Windows 10 Mobile Kid's Corner app exposes some interesting aspects

Kids Corner is one of the most underrrated feature of Windows Mobile, allowing users to populate an alternate home-screen with apps or games so they can keep the kids busy, or if like me, keep an alternate homescreen so no distractions can occur. Playing around with this feature today showcased some interesting things.

First of all, all the Windows Phone 8.1 colours remain. Strangely, when Microsoft updated Windows Phone 8.1 to Windows 10 Mobile, users may have noticed that all the old theme colours present in the OS can no longer be used with the exception of a few circumstances. We noted that syncing themes with a WP8.1 device allows you to share the colours of that same device, we also noted that updating your device with Windows 8.1 allows you to keep one theme colour. In Kid’s Corner, all the Windows Phone 8.1 theme colour remain selectable for use, making it strange that Microsoft does not provide these colours in the regular accent tool.

Another thing that we noticed was how various components of the OS have been appified and presented as selectable. The lockscreen, Windows Hello (crashes on a Lumia 830), and Xbox Identity manager are selectable as apps for Kids Corner and can be pinned to the start screen and launched  as apps. This makes me slightly uncomfortable with the level of polish the OS is at. Attention to detail is one thing that Windows Phone used to get right, and letting users have access to components that should be hidden is both sloppy and could be (and I am saying this as someone who does not have OS security as a strong suit) potentially dangerous. .