Windows Phone 8: New Features
Microsoft today announced their latest update to the Windows Phone operating system, Windows Phone 8. Some new features are easy to understand, while others are more on the technical side (although still equally exciting). Let us help give you the key pointers and show you what you can expect, and why it’s important or not.
New Features:
- Changing to Windows Core – So this one is more for developers but will greatly effect the consumer. Essentially, Microsoft is changing what Windows Phone 8 will run on (kernel, file system, drivers, etc.) to match that of Windows 8, their recently launched desktop OS. What does this mean? Well, it means that companies that were planning to make desktop applications for Windows 8, won’t have much to do to get those apps to work on Windows Phone 8. Even games, programs, apps, etc. will be much easier to then launch on Windows Phone 8.
- New Resolutions – Windows Phone is pretty far behind Android and iOS when it comes to resolutions for their screens, and the announcement today didn’t blow anyone away (since the new resolutions are still a bit behind the competition), but it is definitely still an improvement that needs to happen. The three new resolutions will be 800×480 (WVGA), 1280×762 (WXGA), and 1280×720 (720P).
Microsoft also announced that developers won’t need to change anything about their apps to take advantage of the new sizes, they will automatically have apps resize to the new dimensions. - NFC, Wallet – Microsoft has officially added NFC to the supported hardware (similar to what Android handsets have now) and even a new app callled Wallet that will allow users to use the NFC to make payments by tapping their device to any “tap to pay” register (like Google Wallet).
They are even adding a tap to send feature, similar to Android’s Beam function, so users can put two devices near each other to send content to one another without pairing with bluetooth etc. One other thing is they are adding this feature to Windows 8 so sharing between computer and phone just got more interesting as well… - SD Card support – Not a huge feature for most, but something definitely worth having; the ability to use SD cards with your device.
- Adding Small Size for Live Tiles, Expanded the Homescreen Slightly – This allows users to add more live tiles to their homescreen, perfect for tiles that you just use to launch an app and don’t display information. See video below.
- Native Skype and Video Calling – Microsoft does own Skype afterall, so why not build this feature into the OS? You can now make Skype/VoIP/Video calls directly from within the People hub and Phone instead of having to use a third party app.
- Nokia Maps is replacing Bing Maps – Not sure how I feel about this as I’ve always felt neither of these map apps ever work as well as Google maps, but maybe Nokia Maps will be better than Bing?
- On-Device Encryption – Hard core security added to the devices.
- Multitasking – My biggest complaint is being answered finally, background tasks. Allowing apps to run things in the background allows true multitasking and the ability to switch between apps without them having to reload every time.
I have a feeling though that some developers out there might not be okay with that and I’d expect to see some hackery to get Windows Phone 8 on current handsets in the future.
So what do you guys think about this update?
I think all of these new features are a vast improvement. I personally get wait for actual “wallets” to a thing of the past. Love love love the new start screen. It’s very visually pleasing while still being useful. Windows 7 start screen didn’t utilize the full canvas of the screen well enough. I mean there was an entire row dedicated to an arrow button, common! Haha
Cheers to constant innovation!