features

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Rumor: Microsoft set to roll out Windows Phone 8 update 'Apollo+' in Q1 2013 [Update]

Rumors

By Rich Edmonds, Monday, Nov 26, 2012 at 3:53 pm

Microsoft is set to fire up its updating engine for Windows Phone in Q1 next year, according to a tweet published by renowned Twitter account @Football4PDA. The account was the named source for the leaked images of the HTC Accord (HTC 8X), as well as a number of other headlines that have been published along the way to Windows Phone 8.

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Windows Phone 7.8 features confirmed in leaked Nokia presentation slide

Windows Phone News

By Rich Edmonds, Wednesday, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:20 am

A presentation slide, reportedly from Nokia training material, has been leaked containing details of some features included in the upcoming Windows Phone 7.8 update. Microosft has promised to those who own Windows Phone 7.x handsets that more features are on the way to keep the experience current. While features highlighted are already known, it's good to see official confirmation through said material.

Nokia teasing Windows Phone 7.8 upgrade on Lumia 800. [Updated: Not quite]

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Sunday, Nov 11, 2012 at 12:28 pm

Update: Ah, as it turns out what is shown above is actually an app called Emotiboard (found here). In other words, false alarm! Sorry folks.

It looks like Nokia is getting frisky as they're showing a glimpse of the Lumia 800 evidently with the upcoming Windows Phone 7.8 upgrade. The image above comes via their Facebook page and while it does not mention 7.8 directly it does show some new emoticons off. Those emoticons are not found in current 7.5 builds but they are found in Windows Phone 8 as we demonstrated in our video tour two weeks ago.

Sneak peek of MetroTube for Windows Phone 8

Apps

By Daniel Rubino, Friday, Nov 2, 2012 at 1:43 am

MetroTube for many Windows Phone users is the be-all, end-all for your mobile YouTube experience. With a slick design and excellent performance there’s little wonder.

Here at BUILD we were able to catch up with the developers behind MetroTube (and the new Windows 8 Twitter app Tweetro) for quick look at the upcoming update that will bring some new Windows Phone 8 features, including doublewide tiles and a new preloading feature (basically downloading for offline viewing).

In addition, we got a preliminary look at MetroTube for Windows 8 RT, which we can confirm is now officially in the works for your Surface.

Windows Phone 7.8 features detailed by Microsoft Italy

Windows Phone News

By Rich Edmonds, Thursday, Nov 1, 2012 at 4:12 pm

Details of features included in Windows Phone 7.8 have been revealed on Facebook, according to a post by Microsoft Italy. While Microsoft has released Windows Phone 8, the company's next update for customers with legacy hardware is still on the horizon, and we're unsure what's included. So what has been mentioned by Microsoft Italy?

New Emoticons for Windows Phone 8

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Wednesday, Oct 31, 2012 at 6:59 pm

If you like sending text messages (SMS) on Windows Phone, you'll love the new emoticon system that Microsoft has put in place. Previously, Windows Phone allowed you to easily send some basic smileys and if you wanted some more advanced symbols, you had to dig out some codes or use a 3rd party app.

This time around, Microsoft put in a selector at the bottom with visible choices for each symbol. You even have categories like faces, food, symbols and more. If you use the same symbols repeatedly, they will show up in a frequently used area for quick access the next time you message.

We should also point out that they work in all apps. We used them in Kik messenger with no issues (they just don't have color). All in all, it's these small changes that make Windows Phone 8 quite an improvement.

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Overview and review of Windows Phone 8

Software

By Daniel Rubino, Monday, Oct 29, 2012 at 2:20 pm

Let’s be clear about something: Windows Phone 7 was simply a warm up act for Windows Phone 8. It was the start of something big and different for Microsoft, a way for them to take a distinctive approach to the current smartphone exemplar. But Microsoft were hindered by numerous roadblocks: an aging kernel (the core of the OS), limited hardware and a desire to be more conservative in features waiting instead for user-feedback and to see how people actually use their phones.

With Windows Phone 8, the gloves are off.

There are two areas in which Windows Phone 8 differs from its predecessor: the core of the OS has been updated with the NT kernel and the addition and refinement of features. Consumers don’t need to know about the kernel specifics but they will see the results: new, top of the line hardware. That hardware will be evident in a few weeks when devices like the HTC 8X and Nokia Lumia 920 become available.

Windows 8 has launched so grab yourself a free Media Centre upgrade

By robert brand, Thursday, Oct 25, 2012 at 1:14 pm

The newest addition of Windows is here and its looking very smart indeed but its lacking one thing, Media Centre.

That’s right folks, Microsoft’s analytics said only 10% of the Windows user base uses this full featured DVR replacement so are set to charge for it. The good news is, you can get it for free. Read on to find out how..

