Windows 10 Mobile build 10586.71 released to Fast ring insiders. What's next? Release of official Windows 10 Mobile OS

Perhaps among the technology companies, it is Microsoft that has generated much interest and curiosity in the last few months ever since Windows 10 was released for personal computers on 29th July 2015.

Many Microsoft/Windows fans have been actively participating in 'Windows Insider' program which is a 'first of its kind' involvement of fans particularly by the tech giant Microsoft.

Windows 10 already on 200 million devices including 1 million Smartphones


Despite the 'app-gap' that has been plaguing the rise of 'Windows 10 Mobile' as the preferred choice of many prospective users, one can't deny the impressive work done by Microsoft for Windows 10.

It is no wonder considering the fact that about 200 million users have already upgraded to Windows 10 from earlier builds and all of them are considered to be having the genuine versions of Windows. At the same time about 1 million smartphones are already running on 'Windows 10 Mobile' preview builds except the Lumia 950, Lumia 950 XL, Lumia 550 which came with Windows 10 Mobile out the box when they got released in November 2015.
This means despite Windows 10 offering a grand promise of 'universal' apps and great compatibility across all Windows devices and is therefore failing to reach that extreme benchmark (positive remark though), people still want Windows 10 due to its improvement and appeal to the users compared to the earlier version of Windows.

People are almost desperate now to get Windows 10 mobile on their phones and the bloggers are just competing with one another writing 100s of posts speculating the imminent release of Windows 10 mobile.

The stories have been ranging from the 'reported' confirmations by some Windows Phone users who seemed to have got Windows 10 Mobile builds to the fact that the official Windows 10 Mobile version could be from Redstone wave and not from the Threshold wave, to the fact that the upcoming build 10586.71 is going to be the same for both PCs and Smartphones alike.

Windows 10 Mobile builds' brief timeline


While the Insider program has been there for about 2 years now, it gained more momentum during 2015 ever since Windows 10 got released as a stable version to the computers/laptops and large tablets.

Windows 8.1 had the build numbers something like 9xxxx.xx representing a number something between 8 and 10. So the Windows 10 builds have acquired the numbering like 10xxx.

Then the stability to these Windows 10 mobile builds came from the build 10536 and further revisions.

Historically the versions 10586.29 and 10586.63 have been the official upgrades to Windows 10 on PCs after the initial release of the same OS last year.

So there were speculations that the 10586.29 version was 'ready' to be formalized as Windows 10 Mobile official version, but the bugs prevented Microsoft from declaring that. So they dropped their plans for December release of mobile OS. Then the version jumped to 10586.63 and the next speculation was for January release.

Further reports claimed that some carriers like Vodafone Australia has confirmed their testing successfully and so they were waiting for Microsoft's confirmation for the roll out.

The latest Windows 10 Mobile build that got released for Insiders in the 'Fast' ring on 1st Feb 2016 is 10586.71. 

It could well become the official version of the OS for all non-insiders, the users of Windows Phone 8.1 in general, if major bugs are not found.

Only time will tell.

Do you need Windows 10 Mobile preview builds?

If you are an enthusiast for trying out new features as early as possible, definitely upgrading your windows phone from 8.1 stable version to Windows 10 builds is not a bad idea.

Because the current builds are very stable to the point that you can use the smartphone like how you use one with a stable version.

Few performance lags may prop up once in a while but that is why it is still called 'preview build'.

But considering that Windows 10 build 10586.71 has been performing very well even on a Lumia 635 with 512 MB RAM version of the Windows Phone, we too think that build 10586.71 if no further bugs are reported, would officially be transformed into 'Windows 10 Mobile' release for the first time to the old generation Lumia smartphones. 

Many of us already know that build 10586.29 was already the first formal mobile version of Windows 10 but was released only for Lumia 950, Lumia 950 XL, Lumia 550. That also was corresponding the equivalent build for PCs.

The next build that came to PCs was 10586.63 as official update to Windows 10 for non-insiders.

The PC builds anyway got jumped to higher versions, but the mobile build currently is at 10586.71.

One thing to notice is that all the mobile builds nowadays don't have the tag 'preview build' when you check your smartphone settings. Probably that is the reason, some users who have tried to create some rumors used that to good effect and many blogs are using the same set of points and kept writing hundreds of pages on these rumors.

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