Windows Phone 8.1 update went official yesterday.
And believe me this update is surely going to make Windows Phone platform more
attractive and appealing to people. Now MS is doing some pretty good stuff to
make the platform strong to rival against mighty Android and iOS.
A host of new features have made it to the WP 8.1
platform and don’t you worry all the features are listed below for your convenience,
so let’s jump to the new features straight away.
v Cortana:
Here comes the Cortana, MS’s answer to Android’s
Google Now and iOS’s Siri. You may have heard the name before if you played the
Halo video game, and it’s your personal assistant, it is powered by Bing, and
can do all the tings a virtual assistant can do, from surfing the web via bing
search and give you latest feeds of stocks, flights, traffics, latest news etc.
It will integrate to your alarms and calendar to schedule all your tasks and it
can also able to compose a message, watch a TV show in Hulu Plus or make a
video call in Skype and even tweet someone straight away via the twitter app
and many more things.
Being a beta product Cortana is still developing,
but it has some huge advantages compared to Google now and Siri, Based on your
search queries, Cortana can quickly learn your interest, and learns your inner
circle list, those are the most important people in your life and your
relationship with them, and she will allow them to call even on the quiet hours
so that they are able to catch you in emergency. Pretty smart huh?
v Action Center and Lock screen Customization:
Windows Phone 8.1 update adds action center, it’s like
the notification center of Android, where you will see information on your battery
level, unread messages, and notification from apps and with a swipe from here
you can access the four basic yet important functions of phone like Wi-Fi,
Airplane Mode, GPS, and Bluetooth.
On the lock screen and
also on the home screen you can customize a lot, Devs can create new designs
for user’s lock screens and in the home screen you can add more live tiles and
can choose a custom image to color the live tiles for your likeness.
v Data sense, Wi-Fi sense, Storage sense and battery saver:
With Data
Sense you can track how much data you have used in a given month, and
it will further give you information of data usage by apps, so you will know
which app is using most of your precious data and it lets you set an data limit
and when nearing the limit Data sense will more aggressively offload data to
Wi-Fi and try to limit cellular usage.
Wi-Fi sense automatically
can connect you to the free Wi-Fi hotspots it finds to help you make the most
of your data. And if you opt-in, it can automatically and securely enable your
friends and contacts to connect to your Wi-Fi network automatically.
Storage Sense
is introduced in WP 8.1 update to help you measure your storage in your phone.
It will manage content you have on an SD card, and it lets you move the
contents like photos, music, apps between your device storage and SD card.
Battery Saver is
as usual gives you information about the battery usage like which app has
consumed how much battery, and if you enable ‘automatic mode’ it can really
extend your battery life by a great margin.
v Word Flow Keyboard:
The Word Flow Keyboard
is one of most exiting add-ons for sure, it is smart enough to learn your
writing style and even knows the names of your contacts so that you can type
faster. The keyboard lets you glide your fingers over the keys to ensure incredibly
quick typing experience. It also dethrones the Samsung Galaxy Keyboard from the
first place for fastest type spead.
v Internet Explorer 11:
Both the Windows 8.1
and Windows Phone 8.1 include IE 11, that lets you access the latest HTML
improvements across devices, will be able to see all the open tabs on all the
windows devices and your bookmarks too, it also provides InPrivate Browsing,
password caching, in-line video playback and adaptive bit rate streaming,
reading mode. Cool isn’t it?
v Universal Apps:
Microsoft has announced
it is providing universal apps, This means, a developer will write an app and
it will run on Smartphones, Tablets, PCs and on Xbox. Users can download an app
for once and for all. MS has provided libraries, tools and services to help
developers make universal apps easy and clean.
v Miscellaneous:
Skype: The new Skype in WP 8.1
has been integrated with default dialer, so you can easily convert a phone call
to a Skype video call with just a tap of a button. And it will work seamlessly
with Cortana, so you can set up video calls in Skype with Cortana.
Calendar: The
Calendar app now shows day view that lets you swipe horizontally to toggle
between days and an improved week view, and the weather is integrated at the
top.
And the latest update
will also sport some great enterprise features like VPN support, MDM
enrollment, LOB apps and certificate management, making Windows Phone more
appealing to the Companies who seek for secure OS for business.
Also the new Windows
Phone 8.1 OS will support Snapdragon 200 SoC to help manufacturer make Windows
Phone Smartphones affordable and it will feature Dual SIM and the hardware keys
are no longer necessary along with the camera keys.
If you carry a Windows
Phone 8 device no need to worry as you will get this update via OTA, and will
come pre-installed in upcoming new WP handsets including newly announced Nokia
Lumia 630 and Lumia 930 (specs and pics are going to be post soon in my blog).
And the update will roll out from April 14th.
So, guys are you going
to ditch your Android and iOS Smartphones for Windows Phone, or the OS still
needs modification for you? Please share your views in the comment section.
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