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Yesterday, with coverage spanning the Windows centric Interwebs, Joe Belfiore posted on the Blogging Windows site that the Windows 10 Technical Preview had reached 1 million participants.  That is a significant number, especially given we are only two weeks since the announcement of the preview being available.  But it is also important symbolically as Microsoft, seemingly for the first time, is properly asking for feedback on their flagship product.  And even more importantly, they are actually listening to that feedback.

Ultimately that means we all win.

If it is indeed the case that Microsoft is listening to user feedback and shaping Windows 10 around that demand, there is no reason to think that this release will put the company squarely back on the map with consumers and, perhaps more importantly, their enterprise customers.  It is a new and different Microsoft these days and this is another clear indicator of it.

The official Facebook for Windows Phone app has been updated with a minor release today, bringing performance improvements and other minor fixes to the app.  For those keeping score, it is version 8.3.3.0 and it is available now in the Windows Phone Store.

The majority of the big updates to Facebook for Windows Phone came with v8.3 and the minor dot updates have generally focused on app performance improvements and bug fixes.  What that means is if you are looking for something new & exciting in the app… well, keep looking peeps.  There’s nothing to see here.

That said, the app does seem a bit faster than the previous build in my non-scientific “yep, looks faster” playing with the app this morning.  Likewise, I was not impacted by any issues on the app so what bug fixes are in this update are a bit of a mystery to me.

Facebook for Windows Phone is free and available in the Windows Phone Store now.  You will need a Facebook account in order to use the app.

Facebook for Windows Phone – Free – Download Now

Facebook Messenger for Windows PHone QR

Microsoft has released an update to the Lumia Creative Studio app for Windows Phone, brining back the popular Color Pop feature along with a few other enhancements that make this a pretty powerful photo editor.  The new version, 6.3 for those keeping score, is in the Windows Phone Store now and, as with the other Lumia apps, is free to download to your Windows Phone.

Lumia Creative Studio for Windows Phone – Free – Download Now

This week work wise has been amazingly busy.  Between spending 2 days in continental Europe (including 3 countries in one day!) and then two days at a trade show here in London, I’ve been going non-stop.  But the week has also been an enlightening one on the Windows Phone front for many reasons and it reminded me once again why I love my Lumia 1320 Windows Phone battery life.

There were two things that made me appreciate the battery life of my Lumia 1320 this week:  Tuesday’s 3 country jaunt and two days at a trade show.  Tuesday was, in a word, hell.  I traveled to Lille, France Monday night only to find that my meetings had been cancelled.  A few phone calls later it is decided that I will travel to Liege, Belgium on Tuesday morning to go to another meeting.  So up I am at 5:00 AM on Tuesday, unplug the Windows Phone from charging overnight and off I go.  In all I spent multiple hours on trains (missed a train and had another massively delayed), ate a huge amount of data checking and sending emails, updating files and the like on my 1320 and when my feet finally brought me home at 23:29 on Tuesday night, I still had 8% battery left.  Compare that to my iPhone 5s which was in my bag with me.  It was never connected to data (I turned off roaming) and I didn’t use it throughout the day on Tuesday.  When I got home it had switched off because it had run the battery flat.

Okay, I get it.  The battery in the 1320 is nearly double that of the iPhone 5s.  But seriously, literally not a touch on the iPhone all day and it still goes flat just sat in my bag?  That’s not a feature peeps, I don’t care the size of the battery.  And for comparison, I also had my Lumia 520 with me and it wasn’t touched all day either.  It still had 92% battery life left.

I think part of this , in addition to the massive battery in the 1320, comes down to the battery saving features in Windows Phone when compared to other platforms out there.  It simply does a better job of managing tasks and apps to maximise the battery life of the device while you are on-the-go.  For me, it was the most dramatic example yet of how much better battery life performance is on Windows Phone.