Welcome back to our weekly “Windows 10 Mobile news recap” series where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Microsoft’s mobile operating system. Let’s get started.
According to AdDuplex, the Windows phone platform landscape now stands at Windows Phone 8.1 with an 81.1 percent share of usage and Windows 10 Mobile beating out Windows Phone 8 to claim second at 7.7 percent. While barely beating a three-year-old operating system install may not sound impressive, AdDuplex notes that “15.2% of the devices that are capable of running Windows 10 Mobile already are.”
We learned this past week that Starbucks was working on an official Windows Phone app and it is coming soon. Obviously, there’s not much more to add to this other than how important the app is for Starbucks as a company and business. Starbucks reportedly handles 1 out of 5 transactions through their mobile app’s in-built payment method. It’s also important to note that the Microsoft Band has a Starbucks app designed for it, but the connected Windows phone hasn’t and won’t until the app launches later this year.
There’s a new feature in the latest internal build of Redstone for Windows 10 Mobile, and it’s a pretty nice one. The new feature lets Windows 10 Mobile users change where they want their audio to play when they get a phone call – also, it lets them choose to have speaker phone automatically turn on when the phone is moved away from their ear. More on that here.
After debuting in Spring 2013 on iOS devices, popular video chatting service Glide finally became available on Windows phones last month. While the app is currently available on both Windows 10 Mobile and Windows Phone 8.1, the Glide team is now sharing in a blog post that it’s pushing an upgraded version of the video messenger app that is “fully leveraging Windows 10 Mobile capabilities and enhanced user experience.”
Microsoft pushed out a new update to Outlook Mail and Calendar this past week that brings improved email rendering. Speaking of new updates, Microsoft rolled out Windows 10 Redstone build 14295 to both desktop and mobile testers this past week. A bunch of older Lumia handsets, as well as the Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL and Blu Win HD devices received Windows 10 Mobile build 14291 this past week, which is amazing news. You can read more about that here.
Stay tuned for another exciting week of Windows 10 Mobile news.
