Creo Mark 1 update: Continuously improving a product is a potent idea

Creo is a Bangalore based company that is following the approach of manufacturers such as Xiaomi, LeEco and OnePlus. The company is aggressively taking feedback from its users, and has outright demanded for negative feedback as well. Feedback given on the forums are used to come up with future OS updates. Although updates have started to roll out every month, there is a longer cycle of development and testing for each of the updates behind the scenes. So, don’t expect the latest comments to be incorporated in the next update itself. Creo has just rolled out the first monthly update for Mark 1. Here is what has changed, in the new phone. (Also Read: Creo Mark 1 review: A good first attempt, but a lot depends on those promised software updates ) Data Manager: The Data Manager feature allows users to get granular control over what applications use data. There is a doughnut chart that shows how much data was consumed in the previous month, with a breakdown of how much of that data was consumed by apps running in the background. The app shows a handy list of how much data each app consumed while in background mode. You can toggle whether or not the application is allowed to download data when in the background mode. Toggling these settings will interfere with the updates and notifications of the particular applications. Enhance: This is a photo manipulation utility. There are filters similar to Instagram. A simple to use menu allows adjustments, transformations and vignettes. After manipulating an image as per requirement, the whole set of edits on an image can be saved as a filter. The sequence of edits are added as a filter in the default menu, and then you can tap on the particular filter once, to apply the same set of edits on any other image. This gives some kind of rudimentary batch editing feature, allowing users to conveniently edit a series of photos that require the same treatment. [caption id=“attachment_314841” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  From left to right, the updated Data Manager, Enhancements and Echo[/caption] Echo: Echo is the in-built answering machine. At the launch of the phone, there was only one default pre-recorded voice prompt, in English. Now there are more languages added, and even more in the pipeline. Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telegu, Marathi and Bengali have been added. You can also record and keep custom welcome messages. These can now be served according to the caller, or groups of callers. For example, friends and colleagues can have different welcome messages. There is also a meeting mode. If you regularly schedule your meetings on Google Calendar, then the phone automatically reroutes all incoming calls to the answering machine. Selfie Flash: This is a feature that boosts exposure through software algorithms. There is no front flash, but in low light conditions, there is now a one tap flash button on the side, that prevents the photos from being too dark. Sense: Sense is an advanced search feature. It is modeled on the search functionality of the iPhones. There are some utilities that sense does not seem to recognise as of now, the homescreen widgets are an example we found. Sense now supports WhatsApp integration, after this update. The Sense interface has also been updated with a space for pinning most used contacts, so you can just bring them up with a two finger swipe down any time. There are as some new enhancements that take Sense in a direction even Apple has not gone. Sense took some baby steps into become some kind of universal input space for all kinds of tasks. You can enter a number and add a contact from the “search” bar. It is also possible to feed in arithmetic, and use Sense as a calculator. There were minor fixes on a screen flickering issue in the adaptive brightness mode, and battery drain enhancements. Creo has a refreshing approach. It is taking feedback of local users to make a better product every month. This is an undertaking that they cannot go wrong on. The Mark 1 is a software based phone, and Creo plans to open up the software platform they are making better every month, available to other manufacturers as well. Every effort Creo has taken in this month’s update, is aimed at improving the user experience. Whether it works or not, this is a customer centric effort at differentiating their product from an overcrowded smartphone market.