First Technical Preview of Windows 10 for phones is now available

Microsoft is currently pushing out the first technical preview of Windows 10 for phones. In order to try out the Technical Preview, you will have to sign up for Microsoft's Insider Program, which will give you access to the early release.

Users are advised to ensure they have Windows 8.1 installed, and at least 8GB of free space on their handsets. Unfortunately not all Windows Phones have made the first cut, and Microsoft is only pushing the update out for six devices at this time.

If you own one of the following handsets, you are eligible to install the first technical preview of Windows 10 for phones:

• Lumia 630
• Lumia 635
• Lumia 636
• Lumia 638
• Lumia 730
• Lumia 830

If you own one of the above mentioned Windows Phones, you can download the update right now by following these steps:

• Join the Windows Insider Program
• Register your device to receive builds as over the air updates
• Builds will come to you automatically as they are ready, after being validated by engineers at Microsoft and used on their own phones
• Use the built-in Windows Feedback app to send us problem reports and suggestions
• Updates will continue all the way up to the final build that goes out to all customers
• You can roll your phone back to the previous OS any time you'd like

Windows 10 has been built to offer the same core across PCs, tablets and phones. Therefore you can expect future builds of Windows 10 for phones to co-incide with the release of updates to Windows 10 for PCs.

Since this is prerelease software, Microsoft warns users that they should only install the update if they are fully aware of the risks in doing so. The Windows 10 Technical Preview is primarily aimed toward Developers and IT Professionals, so you shouldn't risk running it on the device you use day to day.

What’s included in the Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones.

• Full-size Background Image for Start: We believe phones should be intensely personal – so we've added another option to customize the start screen with a full-size background image.
• More Quick Actions in Action Center: We've increased the number of quick actions available to you. Windows Phone 8.1 has four programmable quick actions – but with Windows 10 you also get an expanded view that can now have up to three rows.
• Interactive Notifications: Notifications are now interactive, allowing you to take action directly like dismissing an alarm, or seeing images for maps. For example, for text messages, when the toast pops, you can quickly reply inline via text or voice.
• Significantly enhanced speech-to-text capability: You can talk to virtually any data field you choose. Your words show up as you speak them – and punctuation appears automatically.  This feature is smart enough to understand when to use ‘two’ – the number — instead of ‘too’ as in ‘also’.
• More powerful Photos app: From your very first launch, Photos will show the aggregated set of all your local photos and all your OneDrive photos

Microsoft's Joe Belfiore, gives us a walkthrough of some of the features available in this Technical Preview along with some of the features you can expect in upcoming builds.

Microsoft will be releasing new builds of Windows 10 for phones in the near future, which will bring new universal apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which work across phones, tablets, and PCs running Windows 10. Future builds will also introduce the new Mail and Calendar Universal Apps from the Outlook team in Office, as well as IP-based messaging from Skype and others, integrated directly into Messaging experience.

Microsoft has also pointed out that Cortana will be reverted back to U.S. only (and English only) on this technical preview.

You can learn more about Windows 10, including eligibility, known issues, and information on how to provide feedback by following the source link below.



source - Microsoft