14 DAY TRIAL // Devices enrolled in the Preview for Developers Windows Phone program are getting a new update as we speak, as Microsoft is now ready to try out a new bunch of features that could soon be released to end users as well.
The new OS version is build 8.10.14219 and doesn’t come with an official changelog right now, but it’s easy to figure out that it brings support for Cortana in several new European countries.
As we’ve reported to you yesterday, Cortana is also available in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain in the form of an alpha build, so the new Preview for Developers update is specifically supposed to bring the personal assistant in these countries.
Keep in mind, however, that Cortana is still in alpha development stage in all these countries, so a number of features might be missing, including the possibility to track flights.
What else is new?
While it’s pretty obvious that the introduction of Cortana in these new countries is the most important change in Windows Phone 8.1 build 8.10.14219, the new version also comes with a bunch of bug fixes and performance improvements that are supposed to make devices run a bit more smoothly.
At the same time, this PfD build adds a new option to the action center, allowing you to quickly enable or disable cellular data. This option was not available before and is very likely to be added at a later time to all Windows Phone devices as well.
Other than that, build 8.10.14219 is just a standard release that doesn’t bring any other big improvements or features, but you should still install it if you do want to use Cortana in any of the aforementioned languages.
Cortana also coming to the desktop
While Microsoft is really busy these days to make Cortana available in more countries, the personal assistant is also expected to arrive on the traditional PC very soon, as part of the Windows 10 release.
Early builds of Windows 10 already brought some references to Cortana, but it appears that a future Consumer Preview build will actually include a working version of this particular feature, while the stable flavor of the operating system should come with the finished product featuring the same options as on Windows Phone.
Windows 10 should see daylight in late summer 2015, according to Microsoft itself, so Cortana should arrive on the desktop in less than 12 months if the development process goes according to plan.
