Dissecting Windows 10 Mobile: Action Center touch gestures

Windows 10 Mobile's Action Center is a massive improvement over its Windows Phone 8 counterpart. In addition to having access to more than one row of quick action buttons, it also features a touch gesture to access the more advanced settings behind each function.

To actuate it, press and hold any of the quick action. What comes next depends on the particular action. For example, holding on the Bluetooth action will open the Bluetooth settings page. Holding on the Brightness action gives you the display settings page (which is also where you'd be taken for the Rotation lock action).

In keeping up with the latest in fashionable beta OS trends, this feature's implementation is far from polished.

For instance, you'd think holding on the Camera action would lead you to the camera's settings, but instead it does nothing. It releases the action center, suggesting it has registered your gesture, but nothing comes after. Same misleading teasing happens with the Flashlight action.

It isn't even consistently misleading. Where holding the Camera action leads you to a dead end, holding the Note button does the same thing as pressing the note button: sending you into a new page of OneNote Mobile. Science has yet to adequately explain why these two actions have completely different gesture outcomes.

For the actions that do have corresponding settings destinations, the journey to that destination is very sloppy. For example, if you hold the Quiet hours action while on the start screen, you get sent to Cortana's Quiet hours settings. Once you're done fiddling around, you'd think hitting the back button would send you right back to the start screen where you came from.

It doesn't. It sends you to Cortana's main page, even though you never went there to begin with. God help the poor soul that clicks on either Brightness or Rotation lock, because not only might he get to watch the Settings app clumsily invoke itself and stutter a page or two to get there, he also has to navigate backward through the entire settings hierarchy just to get back to where he was before.

If you didn't think this behavior could be any more unpolished, it does. Because even in this behavior, it's not consistent. "Some" settings work exactly like they should: Bluetooth, for instance, navigates directly to the Bluetooth page in the Settings app (the same app the OS stumbles through to get to the Brightness/Rotation lock settings), and when you hit the back button, it goes right back to where you came from.

I could understand the different behavior with the Cortana app, since it goes through a completely different navigational structure, but Bluetooth and Brightness/Rotation lock, all lead to the same app, and yet have completely different navigational consequences.

[Taraque]

The 'laugh' at 1.47 slightly creeped me out I'm not going to lie

[MercuryCater]

I love this guy, winbeta should be glad Oliver is on their team

[medman]

Another great dissection. Great job. Great demos. Hope microsoft is watching.

[ryanwolf]

It's very good to see a website like WinBeta have someone like Oliver who's not afraid to point out all of the ridiculous flaws of Windows Phone 10. Such a disappointment that Microsoft dropped the ball and hastily put together W10 on phones... maybe they shouldn't have fired all of their QA team.

[marek-guran]

how did you enabled that hiding bar? ( thoght that where are buttons: back, home, search)

[LandonTetreault]

I agree with some other comments +winbeta what do you expect a long press on torch to do? or a long press on a note? or camera? I think the way they have it set up is just right.

[sayresyDevino]

Just love the creepy chuckle... really handy hard pressing the wifi OR Bluetooth icons to get to the settings for those features.. The others meh -- cant really say I would expect any more functionality from the torch other than -- press for torch -- criticism (friendly) You are an entertaining character and should do more WinBeta (longer) content.. How come your never on the podcast?? cheers and do-more-content.

[ChargePositive]

If something is inconstant at being inconsistent, doesn't that mean it's consistent?

[aravindpatil]

I feel its pretty fast in opening the settings than android.👌👌

[racewarticketssale]

How do you get the back windows and search to stay on all screens?

[darkknight]

It's sad to most of these functions incomplete to a level where it's useless.

[mubarak]

Windows 10 Mobile is so dead. only 4.5 million units sold last year. Apple iPhone 6&6s in the last Q sold 48 Million phones! And god knows how many 100s of millions Android phones sold. I hope Microsoft focuses more on their apps and don't compete with the giants Apple and Google.