Microsoft killed the mobile version of Windows 10 more than 3 years ago, focusing entirely on Android and OS. However, since the system is really based on the “real” Ten, many of the built-in services and applications still work on it, by inertia.
Anticipating the misguided comments of the series “a telephone is made for making calls!” – this may be true in the case of the Nokia 3310, but not smartphones, where apps are regularly the main means of communication, not mobile services. After all, Windows Mobile phones weren’t chosen “because they can make calls,” but because they were meant to be the future of mobile platforms. As we know today, it did not work.
The Windows 10 phone pulled out of the drawer, turned on today, will probably greet us with three notifications: about the need to repair the Microsoft account, about pending app updates (which are not there) and about ” new” OneDrive albums. The repair assistant, appearing due to a long interruption of use, is still running and correctly sends requests to the Microsoft Authenticator application. Therefore, two-factor authentication and phone sign-in with a Microsoft account still work fine.
Store: either not working or “warning”
Store and third-party apps
It’s a little worse with the Store. Here it is very difficult to correctly define what is not really working. By navigating through many empty screens, you will eventually come to an area that is working properly. As a result The store only offers 25 apps, none of which are particularly necessary, but the purchase history is complete and allows recalling “absent” applications. Most of them report incompatibility and the rest usually do not work.
The rest of the article below the video
Is the Targus Ergonomic Foldable Bluetooth Keyboard Pocket Worth Buying?
This way we can install Netflix and Spotify, but we can’t use them – the API has changed. However, the issue has spread to PWA apps, which shouldn’t be affected. Unfortunately however Windows 10 Mobile never had the Chromium-based Edge browser. As a result, the increasing number of pages in it does not work. Due to non-standard engine or faulty JavaScript implementation. Therefore, the “it’s good that there are no apps, I’ll use the web versions” approach came out.
Lumia can’t be used for the most part today smart phones apps. Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter, Signal, Discord, Netflix, Spotify, Disney, Duolingo, Zoom, Slack, as well as store and bank apps are not working. These are elementary shortcomings – no matter who says what about the apps above.
Applications simply “exist”
OneDrive and Office
On the other hand, key Microsoft services work smoothly. Office, Outlook, OneDrive and Skype, although not present in current versions, work fine. This means work email, mail, file exchange and office suite…. but that may not be enough. Not only are Lens, Sway, and Remote no longer working, but a detail like Teams is also missing, and in many scenarios this is a key app. Teams was never released for mobile Ten, not even in the PWA version.
Support for MSN apps is also chaotic. Weather shows the forecast only on the tile – not inside the app. You can’t add new locations, but you can watch interactive precipitation and wind maps. The maps themselves, as well as the navigation, also work. The news continues, but the number of sources from which it can get information continues to dwindle. It should be noted here, however, that the current form of the Messages app is simply MSN website locked in a window with a red border.
Microsoft does not appear to specifically target disabling service access for Windows 10 Mobile owners, although that system is no longer supported. This is probably due to the old work of unifying the mobile and desktop versions. We can therefore expect the Store to work for a few more good years, even if it will remain empty.
HTML5 is no longer enough today. New JavaScript required.
When is the final end
A more interesting and less clear fate awaits Skype, Outlook and OneDrive. The Skype API hasn’t had any compatibility changes for years. It’s different in the case of the OneDrive, later versions of which stop working on more and more systems – and the one for phones still holds. The final nail in the coffin, however, will be the end of Outlook. With it, mail, calendar and – so important on phones – contact synchronization will disappear.
But everything happens surprisingly slowly. It is therefore possible that the authentication mechanism that allows these applications to function fails first. Therefore, a forced logout will kill them, not a specific mismatch.
Kamil J. Dudek, contributor to the editorial board of Dobrzeprogramy.pl