How Windows 10 Mobile changes your smartphone

Looking at moving to a Lumia 950 or Lumia 950 XL from an iPhone or Android handset? Here’s how Windows 10 Mobile will change your smartphone experience.

This story was sponsored by Microsoft Australia.

Live Tiles 
With Windows 10 Mobile, Microsoft gives you a highly customisable home screen experience thanks to Live Tiles – which means you can make your phone personal and unique. If you want to go ultra-minimal, you can shrink every icon down to tiny squares that allow you to fit all of your apps into a small space. Alternatively, you scale up your tiles into almost widget-like wide boxes that can give you a preview of information like unread emails, missed phone calls and the day’s headlines. Whatever you prefer, you've got a lot of flexibility when it comes to the look and feel of your phone.

Continuum 
With the release of Microsoft’s new flagship devices, the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL, we have seen a range of new features come to market. One of those is Continuum, arguably one of their most innovative features, allowing you to get a PC-like experience by plugging your phone into a monitor (via Microsoft's Display Dock accessory, sold separately).

Cortana 
Cortana, Microsoft's digital personal assistant, is one of the smartest going around. Not only can she tell surprisingly funny jokes, she's able to understand naturally spoken queries. If you ask Cortana to find "all documents you've worked on in the past week", that's exactly what she'll do. In addition to being able to set reminders based on time or location, Cortana can also set people based reminders. For example, I could say "remind me to say sorry for not getting the chicken" next time my wife calls", which would appear next time she calls me or I call/text her.

Windows 10 integration 
Thanks to tightknit integration with the desktop version of Windows 10, the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL make staying in sync easy. Whether you're seamlessly sharing files via OneDrive, setting universal reminders with Cortana, or blasting of Skype messages your phone and PC are more in step than ever before.

Universal Apps 
You might have heard of apps that work on both your phone and tablet, but what about apps that work on your phone, tablet, PC or any other Windows 10 device? With Windows 10, Microsoft has made it easy for developers to build apps that work across all Windows 10 platforms, whether it's a phone, or a full-sized desktop. This universal platform then allows developers to spend less time duplicating their app, e-commerce system and the like and more time working on other projects and ideas.