The point here is that Windows 10 is now it it's fourth development branch cycle since it's release in June of 2015. You would expect a higher level of consistency and stability in the "native" apps that MS includes in the core builds, plus it's own apps, available via the Store.
Hopefully the situation will improve over the coming months...
14959 contains about half a dozen or so fixes for both PC and Mobile.
Specifically for Mobile this release used MS's new Unified Update Platform (UUP) to deploy.
UUP is designed to shrink the size of the cumulative updates normally released by creating a "differential" download package based on only the differences between the current build you are on and the new one.
What I noticed was that it took a while on Mobile from the time you clicked on check for updates, saw the new build and then the build actually starting to download. In fact for a few minutes I thought I may have experiencing the same 0% download problem that plagued build 14951.
I really can't say that the download itself or the update preparation phase were any quicker using UUP than previous builds. It still took about an hour to download, prep and update - over WiFi. Now sure my 2 year old Lumia 735 is not a rocket ship, but it's not an unnecessarily slow device either.
MS plans to move forward with UUP in the coming builds for both PC and Mobile- so we'll see if it truly speeds up the process. Especially on some of my low power devices like my Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet.
While all devices updated to 14959 fine - I did experience one small annoyance on my desktop. The MSN News, Money and Sports live tiles disappeared from the desktop after update. MSN Weather and all other live tiles were exactly where they were prior to the update on build 14955.
It was simple enough to re-add them since the apps themselves were still in the All Apps menu - but it shouldn't have happened. It did not happen on either my laptop, tablet or phone.
This opens up a new set of comments on the MSN apps and Live tiles. I'll use News as an example. So these apps are the latest UWP apps from MS and the current version I am running across all platforms is 4.16.22.0 released on Oct 26.
The News app has been around since Windows 8 released back in Oct of 2012 and while it along with all of the other "MSN" apps have certainly changed quite a bit since then, one of their main attributes is the live tile as a part of the "Metro" or "Modern UI" that MS introduced back then.
The problem is inconsistency. Sometimes the live tiles update well, sometimes they don't and sometimes they never do and so you just get a red News tile.
Similarly one of the newer features was relevance - so you saw an image on the tile, touched it or clicked on it and you were taken directly to that news item.
Sometimes it works - sometimes is doesn't.
Additionally trying to "reset" the start screen or the tiles isn't intuitive.
On Windows 10 Mobile you have the ability to restart the "start screen" by holding the back arrow and then closing Start - which forces a restart. Sometimes that helps refresh the tiles - sometimes not. With Windows 10 PC, the only option you have it to "reset" the app via Settings and that is buried in the settings app.
This is a part of the challenge with Windows 10. Sure these are just apps developed by a different team at MS and are part of the Store. But if MS can't get them to work consistently how can they ask 3rd party developers to do the same and be confident of the result ?
Since some 3rd party apps still haven't been updated to UWP - the tiles don't work at all. The whole point of Live tiles was to save you the effort of having to launch the app just to see recent content. Glance and Go. That was especially true with mobile and honestly was one of the true differentiators that MS had. But if it's not consistent, then you have to argue why have them at all.
The same problem exists for Mail and Calendar which has a hard time updating the live tile consistently and accurately to show you unread message count or rotate through actual unread messages. To me it's just sloppy.
And what's even funnier is that none of the Office apps use Live tiles at all.
And this whole thing is not just because I'm an Insider and am constantly installing new builds, the same problems exist on 14393 the Anniversary build. And it's been going on for 3 years now.
While MS can hold various customer and industry events and point to some new bells and whistles like Ink, Cortana, Hello, Surface Studio and Surface Dial, etc., if they can't consistently get the basics right, then nobody is going to care.
The point here is that Windows 10 is now it it's fourth development branch cycle since it's release in June of 2015. You would expect a higher level of consistency and stability in the "native" apps that MS includes in the core builds, plus it's own apps, available via the Store.
Hopefully the situation will improve over the coming months...
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