In a previous editorial almost two months ago, I looked in text and diagrammatic form at Windows 10 Mobile's future through the 'Redstone 4' era, concluding that a perhaps surprising amount of commonality will still exist with its desktop counterpart, through all the UWP applications and the Universal App Platform (UAP). Looking further ahead, another full quarter, I want to see what happens as we head into 'Redstone 5', in Autumn 2018.
Reader Richard Kooij, from The Netherlands, setting off for his vacation, sent in an involved question all about the best settings for Windows 10 Camera on the Lumia 950 range - and, rather than replying just to him, I thought the points raised were interesting enough to warrant a full feature/tutorial that everyone might like to keep bookmarked.
Upon the Alcatel IDOL 4 Pro's official announcement, tech blogs were quick to ridicule the product's existence and price point and, while I can see where they're coming from, I think they're absolutely wrong. At least for the Windows phone enthusiast (they do exist, our own AAWP community is evidence of this) - here's my thinking. And the reasons why I just put down £420 of my own money...
One of the complaints in my feature on why Windows 10 Mobile is superb for business and not so comprehensive for consumers, was that there was no way to play Amazon (Prime) Video. As it turns out, that's not quite true... In fact, it's perfectly possible, but you have to know the trick. And yes, it's a trick and not at all obvious. Read on...
In the spirit of throwing myself wholly into living the road warrior life, I tried out 24 hours with only Windows 10 Mobile - no cheats, no laptops, no Android backups. Just W10M for everything, on the Lumia 950 XL, for work, personal stuff, entertainment. As at mid-July 2017, who is the OS best suited for? My findings match Microsoft's own projections for the OS. I still don't agree with stopping making the 950 range, but the withdrawal from consumers in favour of business and enterprise is... probably for the best, if my experience is anything to go by.
What's this? An application last updated in 2014 that's still better than the first party solution from Microsoft? Well, yes, somewhat interestingly, for anyone else who has been frustrated by the limited real time traffic routing in Windows 10 Maps, I was determined to find out how well the old Waze solution worked on the latest W10M Creators Update. Turns out rather well, with only a few caveats.
The tech media has been falling over itself in the last week to talk about the ten year anniversary of the Apple iPhone, that moment when Steve Jobs revealed the shape of smartphones to come. All singing, all dancing? It really wasn't. Revisionist history says that the iPhone introduced all the features we see in today's smartphones, but that's not accurate...
In terms of imaging, the legendary Lumia 950 XL is still very relevant in terms of specs in 2017, I'd argue, even if it's hard to buy one new. In this case it's pitched at the new imaging darling of the tech media, the HTC U11, with multi-frame exposure and combination, latest GPU, OIS, large 1.4 micron pixels and a f/1.7 aperture. Can the 950 XL maintain its crown as the best camera phone in the world?
"Microsoft abandons Windows 10 Mobile" is a news headline that we've heard a lot over the last year, fuelled by the tragic termination of first party hardware. And by a third party scene that's almost non-existent. But what's interesting is how the OS updates have continued. Anniversary Update (Redstone), Creators Update (Redstone 2) and beyond, with a thriving Insiders test build scene. So has Microsoft really abandoned the OS?
My series 'Anatomy of a Lumia photo' (here's #1) has proved popular, even though I cheated with the HP Elite x3 instead for #2. #3 had a lovely clock, #4 was all about framing, in #5, I got down and dirty with nature, and in #6 I had a rosy dilemma to solve... Here in #7 I take an astonishly satisfying low light snap, learning to 'trust my Lumia'...
