Author: Clinton

One of the challenges that has plagued Microsoft with Windows Phone since its inception, and something they must resolve with Windows 10 for Phones has been carriers.  If you look at the history of Windows Phone 7, 8 and 8.1, the carriers have always held the strings when it comes to updates on devices.  In some cases, particularly in Europe, this has been fine as the carriers have gotten updates out in a timely manner.  Here in the US however it has been nothing short of a debacle.  Verizon Lumia Icon users just now got Lumia Cyan (rolled up with Lumia Denim) after it was available for a year.  AT&T has yet to roll out Lumia Denim to the Lumia 1520, arguably the flagship phone of the market today.  T-Mobile has been hit-or-miss which is the same for Sprint.

Microsoft in leading up to Windows 10 for Phones has indicated that they are working on ways to get around this problem and go with something akin to how Apple approaches update on iOS.  What they have not been clear on is how they plan on doing that feat.  Having done a lot of reading and asking even more questions, I think I know how they are going to do this with the next generation of Windows Phone.  The secret ingredient to me seems to be the “appification” of what use to be core components of the mobile OS.  Couple this the foundations laid with the Windows Insider program as the way to push out updates universally and you have the makings of what Microsoft wants to do:  Control the release of updates to everyone on Windows 10 for Phones in a timely manner.

One of the many elements of Windows Phone that I like about the platform is the ability to personalize your Start screen experience.  Live Tiles are a big part of that and many apps take advantage of this feature that has been a part of the platform since Windows Phone 8 was released.  One of those features is the ability to set a photo as your Photos Live Tile in Windows Phone 8.1.  The ability to do this has actually been around since the Windows Phone 7 and I actually posted a How To way back in November 2011 on how to do it then.  Today it is a bit easier and more intuitive but it is buried in Settings.  In this How To I’ll show you where it is located and how to set up your favorite photo as Live Tile.

Microsoft’s continued drive in their “Mobile First, Cloud First” mantra has continued with the news that they have teamed up with iPass to bring eligible Microsoft users access to 18 million global access points for free.  While the details are still not fully defined, particularly this “eligible” customer portion, the news is exciting and could open a new wave of connectivity for millions of users who travel.  iPass, for those who don’t know, has a network of WiFi access points (commonly shared with other vendors) that is unsurpassed in the world.  They bill themselves as having the “largest commercial WiFi network” and having been an iPass user for many years, the value this could bring to Microsoft customers may be hard to measure when it is all said and done.

Microsoft continues to give away OneDrive storage like it is candy.  Earlier today I post about Bing Rewards customers globally getting a free 100GB of storage just by signing up.  Now Redmond has extended an offer of an additional 100GB of storage for those of you with a Dropbox account.  While Microsoft and Dropbox have done a lot of work together over these past few months including bringing an official Dropbox app to Windows and Windows Phone 8.1, they are still competitors and Microsoft clearly is showing they intend to win as many customers to their cloud storage service as possible.

Here is the deal:  First, you have to have an active Dropbox account.  If you don’t have one because you already use OneDrive, no problem.  Go open a free 2GB account at Dropbox.  I’ll wait while you go do that….

If you took the plunge last week and put Windows 10 on your Phone, you know by now that it is very much a work in progress.  As I put in my initial thoughts post on the next generation of Windows for your phone, it has some rough patches and things that just aren’t working the way they should.  But hey, it’s beta and that’s to be expected.  That said, Microsoft has made an easy way for you to get back to Windows Phone 8.1 if you have decided that beta testing is not for you.  Fortunately they have made it super easy to do and in this How To I will cover how to go about it.

Last month the US carrier AT&T announced a new Rollover Data plan for all of their existing customers.  The plan basically gives you the unused data from your last month and rolls those gigabytes over to the current month.  The plan started taking effect for customers on January 25, 2014 and if your billing cycle has happened since then, you have Rollover Data on your account.  By-the-way, there is no sign up process for this features.  It is for every AT&T customer who has a qualifying plan which is all of the monthly billing plans.

As part of that announcement, AT&T indicated that the myAT&T app for Windows Phone, iOS and Android would all be updated to reflect this rollover data.  That is now in the app which you can download for free from the Windows Phone Store.

myAT&T for Windows Phone – Free – Download Now