Technology Ramblings

Now that the Redstone 1 branch of Windows 10 development has ended with the release of the Anniversary Upgrade 1607 - Build 14393.5, the focus now turns to the Redstone 2 branch - which is expected to complete sometime in Spring of 2017.   The common POV is that will sometime in April. The big question is what will Redstone 2 bring to the table in terms of new features and capabilities ? With Redstone 1 - the big new features were directly addressed at the Build Conference in March.  They included: 1. A big emphasis and expansion of Microsoft Ink.  So more integration across more apps and some cool things like rulers and app relevance. 2. Cortana taking a bigger role - again with more integration across more apps -  like Skype - and access via the lock screen.  Also some backend capabilities like the Cortana Intelligence Engine. 3. Updates to MS Hello to support biometrics as well as integration with Edge for site logins. 4. BASH shell integration through a new partnership

On Friday, July 29 - MS annouced the release of Windows 10 Anniversary Upgrade to the the Windows Insider Release Preview ring.  This was part of the preparations for Aug 2 and also allowed those who were not interesting in getting all of the intermediate builds in Redstone to get the upgrade a few days early. Of all of the machines in my home, I intentionally left one at the Threshold 2 1511 10586 based release from November.  It was my wife's machine and I knew she would not tolerate getting the high frequency of new builds that the Fast Ring provided.   She did get all of the Cumulative Upgrades and so was at 10586.494 as of July 29. So I decided to go ahead with the upgrade.    But it was not as smooth as I expected.    My wife's MS account was registered as an Insider - so I went into Settings and turned on Insider and entered her account info.    But almost immediately I ran into a problem, where Windows kept stating that "Your Security Settings need Atte

IDC recently published their Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker data for Q2 2016. In Q2 of 2016 343.3M smartphones were sold.  Similar to Q1 this was an extremely modest gain of only 0.3% over 2015 Q2 sales of 342.4M units. The top five vendors maintained their ranking - so Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Oppo and vivo in that order.  #1 Samsung sold 77M units up 5.5% over 2015 and increased their overall market share to 22.4%.   #2  Apple once again saw a dramatic decline in sales of 15% - selling 40.4M units compared to 47.5M units last year and it's market share dropped to 11.8% from 13.9%.  The 40.4M units was Apple's lowest unit total in 7 quarters. The big gainers where the next 3 vendors - all Chinese focusing on the home market - where Apple was the big loser seeing a 33% decline in unit sales year over year from 13.2M units in 2015 to 8.8M in 2016.   #3 Huawei sold 32.1M units and increased market share to 9.4%. Huawei is not only doing well in China but is s

Monday afternoon MS released another Windows 10 Cumulative update to Fast Ring Insiders for PC & Mobile.  This update bumps the build to 14393.5 My biggest question is why ? The updated seems to have addressed just two or three issues with some repeats of 14393.3 listed items.  Here is the official list: We have improved reliability and performance of Microsoft Edge with AdBlock and LastPass extensions enabled. These extensions should continue to work after installing other extension updates from the Store.  We fixed an issue causing battery to drain due to runaway CPU processes while a device is idle. We also fixed a battery life issue due to the proximity sensor always running on some devices.  We fixed an issue causing Store apps to stop launching due to a licensing issue. We have fixed an issue that results in Windows Updates being delayed on systems with Connected Standby. We fixed an issue where the Korean IME would not have the correct composition on some custom T

Late on Friday, MS released a cumulative update to Windows 10 Build 14393 which bumped the version to 14393.3. 14393.3 addressed the following specific issues. We have fixed an issue where keyboard input on some Windows tablet devices would not rotate to landscape normally. We have fixed an issue that results in Windows Updates being delayed on systems with Connected Standby. We have fixed a problem with text input with Korean Input Method Editor (IME) in some Store apps. We fixed an issue causing Store apps to stop launching due to a licensing issue.  We have fixed an issue with apps that synchronize using DDE for inter-process communication As always I install the update across desktop, laptop, tablet and phone platforms and in all cases the update was smooth.  On my Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet I was not experiencing the keyboard issue described.  And on any platform I was not experiencing any Store crashes. I can report on Mobile that an update to the Mail & Calendar

