14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft recently announced that it would be killing the Rooms feature of Windows Phone in March this year, but it turns out that the company already has a replacement in the queue.
Spanish website Microsoft Place has discovered a new app that's currently in development and which could be the successor to Rooms in Windows 10 for phones.
Currently called Buddy Aware but very likely to see the light of day with Windows 10 as People Sense, the new app serves as a way to share your location, photos and chat with friends and family in a similar way you did with Rooms.
But Microsoft is aiming at greatly enhanced functionality for the upcoming People Sense. For example, the software giant might be aiming to make chatting and navigation features available in People Sense via third-party apps, which would obviously open the door for new software that could be directly integrated.
Right now, it's not yet clear how this integration is going to work, but it's obvious that Microsoft wants to lend devs a hand with this new solution and make more features available to users than in Rooms.
Rooms going dark in March
The removal of the Rooms features from Windows Phone is not necessarily a bad thing, as Microsoft has already promised to bring in a replacement in the upcoming Windows 10.
In an email sent to users, Microsoft explains that removing Rooms is necessary to “make way for new features in Windows 10,” so it's pretty clear that there's a replacement in the works as we speak. If People sense is not the one, expect a different project to emerge very soon.
“Once you update to Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones, rooms will no longer show up on your phone. You'll still be able to get to your photo albums, calendars and notes, either on the web or by using other apps on your phone. You won't be able to see your chat history or send or receive any new chats,” Microsoft adds.
With a little luck, the new People Sense could be integrated into a future Windows 10 for phones preview build, but there's still no word on such a plan.
The Windows 10 version aimed at smartphones is still in the very early development stages, so quite a lot could change until it's ready to hit the market.