Microsoft releases Windows 10 20H1 Build 18908 with more features for Your Phone

Microsoft has been teasing us with talk of a new "modern" operating system, but that doesn’t mean it’s forgotten about Windows 10.

Today it releases a new Fast ring build on the 20H1 branch -- the feature update set to roll out to users a year from now -- and adds a wealth of new features to the Your Phone app.

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The Your Phone app gains some accessibility features -- screen reading and focus tracking -- and the ability to switch your Android phone’s keyboard language or layout while in the phone screen.

There are some known issues, and these include:

• Touch input does not work
• Blue light preferences will not be applied on the phone screen displayed on the PC
• Other audio, besides screen reader feedback, will play out of the phone speakers, not the PC
• If you enable both accessibility features simultaneously while using focus tracking, the magnifier rectangle will follow your navigation, but the visual Narrator rectangle will remain static, even though it will read out the correct text.

Your Phone also gains some new messaging features:

• Send and receive MMS messages -- You can now send and receive images and GIFs, including Giphy, right from the Your Phone app.
• Unread message indicator (badge)
  • Nav pane -- A visual indicator on the Messages node, indicating you have unread messages
  • PC Taskbar -- A visual indicator on the Your Phone app icon on your PC taskbar, indicating you have unread messages
  • Unread conversations -- Visual indicator within threads that have unread messages
• Contact images -- Your Phone app will now sync contact thumbnails for all your contacts that contain profile images, so you can easily identify who you’re messaging with.
• In-line reply -- You can quickly reply to text messages from toast notifications without having to open the Your Phone app.
• Emoji picker -- Smileys, people, food, and more. You can easily add emojis to your text messages right from within the app.

It can now sync over mobile data too, and there are new icons for Your Phone and Your Phone Companion.

As for the new build itself, general changes, improvements, and fixes include:

• Fixed an issue where on certain devices with fast startup enabled night light wouldn’t turn on until after a restart.
• Fixed an issue where on certain devices with fast startup enabled color profiles/gamma wouldn’t turn on until after a restart.
• Fixed an issue resulting in some features on Start Menu and in All apps were not localized in languages such as FR-FR, RU-RU, and ZH-CN.
• Fixed an issue where the WMA lossless decoder was outputting junk if it was in 24-bit mode, which affected some music players.
• Fixed an issue where the battery options dropdown under Video Playback Settings was unexpectedly blank.
• Fixed an issue where the Power button in Start sometimes might not show a dot indicating updates are available, despite “update and restart” being listed in the Power button menu.
• Fixed an issue resulting in MS Paint selection moving in unexpectedly large steps per keypress when using the arrow keys.
• Updated the Japanese IME context menu, replacing "User Dictionary" with "Add word", so that you can now add words to your user dictionary in less clicks.
• Fixed an issue that was causing Narrator to stutter during the reading of progress bars.
• Fixed an issue in Narrator that was causing Firefox to crash when navigating by heading.
• As some Insiders have already noticed, Microsoft is currently rolling out a new OneDrive icon to Insiders that supports both dark and light theme as part of OneDrive version 19.086.0502.
• Note: Microsoft has temporarily terminated the rollouts of both the Settings header and the new File Explorer search experience while it addresses reported issues. They’ll be back online soon.

Known issues in this build are:

• For Home editions, some devices might not see the "update installed" on the update history page.
• For Home editions, some devices might not be able to see the "download progress %" change on the Windows Update page.
• There has been an issue with older versions of anti-cheat software used with games where after updating to the latest 19H1 Insider Preview builds may cause PCs to experience crashes. Microsoft is working with partners on getting their software updated with a fix, and most games have released patches to prevent PCs from experiencing this issue. To minimize the chance of running into this issue, please make sure you are running the latest version of your games before attempting to update the operating system. Microsoft is also working with anti-cheat and game developers to resolve similar issues that may arise with the 20H1 Insider Preview builds and will work to minimize the likelihood of these issues in the future.
• Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly.
• If you use remote desktop to connect to an enhanced session VM, taskbar search results will not be visible (just a dark area) until you restart searchui.exe.
• There’s a noticeable lag when dragging the emoji and dictation panels.
• Tamper Protection may be turned off in Windows Security after updating to this build. You can turn it back on.
• In the Ease of Access settings, selecting a color filter may not take effect right away unless color filters option is turned off and back on again.
• Users navigating to the Graphics Settings page in the Settings application may experience Settings application crashes.
• The IME candidate window for East Asian IMEs (Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and the Japanese IME) may not open sometimes. Microsoft is investigating the issue. In the meantime, going to Task Manager and ending the "WindowsInternal.ComposableShell.Experiences.TextInput.InputApp.exe" task from the from the Details tab should unblock you if you experience this issue.
• Microsoft is aware of an issue with the Bopomofo IME where the character width is suddenly changed to Full width from Half width and is investigating.

Photo credit: charnsitr / Shutterstock