This week AdDuplex published their latest usage statistics for Windows Phone/Mobile. Worldwide - older 2 series (520, 920) 3 series (535, 630, 635, etc) and 4 series (640, 640XL) devices dominate the top 10 with 68.8% of all devices and none of the newer 5 series devices (550, 650, 950) showing up in that top 10. Nokia/Microsoft devices still dominate usage @ nearly 97% of all devices with Samsung, HTC, Huawei and BLU scrambling for the remaining 3%.   The new Acer & HP devices have not shown up yet as they are just released.   We probably won't see any indication of their existence until the September report. Overall - Windows 10 Mobile usage has only inched up 1% in the last month to 11.9% of all devices with Windows 8.1 @ nearly 80%.  The UK, Italy and Germany do have higher acceptance rates with Germany the clear leader approaching 30%.  That 11.9% upgrade rate is a little more than half of the estimated 20% of PCs running Windows 10.  I don't expect this to rise

Today MS released Windows 10 Build 14393 to Fast Ring Insiders for PC and Mobile. Just as with 14390 - 14393 according the the announcement contained a relatively small number of fixes. Just 2 for PC We have improved the reliability of Start, Cortana, and Action Center.  You should now be able to mount iPods as USB mass-storage devices. and 3 for Mobile We fixed an issue resulting in rapid battery drain when Visual Voicemail syncs voicemail messages on Dual SIM devices like the Lumia 950 XL.  We also fixed an issue causing some battery drain on older devices like the Lumia 535, 640, 735, 830, 930 and Icon.  We fixed the issue causing Voice Recorder to not show up consistently as an option for Call Recording. A app update was released last Friday that fixes this issue. Make sure you have the app version 10.1607.1931.0.  The announcement also called out some known issues with BlueScreen reboots on Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 related to a camera driver that they ex

This morning HP announced pricing and availability for its Elite X3 Windows 10 Mobile solution.  MS and HP announced the X3 back at the MWC in February and is a part of new MS enterprise focus with Windows Mobile and Continuum. According to the HP Press release, the X3 phone itself will go on sale in late July with availability on Aug 29.   The X3 phone itself will sell for $699, which is a fair price for a device that sports the latest Snapdragon 820 CPU, 5.96" WQHD 2560 x 1440 screen, 4GB RAM and 64Gb of internal storage with SD expansion up to 2TB.  The X3 will also support a Dual SIM configuration without SD expansion.  I t also supports 16MP rear and 8Mp front cameras and both fingerprint and retinal Windows Hello security support.  The X3 has a massive 4150mAh battery along with the unique POGO contacts for 3rd party attachments. I had originally estimated the X3 to be in the $750 - $800 range - so $699 is better than expected. By comparison an Apple iPhone 6s Plus

At the CES in January, Acer announced the Liquid Jade Primo.  This premium Windows Phone was part of 2 new partnerships that Microsoft developed along with HP around Windows 10 Mobile and specifically the Continuum feature set that allows for extension of the Windows 10 screen to an external monitor. While the Liquid Jade Primo has been available in Asia and Europe since spring, this week it showed up here in the US on the Microsoft Store Online and is actually available at some local Microsoft stores including one in my area. The $649 Bundle includes the phone itself, a Continuum Dock, Wireless Keyboard/Mouse and Power Supply. The Liquid Jade Primo follows the Lumia 950 "Standard" of a SnapDragon 808 CPU, 3Gb of RAM, 32GB of internal storage and SD support up to 128GB, but has a larger 5.5" with lower resolution screen FHD screen at 1920 x 1080 versus the 5.2" 2560 x 1440 for the 950. A key part of the bundle is the Dock.  It has HDMI, USB-C and USB 3.0 con

