As we’re getting closer to the release of the Windows 10 Creators Update, it’s becoming clear that this upcoming major release will be mostly PC-focused, with several exciting new features to play with such as Game Mode, compact overlay windows, Night Light and more. Unfortunately, Windows 10 Mobile won’t get as much love in the near future: as Head of the Windows Insider Dona Sarkar recently explained, some useful additions like Night Light are not ready yet for mobile.
Microsoft also teased last year some interesting improvements to Continuum such as support for windowed apps, though it’s still not clear when these features will be ready to ship. And if you’ve been following the news about Windows 10 Cloud or Windows 10 on ARM, it could be easy to think that Microsoft’s most important platform is still the PC, which is obviously true.
But if you’ve not been impressed by the latest Windows 10 Mobile Preview builds, you can be assured that the company is still actively developing its mobile OS: during a Q&A session at Microsoft’s Ignite Australia conference, Bill Karagounis, Director of Program Management, Operating System Group stated that new mobile builds will continue to roll out after the release of the Creators Update this Spring (via Neowin):
We’ve been flighting mobile builds now for — actually, since the November Update in 2015. We do not plan to change that, or to stop that. And you’ll see – today, we are still flighting Mobile builds, subject to quality, subject to those release promotion criteria, and we fully expect to keep doing that beyond the release of the Creators Update.
This latest statement echoes the reassuring words from Dona Sarkar, who explained earlier this month that the mobile OS was “a thing that we continue to invest in, just like all device families.” We really believe that Microsoft cares about having its own mobile platform, but Windows 10 Mobile still needs a real killer feature to make it a valuable option compared to iOS and Android phones. And so far, it’s still not clear if “3-in-1” devices such as the HP Elite x3 are really what consumers are looking for.
