Having shown off the WinPhone 5.0 at IFA a couple of months ago, Trekstor has now decided to throw its consumer future over to Indiegogo, with a project goal of 500,000 Euros. See below for details, quotes and an exclusive interview with the company.
The headline above is more of a confirmation than a revelation, of course, but it's still worth stating, if only to work out the phones that are still going to be supported. The sources here are independent tweets from Jason Howard and Brandon Le Blanc, senior managers on the Windows Insider programme. Below, I dig deep into timescales and support windows to find out what this means for some classic Lumias.
Today sees Microsoft release a Release Candidate for Windows 10 Mobile Fall Creators Update to the Fast and Slow Insiders rings. Interestingly, the build is labelled with 'feature2_rs3svc', implying 'Feature 2 branch, Redstone 3 Service', so clearly Microsoft considers this part of the whole Redstone 3 branch and package. Not surprisingly, since there's still an awful lot that's commmon between Desktop and Mobile.
One of the nice surprises arriving from the 'Fall Creators Update' arriving in the 'Release Preview' ring was discovering that Microsoft has allowed a number of classic Lumias, including the 735, 830, 930/Icon, and 1520, to stay on the Creators Update and essentially acquiring full 'production' status, in the manner of a Lumia 650 or 950. This is notable as it will keep such handsets going and supported for much longer, until Spring 2019 at least.
A second Insiders Fast ring update in a week (overnight) has confirmed to us that the (rather confusingly-named) 'Fall Creators Update' is indeed coming to Windows 10 Mobile, and to all phones that were 'Creators Update'-provisioned.
I thought it worth noting that Windows 10 Mobile Creators Update (originally codenamed 'Redstone 2') is now rolling out officially to 'production' users in the UK, with multiple people tweeting and emailing me over the last 12 hours to confirm this. The actual build is 15063.251. See below for plenty of helpful links that are relevant here.
Whatever Windows 10 Mobile-running phone you own, whatever its status, the chances are that you have a new OS build waiting for you in Settings right now. This is, of course, Microsoft's regular 'Patch Tuesday', even if they don't call it that, and I've quoted a few example version numbers to look out for.
The Windows 10 Mobile Creators Update is set to roll out from April 25 through June 2017, though there's in fact little to get excited about in terms of timing. 'Production' status regular users won't know it's coming and thus won't care, while enthusiasts reading this can... get it whenever they like, thanks to the 'Release Preview' Insiders ring.
As each new build of next year's Redstone 2 Creators Update for Windows 10 Mobile hit over the last few months, the 'Slow' Insider ring had stuck determinedly to mirroring the Redstone Anniversary Update 'Release Preview' builds. I'd been saying that it was only a matter of time before the 'Slow' ring got switched up to the next major OS version and this has now happened (last night). Changing the update landscape for many of our enthusiast Windows 10 Mobile devices.
We reported a while ago that new firmware was heading to Lumia 950 and 950 XL units across the world, but such hardware-specific rollouts are often a lot slower than we would like. In this case around 19 days to reach UK SIM-free units. Below is the changelog and some observations, including imaging improvements and double-tap-to-wake.
