Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview build for Windows Insiders on the Fast ring today – Build 10136. There are a couple of things that you’ll need to pay close attention to in order to upgrade to this build. The first is that we are only offering it to phones that are running Windows Phone 8.1 and opted in to the Windows Insider Fast ring
. What this means for you:
If you are running the previous build offered to the Fast ring (10080) and you want to get this build you will need to go back to Windows Phone 8.1 via the Windows Phone Recovery Tool first. Once you’re up and running on Windows Phone 8.1, go to the Windows Insider app and select Insider Fast again. This is required because of a migration bug affecting upgrades from 10080 to this build so we are not supporting that upgrade path. We know this is a little bit painful but we didn’t want to make you wait any longer to get a new build and decided (with help from Windows Insiders following me on Twitter) not to hold for those migration issues to be fixed. Some of you previously had to go through 2 “hops” to get to the latest build on your phone. We’ve made this better and you will be able to upgrade directly to the latest build in a single hop regardless of which Windows Phone 8.1 build you’re starting from.
If you’re on build 10080 and don’t want to flash back to 8.1 to get this build, you don’t have to do anything. You won’t be offered this build but your phone will still be configured for the next one, and we do expect the next build to have the migration issue fixed so you’ll be able to upgrade directly.
For those of you that do choose to make the jump to this build it is SUPER IMPORTANT TO READ THIS: At the end of the upgrade the Lock screen will appear frozen without the date and time for up to 10 minutes. Please be patient and let it sit – eventually the date and time will appear and it will allow you to unlock your phone. There is a post-upgrade migration status screen missing, which normally would show you that it was making progress.
As always, please be sure to read through all the known issues below before you upgrade.
Here is what’s new
Tons of fit and finish changes: There are far too many subtle changes in the UX to cover. You’ll notice some obvious ones right away, like the PIN pad is now transparent and slides up over your Lock screen image instead of displacing it. You’ll see many changes to fonts, icons, layout, etc. and the UX will feel more complete than what you used in 10080. We’re doing a lot of refinement to the UX right now and you should see more of that work in the next build we flight.
Improvements to Cortana: Cortana’s experience has gone through a rich set of improvements and is now very close to our final design. We’ve made adjustments to cards in Cortana’s homepage and in the hamburger menu. We listened to feedback from Windows Insiders and added the dark theme colors to Cortana’s UI to make our UI more cohesive with the rest of the OS. Tracking of your flights and packages has also been enabled so whenever you get an e-mail with flight or package information they show up in the Cortana experience and Cortana will also alert you about them. Alerts for going to work, going home and the airport are also enabled again. Further you can ask questions to weather, currency information, stock quotes and more and get the answers directly inline. That makes it easy to quickly check on multiple locations or stock tickers. To explore further and get the full experience you can tap on these results.
Photos and Camera improvements: In the Photos app, tap on a month to get a list of months so you can quickly “jump” to photos you may have taken a while ago. You can also now double-tap to zoom on a photo. The Photos app also comes with performance and reliability improvements. If you’re running this build on a Lumia 640, 640XL, 930, Icon, or 1520 – check out the Lumia Camera Beta and make it your default camera app. The Lumia Camera Beta is the same app as the new Windows 10 Camera app but with additional features that light up based on Lumia hardware. Let us know what you think!
One-handed use: if you have a device with a screen of 5 inches or greater, it’s now easier to use your device with one hand. Press and hold the Start button and your screen will slide down so you can reach items at the top of your screen. To slide the screen back up, tap the black space at the top of the screen, or press and hold the Start button again. One-handed use will also naturally time out after several seconds and return to your regular view.