Microsoft has today announced and released Windows 10 technical preview for Windows insiders. The preview is said to be in very early beta and it’s to be expected to be very rough in the edges. That said, Microsoft is not warning anyone from downloading, as long as you read the blog post and get warned of what to expect prior to the act.
Microsoft has already released the preview builds of Windows 10 for PC which has been analyzed previously here.
Top among the things that are worth noting in this build include:
- Full-size Background Image in the start screen, no more black frames around tiles, the colour is just like it is on the desktop.
- More quick actions in action centre – in Windows Phone 8.1 the notifications center is limited to four but upon swiping down we have three rows of these.
- Interactive notifications – one feature that I have been feeling needed to be there like yesterday. Now you can swipe an individual notification if you need to.
- Improvements on speech-to-text – the OS is more smart and you can talk to any data field you choose to, your words show up as you speak them. Also notable, it will also type 2 when you speak it instead of “two” the text.
- Photos app enhancement- photos will show the aggregated set of local photos and OneDrive photos.
- When you install the apps, these will be separated in a group in the app drawer when you swipe left.
The video below speaks more of what to expect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckzhX1O6Lto
Meanwhile, only these devices get the preview for now: Lumia 630, Lumia 635, Lumia 636, Lumia 638, Lumia 730 and Lumia 830. If yours is not listed here you will have to wait for sometime as Microsoft has not stated when exactly these get their turn. If you’re in China too you might want to hold your horses as that is not yet supported.
Stay around as we are getting the new build installed, and will tell you what we think about the experience.