Later this morning, likely around 10:00 AM PST today, we should see the next preview for Windows 10 for Phone. This will be the 2nd release of the preview for phones, following on the first release that happened back in February. This update will have a wide range of Lumia phones which it will work on – virtually all of them – and all indications are this build will be far superior to the that first release with a huge number of bug fixes, new features and applications. And while I certainly don’t want to be a sourpuss about it, I would like to remind everyone that what we see today in Windows 10 for Phone will very much still be in beta. Not everything is going to work and there will be issues. Unless you are willing to put up with those issues, it may be best to wait to installed it.
The update today to Windows 10 for Phone should include a lot of new features and apps. I fully expect to see the new Outlook Mail application (and its separate calendar app) in the build along with improvements to nearly every area of the platform. We should also see improvements in overall performance and stability, something that the first build struggled with overall. As I put in my initial thoughts on the first build, on my Lumia 635, it was quite slow at times and certainly not stable enough to even be considered for a day-to-day use. While I expect that will improve with this build, I’m not necessarily sure if that lagging performance will be completely resolved. I also expect we will see random app crashes and other issues which is the normal course of beta testing.
Which brings me to the point of this post. I still do not expect it to be ready for day-to-day, daily driver phone use. If you can’t or are unwilling to put up with these challenges, I do recommend not installing it, even if it is available for your Lumia phone. If you decide to update your phone, be tolerant and report the issues. That’s the only way the platform will improve.
As for me, I will be installing it on my daily phone, my Lumia 1320. I’m a masochist like that. But I will also be reporting every bug I find in it, assuming that they will be addressed in the next update. I will of course be posting my findings and any suggestions (or warnings) over the course of the next few days.
So who’s excited?! 🙂
