Well, late on September 14th, Gabe Aul (a great person to follow on twitter) and his team released build 10536.1004 onto what is called the fast ring, for insiders, people beta testing Windows 10. It was a very lengthy process to upgrade since they needed to give us two builds before the 10536 build would get recognized as an update. So after 3+ hours of updating and hand holding my phone during that time, restarting when needed and watching for when to check for the update, it is finally installed. I must say it, this build is a very good one, of course the best yet since we are building to the release and it sounds like they are announcing some Windows 10 Mobile phones October 6.
This build has a number of fixes, many I do not care much about, like languages and voice control and quiet hours is fixed, here is a blog post talking about all of the fixes. That being said, there are a few changes that are awesome. First mobile hot spot is fixed again, which has been a sticking point for me, I do not use it much but when I want it I need it. Next is the ability to change sounds for each application that has a notification, so even text messages, outlook emails, outlook calendar, and other email apps now have the ability to have a different sound, AWESOME! Another fix seems to be in the accessibility area, magnifier is way better than the last time I used it, you can zoom any where on the phone, even change the zoom, and the phone is still functional under the zoom, so you could zoom in on a button and then press it and it works. This all works through two finger tapping, which starts zooming, two finger drag to shift point of view, and two finger tap and hold and then move your hand up and down the screen to increase or decrease the zoom, amazing. Another change, which has been haunting me for a while is the photos app, it has been useless at times and then the pics would not show up on the tile, so I went out and bought photos+ (I hate ads, especially the full screen ones! so I shelled out the 1$ or so for pro) but it actually worked really well while the photos app was broken. Now the photos app actually fires off correctly, and the pics show up on the tile, woohoo, but that isn’t even the best of it, this new app is really quite nice. It has albums again, it has the ability to look on onedrive, including inside the folders there, and it even can look at both your device and sdcard individually. Heck it even has the ability to turn on and off onedrive from showing in your camera feed. The app seems quite polished now, compared to even just one build earlier. But hey, we are looking at a beta version of Windows and there has to be problems, right?
Yes, there are issues, some people are losing the ability to text message, I think the app is disappearing and installing skype seems to help some people. I have also seen some issues with apps getting stuck in update la la land, where the app is updated but then errors out and never gets installed, and the app can no longer be executed, I have noticed it on Asphalt 8 and My Notes Pro, so far. Other apps seemed to work just fine. Another thing that is not quite right is boom sound is still missing, as is the ability to turn on the screen by double tapping, both of these are within the extras menu, so maybe they will make a comeback, but on my HTC One M8 they are lost.
All in all, this build is really quite good and I recommend it to people on the fence about joining insiders program, it is way more stable than ones in the past and has many features that we need in everyday phones. Now, if they would just put in the ability to remind me I have missed a call or text like every 5 minutes like an Iphone, I would be thrilled, but as it stands now I am fairly close the being thrilled with this build.
Again this is build 10536.1004 on an HTC One M8.
