A new build of Redstone 2 for Windows 10 Mobile for Fast ring Insiders! We've been living with some partly broken builds recently, but here's hoping that this one is more useable for those of us using the OS day to day. Update - YES: media controls are now sorted out! Note that the newly announced name is now being quoted widely, i.e. the 'Creators Update' (and yes, no apostrophe - yet!)

From the Microsoft blog post (albeit referring to several things which are PC-only at this point!):

The Windows 10 Creators Update

Last week, we held an event in New York to share our aspiration to empower a new wave of creativity with the Windows 10 Creators Update and new devices such as the Surface Studio and Surface Dial. You can catch up on all the details on the things we announced at the event by checking out this blog post from Terry Myerson. As I mentioned last week, Windows is an iceberg, the features that people “see” are quite a small percent of the engineering work that we do to enable new UI to be visible. Windows Insiders running the latest builds have already been trying out the Creators Update – including last week’s build (Build 14955). The new and exciting visible features you saw shown off at the event will start rolling out in builds in the coming weeks. Features such as the Paint 3D Preview are now available for Insiders to try right now! We’re excited to get the more of the new Creators Update features in the hands of Insiders in the next couple of months.

What’s new in Build 14959

Unified Update Platform: This build for Mobile is being published using our new update publishing system called Unified Update Platform (UUP). For more information on UUP – check out this blog post from Bill.

Other improvements and fixes for Mobile

• The data usage page in Settings via Settings > Network & wireless > Data usage has been updated with performance and UI improvements.
  
   
   
• We fixed issues preventing Insiders from adding cards to Wallet and paying using tap to pay.
• We fixed an issue resulting in being unexpectedly able to close Start in the task switcher.
• We fixed an issue resulting in certain options for default calling app via Settings > System > Phone > Default apps from being unexpectedly missing.
• We fixed an issue causing apps that play media in the background, such as Groove Music, to stop when Battery Saver turns on.
• We fixed an issue Insiders may have experienced where the phone would get into a state where copy/paste wouldn’t work until the device had been restarted.
• We fixed an issue where Settings might hang after unchecking “Let apps automatically use this VPN connection” in VPN Settings.

Known issues for Mobile

• If you used the previous ‘date change’ workaround to update to Build 14951 or Build 14955: Please don’t use it any longer! The Microsoft account (MSA) ticket on your device needs to expire and then you’ll be offered today’s build. If you changed your date by 30 years… you’ll want to do a device reset.
• You will be unable to install additional languages, keyboards, and speech packs on your phone for the next few weeks. If you have existing languages, keyboards, and speech packs installed – they will carry over when you update to new builds. You just can’t install any new ones. If you do a hard reset of your phone on these builds – you will also be unable to install additional languages, keyboards, and speech packs. You can use Windows Device Recovery Tool to go back to Windows Phone 8.1 or Windows 10 Mobile, install any languages, keyboards, and speech packs you need and then update to the latest build in the Fast ring as a workaround.

14959 is happily installing on my test phones. Phew! (after recent builds requiring jumping through hoops). Note that I've emboldened one line above - ignore the reference to 'Battery Saver', media playing apps were previously having their playback killed after merely a few minutes of activity. But resuming playback from Groove and podcast players and anything else using background audio now works perfectly. So whatever Microsoft has fixed behind the scenes has done the trick, whatever the state of your battery!

Of course, in the fulness of time we'll need a summary of what's new going from Redstone to Redstone 2 (Anniversary Update to Creators Update), but we won't have a full feature set or changelog for a while yet - this mobile OS has got legs, even if the number of licensees isn't overwhelming (though we had a new flagship device only yesterday). Settle down for the long haul, everyone....!

Anyone with an existing phone that's officially deemed Windows 10 Mobile compatible by Microsoft can join in the fun. The full list of phones includes Lumia 430, 435, 532, 535, 540, 635 (1GB RAM version), 640, 640 XL, 730/735, 830, 930, 1520, Icon, BLU Win HD w510u, BLU Win HD LTE x150q, and the MCJ Madosma Q501. Plus, of course, all the devices which have shipped with Windows 10 Mobile in the last year, of which the Lumia 550, 650, 950, 950 XL, Acer Jade Primo and HP Elite X3 are the highest profile.

In each case:

1. Upgrade to Windows 10 Mobile (if appropriate) using the Upgrade Advisor.
2. After at least one update cycle you should then be on the Anniversary Update (a.k.a. Redstone). Head into Settings/Update & Security/Windows Insider Programme
3. Join the Insiders programme and choose the 'Fast' level in the pick list.
4. Within a few hours your phone should be seeing the build mentioned above and you'll be running next year's mobile OS today. Fun, fun, fun....!