Owners of the Lumia 950 on US carrier AT&T can hack their way to double tap to wake, sort of. Thanks to Microsoft’s Windows Device Recovery Tool and some curious WinBeta tipsters, it now seems owners of the Lumia 950 on AT&T can grab a firmware update that will now enable double tap to wake for the device.
In the world of Windows phones, double tap to wake has been a coveted feature for many device owners. Depending on the screen tech used by particular manufacturers, Microsoft’s mobile operating system could and would enable a nifty gestural interaction that has been dubbed ‘double tap to wake’ that allowed users to forego fumbling with the power button to activate their devices.
As seen in Windows Phone 8.
Double tap to wake isn’t the only feature and improvement coming with the firmware update. Also rolled into the update are a host of connectivity improvements and even camera tweaks that should help give owners a much nicer experience with the device.
- Wi-Fi connectivity improvements, including fixes for Wi-Fi connection dropping randomly and Wi-Fi, scan occasionally not returning any results.
- Support for double tap to wake enabled.
- Bluetooth connectivity improvements.
- Stability and reliability improvements.
- Camera improvements, including improved image and video quality, improved Auto-focus and fix a problem that was causing slow motion capture to skip frames for some users.
- Cellular connectivity improvements, including a fix for a problem that caused occasional network loss for some users.
- Audio quality improvements, including a fix for a problem that caused the voice call audio to get scrambled for some users.
Overall the new firmware update appears to be a blessing for those hoping to get back their double tap to wake settings they may have had with other Windows phones. However, there is an enormous functional caveat that must be mentioned.
To get the new firmware via the Windows Device Recovery Tool method, users must be ready to have their devices wiped and set back to factory setting conditions as per the WDRT update process. For those who don’t mind going through the process of saving a recovery copy of their settings to OneDrive and downloading and installing the latest firmware update to the WDRT as well going through the setup process on their device all over again, then double tap to wake is only a few clicks away.
Anyone who remains hesitant of the update, rollback and update again process may just want to wait for the official AT&T over-the-air download which should be coming soon.
Thanks dashrendar for the tip!
Further reading: double tap to wake, Firmware, Lumia, Lumia 950, Microsoft, OneDrive, update, WDRT
