Windows 10 for phones news recap: Lumia 520 troubles, touch-friendly Office, and more

Ron

Windows 10 for phones news recap: Lumia 520 troubles, touch-friendly Office, and more

This past news week was filled with stories on Windows 10 and chances are you probably missed an important piece of news. Let’s take a look back at the week in a feature we like to call, “Windows 10 for phones news recap.”

Earlier this week, Microsoft released Windows 10 build 10051 for phones. Those who attempted to install this build on their Lumia 520, 525, and 526 were greeted with problems, especially when trying to revert back to Windows Phone 8.1. Users were reporting that their smartphones were bricked when they tried to downgrade to Windows Phone 8.1 using the Windows Phone recovery tool.

Microsoft’s response? “The blocks of data were too large for some devices to handle, and the memory on the device was having trouble with the speed at which the data was being written.  In short, devices were getting too much data, too quickly.  This would cause the failure as the new software is corrupted.”

Apparently this issue only affected a small portion of Lumia 52X users. The Redmond giant then released a new version of the Recovery Tool to assist those who were affected.

By the end of this month (just in time for Build!), Microsoft is planning to release the first preview for “Office Universal apps preview for Windows 10 for phone”. Microsoft is working to release a more touch and mobile friendly Office 2016 suite, and the new preview will be our first look at what that looks like on a Windows Phone.  

In a new blog post intended for Windows and Windows Phone app developers, Microsoft has revealed several market trends relating to user demographics and popular app categories and reinforces the importance of preparing apps for the eventual transition into the universal app format. You can check out the stats here.

At the beginning of the week, we provided a quick look at the new People, Phone, and Messaging apps. On top of that, we also showcased the new Outlook Mail and Calendar apps.

Stay tuned for another exciting week of news!