Windows 10 Mobile races to summer with useful facelift Say what you like about Microsoft, but it has created a really worthy successor to the Japanese game show Endurance. Microsoft’s perpetual beta test programme “Windows Insider” overnight delivered new code with which to torture the most hardy contestants. The Windows 10 code branch – codenamed Redstone, but formally called “ …
Dear ole Andrew has been amongst the most fair and balanced reviewers of Windows that I have seen, finding generous things to say about most O/S updates. If he pastes W10mobile here, there's probably a good reason.
I blocked the Win10 upgrade for my Win8 mobile. I rely too much on the device's day-to-day operation to allow Microsoft to bugger around with it on a daily basis.
JJ Carter - your posting history shows a consistent pattern of sneering at anything on this site that criticizes Microsoft. You regularly impugn the motives and trustworthiness of anyone who makes adverse reference to Windows 10.
So please, enlighten us with your fair and balanced response to this article.
Point out, with credible sources if you will, the specific items in Andrew's review that are inaccurate.
Or are you merely content to continue your de haut en bas pronouncements, with nothing constructive to add?
>please, enlighten us with your fair and balanced response to this article.<
Well most of the article is sneers and sarcasm, but lets take the statement 'The Windows 10 code branch...is earmarked for summer release on the desktop, but lags behind on mobile'. In reality, Windows 10 Mobile Insider is Build 14322, the Windows 10 preview which came out last week was Build 14314. It's because MSFT have taken the pain for Windows 10 to use the "OneCore" code base that builds are in sync across the platforms.
In reality, Windows 10 Mobile Insider is Build 14322, the Windows 10 preview which came out last week was Build 14314.
Yet unlike the desktop platform it's still in beta... insofar as the permanent revolution that are updates on Windows 10 on whatever platform can be labelled as alpha, beta, or whatever.
You do understand that even though the build numbers are similar, the experience can be very different on different platforms, don't you? So much so that one platform can be said to be lagging behind the other in terms of features and usability.
>Yet unlike the desktop platform it's still in beta<
I anticipate you run only Linux Mint. So FYI, Builds 14322 for mobile and 14314 are both Insider releases.
Windows 10 Build 10588.218 is production across all devices that retailed with Windows 10.
>You do understand that even though the build numbers are similar, the experience can be very different on different platforms, don't you?<
If you read the what's new, the features and fixes are the same across devices.
I'll do it for him David:
"Say what you like about Microsoft, but it has created a really worthy successor to the Japanese game show Endurance. Microsoft’s perpetual beta test programme “Windows Insider” overnight delivered new code with which to torture the most hardy contestants."
That's the sort of thing I'd expect from a non-technical publication.
If you've chosen the beta stream you have only yourself to blame for what you're going through.
If you find bugs in the production stream, then you have a valid complaint.
And a release is only "stabilized" when support for it ends. That is how it has been in IT for the past 35 years at least. "Stabilized" means abandoned and no longer supported, no further fixes, going all the way back to IBM OS/VS1 days.
Overall, I really enjoy Andrew's articles. And generally I enjoy his humor. It is just occasionally this sort of thing creeps in.
Have to agree with the other repliers, I've disagreed with a lot of what AO has posted about Windows Mobile over the past few months, but there is nothing in this article to criticise. It's a statement of new features, a warning about poor battery life and praise for the OS looking more attractive.
If you want to read anti-MS propaganda with no basis for it, try reading some of Chris Merriman's columns on the Inquirer.
Win 3.1 & Win 9x
The designers should try them, Takes 2 seconds to load Win 3.x in a VM on a 14 year old laptop.
They may think minimalist and pretty, but UX wise it's moronic.
Solid shapes.
Colour when needed.
Highlight and shadow to show if pressed in or waiting to press, or grey all round for disabled.
No need to to go Skeumorphic or photo-realistic.
Just like I can on my Windows Phone 8.1 device you mean?
I am a big fan of WP8.1, especially as it ticks a lot of the right boxes on cost v security as a business device (more secure than cheap Android, less costly than secure iPhone). However MS have really dropped the ball with W10Mobile; forcing an OS to market before it's ready just to drive the "it's all one platform" mantra.
I'm keeping Win 8.1 on my 640 until the loss of Here Maps is replaced with a good Satnav option. And until I hear what other users think of it.
Meanwhile I'm really puzzled about the comments related to the Win 10 next version ( insider preview) because they so often don't seem to differentiate between the stable version just starting to appear as an update in the last week or so and the "insider" betas that are intended to be ropey, buggy and rough round the edges. It would be strange if they were not.
Here Maps has not gone in Windows 10. Microsoft licence the Here Maps map data. The only change is that the Here GPS navigation app has gone and been replaced with a slightly more functional Microsoft branded one. GPS navigation in 8.1 was a little clunky but adequate. Very adequate if you factor in that you can use it offline. In Windows 10 it's even better ("exceptionally adequate"?). The only feature I miss is the old Here app used to show the number of minutes delay due to traffic. If that's in the Microsoft version I haven't found it yet.
It "ticks" me off when people voluntarily choose the beta stream and then complain that they get beta versions with bugs.
You cannot complain about bugs in the beta stream -- you can and should document them and report them back to the vendor.
If you're in the beta stream you should be trying to do things that expose bugs.
Bugs in the stable stream, yes those we can complain about.
Complaining about bugs in the beta stream indicates ignorance of how progress is made.
So you could remind yourself to look at a calming photo of kittens at a preset time. Who wouldn’t find that useful?
What can only be called "GlaDOS-style service delivery sarcasm", containing a strong hint of rapid decay of intellect and infrastructure out in the real world, just behind the freshly placed plaster panel, seems to have become a permanent feature of the 21st century.
My rant will probably include calling them 'Micro$haft' or 'Microsux' or some other humerous derivative of their name. I will definitely be comparing Windows mobile 10 with Android, having used neither to any useful degree, and I will posit that 'you can't polish a turd' so many times, people will think I have a deeply unhealthy scatalogical obsession. And I'll feel a literary failure if I can't get a sadnad or two in there. Finally, my rant will add nothing at all of interest to the general debate and will simply be another small waste of disk space somewhere out there.
Do I have the forum's permission to continue?
Permission granted. It seems like the Registers editorial board is currently keen to polish its "Biting the hand that feeds IT" byline. As such we are seeing a number of articles across the site that are attempting to be hard hitting but really amount to little more than fluffy noise. By being somewhat unreasonable they generate a lot of forum argument too which El Reg no doubt sees as being successful. Contrast this to the weekly article by Alistair Dabbs which often generates lots of forum comment .... because he write good articles.
"For business users, W10M introduces support for USB Ethernet adapters for Continuum.
"Not all adapters are supported yet – more will be added in a future update," Microsoft explains."
I highly doubt any business user would rely on that (sans emergency) - if you want a really versatile yet highly mobile business tool from MS my Surface Book is *the* one to get, I think (provided you can get over the shocking price tag.) I heard good things about Surface 4 as well so that might be an option.
Win10 phone, with eth? No, thanks. :)
Given that the current Win10 nags at me to upgrade from Win8.1, then fails after it has blown my data allowance. I wonder if M$ have really lost the plot or been taken over by human hating aliens. Cause is some obscure software service error. PC is new so it can take Win10.. PCBSD installed OK, mostly. Linux Mint Makes one wonder if Solaris 11 and Virtual box instance of WinXP is looking good for home use.
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