A lot of Windows Phone fans chose Microsoft’s phone offering because of the, once, amazing interface featuring a dark theme, vibrant colours and Live Tiles. These Live Tiles often have their own colour that overlaps the wallpaper and the highest request for Microsoft’s apps like Skype, Office, Money and many more is to implement a transparent tile. This may seem like a minor thing to some, but the Windows 10 Mobile community is very serious about this small design choice.
The Weather app got updated today, including the highly requested feature you just read about. The new transparent tile features a transparent background, showing your accent colour or your wallpaper, when the Live Tile functions are inactive and a coloured background with coloured icons, like before, when the Live Tile shows you the current weather information. This is something the update may get criticised for as this can be seen as a “fake” transparent tile.
The other MSN apps may also get a transparent tile soon. I tweeted this out myself, after a couple of sources claimed it all at once, surprisingly just after the release of the above mentioned update.
Transparent tiles coming for #MSN Sport, MSN Money and MSN #News on #Windows10. pic.twitter.com/zA9ZQKDMmJ
— Dennis the Minecraft YouTuber (@DennisBednarz) November 11, 2016
The changes should roll out to Fast Ring users in the coming weeks, starting with the News app, with the other two following shortly after that. The roll out may probably be the same as with the dark theme for the same apps. They won’t get it at the same time, and the updates will be rolled out very inconsistently. When the updates have been tested, they shall go to the Slow Ring and Release Preview and finally head towards regular consumers.
As trustworthy as sources may be, a leak doesn’t always mean thet something is guaranteed. Microsoft might change their mind, as they have done in the past, so don’t hold your breath.