Today July 15, MS released Windows 10 Build 14390 for both PC & Mobile to Fast Ring Insiders.   From the announcement of the release - this build appears to have corrected just 1 issue on PC  You should no longer see the error code 0x80004005 when enabling Developer Mode on the “For Developers” Settings page if your PC is using a non-EN-US language. and listed none for Mobile.   There were a few known issues that were not repaired - such as an Hyper-V issue impacting Windows 2016 Tech Preview VMs with Secure Boot enabled for PC and some Voice Recorder and Wallet issues for Mobile.  But these have been out there for a couple of weeks now. The announcement also seemed to indicate that additional builds are coming - which surprised me.  I'm all for addressing issues and issuing builds that reflect the fixes, but it seems a little odd to get a build for what appears to be a single issue fix.   MS also issued the July firmware updates for Surface devices today as

Linux Desktops OS have been around for a while.  One of the best distros out there recently released their most recent build - Linux Mint 18 - or "Sarah" with either the Cinnamon or MATE Interfaces. Over the years I've testing various Linux Desktop options from Ubuntu and others and Linux Mint always provide the easiest transition for most users.   Basically it looks and feels like any modern GUI operating system.  Like Windows it has a start button in the lower left hand corner along with a task bar that contains quick launchers for apps like Firefox, a Command Prompt and a file system explorer.   It comes with the long standing Thunderbird Mail app as well as instant messaging apps like Pidgin and HexChat. It also comes with Office Libre, a complete productivity suite - so word processing, spreadsheet & presentations along with media apps for music, videos, etc.   And it's all for free !   You can go to https://www.linuxmint.com/  d

On July 12, MS released Windows 10 build 14388 to Fast Ring Insiders for PC & Mobile. This is the 3rd sign off build released in July as we approach the Anniversary release date of Aug 2. The 14388 announcement mentioned 44 fixes are in this build but only called out 4 specifically for PC We have updated the Store to version 11606.1001.39 with bug fixes.   We fixed an issue where Narrator keyboard shortcuts would not work after locking your PC and then logging back in and going to your desktop.   We fixed an issue where Narrator would not read the date and time under Settings > Time & language > Date & time.  We fixed a TPM driver crash that could result in the device bug-checking (bluescreen) and rebooting.  and only 3 for Mobile We have updated the Store to version 11606.1001.39 with bug fixes.   We fixed the issue causing the keyboard to not show up consistently for InPrivate mode on Microsoft Edge.   We fixed an issue that could result in an

Today IDC released it's initial Q2 PC Sales numbers for the US which showed some surprising growth numbers by the Big 3 OEMS, HP, Dell and Lenovo. Overall US sales grew 4.9% to just over 17M units with each of the big 3 showing double digit gains.  The loser this quarter was Apple who experienced a 7.6% decline in sales.  IDC made an interesting comment regarding Apple in that it's line appeared aged when compared to the latest offerings by the big 3.   Considering the broad portfolio of new offerings from the big 3, especially around the new 6th Gen Core CPU and DDR4 RAM, and a new round of ultrabooks, the Big 3 have definitely caught Apple in terms of innovation.  Three years ago I reviewed an Apple Macbook Air which at the time was the state of the art in ultrabook.  Today there are many alternative choices especially in the new 2 in 1 format and in many cases with better specs at a lower cost  This is especially true at the lower end of the market.  Today, you can buy

On Saturday July 9 - MS released Windows 10 Build 14385 for PC and Mobile to Fast Ring Insiders.   This was a bit surprising since I can't ever remember MS releasing a public build on a weekend. As with 14383 - this is another sign off build as we run towards the Anniversary release date of Aug 2.  Similar to 14383 there are no evaluation markings nor evaluation notation in the Windows Edition version in Settings. According to the announcement 14385 for PC only contains about 10 fixes and Mobile only 3.  Obviously there are more - but not documented.    I can report that one of the fixes listed is working correctly which was some clipping in Chrome when maximized.   What has also been interesting is I've been getting Insider quests requesting feedback on Chrome.   If there is one part of Windows 10 on PC & Mobile that MS needs to address it's browsing. Regardless of the new add-on capabilities that have been added to Edge in Redstone - I just don't use it an