This is a UWP app, as the name suggests, and is for any phone upgraded to (or running natively) Windows 10 Mobile. Since the last time we featured 'our' app, back in August, here's the changelog:
- The app is now associated as an 'App for Websites' - so you can choose to use the app to view any links to allaboutwindowsphone.com, opened from external apps (like your favourite newsreader).*
- Added the ability to pin individual articles to the start screen.
- Live tile notifications are now 'chasable', which will mean you are automatically taken to the article that was showing when you clicked the tile. You can turn this off or find out more from the Settings > Live Tile page.
- More improvements to live tile notifications.
- Added some extra cache options to the Settings > Cache page.
- Fixed a bug that was preventing the tile notifications from being cleared correctly when the app was resumed from the background.
- Loads more and long overdue bug fixes from over three months’ worth of crash reports! :)
* see below
Here are some salient and relevant screenshots of the new version of AAWP Universal in action, though see some caveats in the description and text below:
Any story can now be pinned to your Start screen, just use the '...' menu, as shown above left; the story then appears as a headline and with an associated graphic as a tile at the bottom of your Start layout, as shown on the right, in the centre (the left one is the main AAWP Universal tile, cycling through recent stories).
One of the additions for this new version is 'Chaseable' live tiles, wherein when you tap on a live tile story you're taken directly to that story in the app - this is turned off by default but can be enabled in Settings/Live tile; (right) W10M AU's 'apps with websites' featured is now supported and turned on by default...
...which means that, in theory, you can tap on an AAWP headline in any external application (e.g. Nextgen Reader here) and you'll be taken through to the appropriate full story and comments in the AAWP Universal app.
Note the 'in theory' bit above. Joe and I have been testing the 'apps-for-websites' functionality on various phones and OS versions, with mixed results. Data points welcomed from readers here, since at the moment we have a less than 50% success rate. And note that applications like Twitter/Tweetium (etc.) which use link shortening internally within the service won't work at all with this system, since the first time Edge sees the URL it's not the full original address. [Update: it seems as if functionality is linked to https protocols, so be patient, work is ongoing!]
The 'chaseable live tile' idea is a bit bizarre really - in that what it does (across all participating W10M Anniversary Update apps) should really have been how live tiles behaved since the very beginnings of the OS. After all, you see a news story that interests you, so you tap through - and find yourself on a completely different (e.g.) more recent story. Still, better late than never and more and more Windows 10 Mobile applications and their live tiles are now supporting 'chaseable' functionality.
You can grab or update 'AAWP Universal' from the Store here, it's a free download. Why not add your own rating of 'AAWP Universal' (in the Store) and leave a text review? It all helps discoverability!
Comments welcome for Joe, he'll read and take it all in, we promise!
PS. By the way, aside from Rafe being in the podcasts, virtually all the content for AAWP is now being written by me, as you've probably gathered. I/we'd love to have some more guest articles, especially over the summer, so do please get in touch if there's a topic, device or application that you feel strongly about. You can reach me at slitchfield@gmail.com .
