Published by Steve Litchfield at 13:35 UTC, September 23rd 2015
Amidst a barrage of articles looking at the imminent Windows 10 Mobile and its stability (or otherwise), I’ve also been careful to emphasise numerous times how much more grown up the OS is, in terms of multitasking, email, maps, and so on. It’s a clear step up from Windows Phone 8.1 in most cases. And it’s time to highlight another way in which the new OS brings in newer, arguably more mature functionality – the humble Weather utility that gets accessed from, for example, Cortana.
The story so far, of course – Weather, nominally under MSN branding, has been a staple of Windows Phone and works very well, as shown below:
However, this was coded for mobile only and wasn’t suitable for ‘universal’ implementation, to essentially run the same code on tablets and laptops. Moreover, the latter already had a sophisticated weather application, which is what has been tweaked and now appears for Windows 10 Mobile handsets in firmwares and in the Store:
The old Windows Phone 8.1 weather application was quite handy, but it was also optimised for small, low resolution screens and the new application, being Windows 10-wide, makes better use of higher resolution screens and the Windows 10 UI in general. More data, better presented in higher density, etc.
Another tick in the ‘Why Windows Mobile 10?’ chart then. What’s next in my look at grown-up apps on the new platform? Maps, perhaps – am I ready to dive into a city in rush hour with it? Watch this space!