Over the years I have been using an old iPhone. I made due with the the phone even though it is limited in what applications that it could install due to its age. Recently I acquired a Nokia Lumina 830. Its no spring chicken either model wise but is faster than my old iPhone. It was running Windows Phone 8.1.
Forget Google apps on Windows Phones
I installed several applications and during the process discovered what Windows phone users had been lamenting for years. The availability of applications were lacking due to the platform dying/dead. Forget putting anything from Google on this phone. Google’s snit/battle with Microsoft over the years regarding allowing/removing Google applications from Windows phones is well known. This means that Google Authenticator is not available on Windows Phone 8.1 nor on Windows 10 Mobile. I used to use Google Authenticator years ago for my 2 factor authentication for websites etc.
A couple of years I ago I discovered Authy which added onto Authenticator features by providing a pin to prevent unauthorized access to the app. Another feature of Authy is that it can save your tokens in the cloud. If you acquire another device all the configuration is automatic once the app is installed and you log into your Authy account. Since this platform is dying/dead other developers like Authy are not spending time porting their app over to it.
Microsoft Authenticator late out of the gate
Microsoft’s Authenticator app is available for it so I installed it on Windows Phone 8.1. The app seemed to function fairly well in the time I spent using it. You had to add all of your accounts manually by scanning in a QR code. Luckily I had saved screenshots of these codes and saved them in an encrypted file. As I scanned them in the application automatically sorted them based on the service or website they were for. This auto sort helped keep my Google Gmail accounts and Microsoft accounts grouped together making them easy to find.
Everything seemed to be ok on the 2FA front.The Lumina 830 was capable of being upgraded to Windows 10 Mobile but the process was not self evident. You had to download and install Windows Upgrade Advisor to start the upgrade ball rolling. After several reboots upgrades and reboots again Windows 10 Mobile was installed.
Once the operating system was upgraded the applications needed upgrading. This included Microsoft Authenticator. That was when the frustration started. The current incantation of the Microsoft Authenticator on Windows 10 Mobile does not allow one to sort the entries. The order is dictated by the order in which the entries were added into the application initially. On Windows Phone 8.1 this haphazard order was handled by the application which automatically sorted the them. I have close to 35 sites or services and the inability to reorganize the order of these entries make using the app a chore. I have to constantly scroll up and down this list trying to find the correct entry. This is compounded by the fact that a couple of the entries are mislabeled. The ability to rename entries is also lacking.
Microsoft Authenticator not equal among all operating systems
Now what is really frustrating is that Microsoft also has this application on iOS and Android and frequently updates it on thowse two platforms. On those platforms you can manually sort the entries so that you can group them however you want. Microsoft though has not updated the app on Windows 10 Mobile since the platform is dead. Posts to Microsoft regarding this lack of updates are met with silence or make sure you check for updates. Why can’t/won’t Microsoft use their own bridge application to port their current iOS app over to the Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile platform? That way the Microsoft Authenticator applications would function the same on all three platforms.
On Windows 10 on desktop/laptops you can go in and see what updates were installed and when. Seems Microsoft does not want their phone users to know any of that information its better to keep them in the dark.
Microsoft should stick with software
Windows 10 Mobile is not the first platform that Microsoft has abandoned recently. Anyone remember the Surface RT tablet/laptop. Microsoft touted and sold it and then abandoned the product. Don’t get me started on the Microsoft Surface Studio a $3,000 US touch large screen computer that uses a hybrid hard drive rather than an SSD for better throughput. Sigh Microsoft. I will avoid purchasing a Microsoft branded/developed hardware platform. Unlike some people who tend to change their hardware like some people change underwear, I tend to keep my hardware for years on ends. New is not always better. They call it bleeding edge because you bleed a lot of money out of your wallet. 😉