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.
Well, it didn't take a rocket scientist to see this one coming. Back when the Windows 10 Mobile-running HP Elite x3 was launched, it came with a custom virtualisation solution from HP (actually layered on top of Frame), the idea being that employees out and about could then run enterprise Win32 applications remotely on their Continuum display or HP Lap Dock. But Workspace was slow, clunky and expensive... and now no more.
Expending zero energy on thinking up a new branch title, Microsoft has announced at BUILD 2017 that the next major Windows 10 branch (for most form factors) will be the 'Fall Creators Update'. I guess this makes sense since there's still an emphasis on creating, in this case desktop-hosted story 'remixing' (photos and videos), but it's still a somewhat weak title, if you ask me. The future for phones and mobile in general is yet to be announced, though I've got a feature on the way which will hopefully reveal all.
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.
Although Microsoft never gave an exact date for the start of the official Windows 10 Mobile upgrade for existing Windows Phone 8.1 users, it's fair to say that its hints were originally for late 2015 - which then slipped a little. However, at least Q1, 2016 was achieved, if only by a couple of weeks, with the arrival of Windows 10 (10586.164) for a whole clutch of devices, including the popular Lumia 640, 735, 830 and 930. There's an initial hurdle, presumably to make sure that only keener users get Windows 10, and then this will be replaced by the full 'pushed' update later.
In an announcement, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made yet another 'tough' round of job trimming at the software giant, resulting in almost 8,000 job losses (from around 100,000 total), many of them in the phone division (i.e. producing feature phones and Lumias). See below for the release text and comment.
Somewhat unexpectedly, given the whole 'One Windows' mantra surrounding the 'Windows 10' name, Microsoft has volunteered details of how the OS will be broken down from a distribution and classification standpoint, announcing no less than seven (count 'em) 'editions'. All a bit confusing, I'll quote from the Windows blog below, to help explain...
BUILD, Microsoft's developer conference, got underway yesterday evening in the USA, with a number of announcements that will be of interest to anyone with Windows on their smartphone. Much of it is looking into the future, of course, many months at the earliest, but it does give a good glimpse of where Microsoft is heading with Windows 10 on phones, tablets and desktops. See below for a summary.
WinHEC stands for the Windows Hardware Engineering Community (WinHEC) and is where Microsoft and invited companies and 'experts' come together to 'educate, facilitate the exchange of ideas and give people a venue to share best practices and discuss future opportunities'. This year it was held on the 18th-19th March and details of what was announced (mainly around Windows 10 for PCs, tablets and phones) and discussed have been trickling out online. A summary is, we thought, in order.
At the showcase event in Redmond in the USA, Joe Belfiore has briefly demonstrated 'Windows 10' on phones, using a Lumia 1520, with updates to the Start screen, application list, settings, messaging experience, user input, and more. The key point, echoing the shared technical core announcement of Windows Phone 8, was the commonality of Windows across all devices. In this instance, the emphasis is on the consumer experience, exemplified by the arrival of numerous "Universal" applications that work across PC, tablet and smartphone (Office, Outlook, Calendar, People, Photos, Music, and Xbox, among others).
