Slack (beta) for Windows Phone gets a 'seems faster' update

Despite Microsoft entering the work-chat fray today with their Teams release Slack is not resting on their laurels. A new version of the Slack app for Windows phone is now available (and yes, it's still in beta).

The November update is no slouch with a well-defined changelog mostly focusing on improvements to speed. Slack was never fast on Windows phone, but this update does quite a lot to fix that especially on our HP Elite x3.

Here is what's new with the always entertaining Slack changelog!

Slack 2016.1102.0.0 (November 2nd, 2016)

CHANGES

Everyone likes apps to be faster. So behind the scenes we've been refurbishing the engine that powers the app and polishing all the constituent parts to make everything run smoothly (and faster). This means everything should be running better (and also faster. Did we mention faster?). Give it a spin.

FIXED

  • Presence was not always being 100% truthful. You're now there when you're there, and not when you're not. As it should be.
  • Loading very large teams could make the app unresponsive. No more.
  • The red notification dot would sometimes not go away when you read messages with mentions in them. It had ONE job. It now performs it.
  • DND was sometimes performing time travel, moving into negative time. Impressive, but not useful, so we fixed it up.
  • We sometimes forgot to save your unsent message when you switched teams or channels. We'll now keep them till you get back.
  • Where you couldn't always tap mentions to see a user profile. You now can.
  • Channels that were staying bold once you'd read them was a bold (but incorrect) move, and is now rectified.
  • Leaving and closing channels could sometimes cause issues. Now you can come and go as you please.
  • Notifications, where they were unreliable, can now be trusted again.
  • Channels with terrible habit of forgetting the scroll position in messages if you were distracted by a opening a picture (or looking away at any other shiny object) now remember where you were before you… wait, what's that? Is that candy?

Not bad at all and it's great to see Slack continue their support for Windows phone. Now, if we can just get a UWP app that supports Continuum maybe we won't jump ship to Microsoft Teams.

Download Slack (Beta) in the Windows Store

QR: Slack (Beta) for Windows Phone

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.