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AT&T Lumia 920 exclusive for six months and some training videos leak too

By Daniel Rubino, Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 3:43 pm

AT&T is gearing up to launch the Nokia Lumia 920 very soon—in fact we expect an announcement on pricing and availability sometime on Sunday.

Word is that AT&T reps are also in the midst of training with the device, becoming familiar with its main features and selling points. Part of that training is being done with these videos that demonstrate the highlights of the Lumia 920.

A closer look at Windows Phone 8’s High Contrast display mode

By Daniel Rubino, Monday, Oct 15, 2012 at 3:45 pm

It Don't Matter If you're Black Or White...or does it?

This photo of the HTC 8S has been generating a lot of comments on Reddit with most people throwing out the word “sexy” to describe it.

The question you may be wondering is what’s the deal with the black and white? Is that some HTC thing? The answer is ‘nope’ as it is part of Windows Phone 8’s “ease of access” settings, meaning you can do this on any new device you choose. (We erroneously reported this earlier as an added theme--that's close but not 100% accurate).

The “High Contrast” mode was first detailed by WPArea.de back in July when the first SDK initially leaked. In short, it allows you to go to an all “black and white” theme including white on black or vice versa. Obviously this is meant for people with visual impairments but evidently a lot of you are enthralled with its appearance—guess we can call it Metro extreme mode?

Windows Phone 8 to offer downloadable Text Suggestions

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Thursday, Sep 27, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Downloadable Text suggestions in Windows Phone 8

Here is something we clearly missed yesterday but reader black_lion picked up. In the video we showed of some brave souls using forks (yes, the utensil kind) to navigate their Lumia 920s, a little notification popped up that raises some eyebrows: Text Suggestions.

The dialog simply states "You are missing text suggestions for this keyboard. You can download them now or visiting Settings > Keyboard to do this later."

Microsoft appears to confirm custom Accent colors, Hubs and native PhotoSynth for Windows Phone 8

By Daniel Rubino, Saturday, Sep 8, 2012 at 8:45 pm

Custom Hubs & Accent colors for Windows Phone 8? Yes, please.

Earlier in the day we reported that Microsoft was going through the User Voice feedback system and signing off on feature requests from end users.

In short, if a feature is being positioned to be included in Windows Phone 8.x, it gets stamped with a generic “Planned” label from the site Admin for Windows Phone. It is then followed by a comment noting “Just a quick update to let the Windows Phone community know that this feature has been announced for Windows Phone 8”.

Indeed, many of the features such as Arabic language support, NFC and 720P displays have been publicly confirmed back at the June 20th Summit, making this forum cleanup standard practice.

But out of the 22 “Planned” suggestions, three stuck out...

Microsoft set to rapidly update WinRT with feature packs? Sounds familiar..

By robert brand, Tuesday, Aug 14, 2012 at 8:14 am

Windows 8 is done, recently reaching RTM and tomorrow some folks will be lucky enough to get their hands on the final code. Word from a few prominent bloggers is that Microsoft may not quite be finished with WinRT just yet. Suggestion is that MS maybe moving to update the WinRT environment faster than the current three-year cycle dictates.

If this rumour were true then it would mean a major break with updating policy from Microsoft. WinRT is functionally still a long way from complete, a series of rapid updates could do much to fill in the gaps. Although haven’t we heard the promise of rapid updates somewhere before?

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Poll reveals that consumers desperately want a notification center in Windows Phone 8

By Daniel Rubino, Monday, Aug 6, 2012 at 2:14 pm

In a poll conducted this past weekend here at Windows Phone Central, 7,640 participants voted on the top-three features (out of an optional nine choices) they wanted most in Windows Phone 8.

Although the full consumer feature list has yet to be revealed by Microsoft, due to the leaked SDK a few weeks ago a lot of the new options have been detailed already. In turn, we asked users what they thought was missing (or we saw no evidence for) in Microsoft’s next-gen mobile operating system.

The results are certainly interesting and by large margins the top three choices by users are clearly discernable...

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Poll – What 3 missing features do you want most in Windows Phone 8?

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Friday, Aug 3, 2012 at 7:55 pm

Okay folks, we asked and you answered. Yesterday we posted an open discussion on what you thought were some missing features from Windows Phone 8, knowing what we know so far (which is actually a lot due to the SDK leak). We were curious and Microsoft is curious.

In turn we received over 600 well thought out and detailed comments on the issue and we poured over it, trying to distil the top requests.

Looking over the comments we picked what we thought were the top nine most requested and talked about features that are evidently missing in ‘Apollo’. You can now vote on those nine by choosing the top three features that you want the most come to Windows Phone.

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Community feedback - What’s missing from Windows Phone 8?

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Thursday, Aug 2, 2012 at 4:10 pm

As the title implies, we’re looking for your input on what is missing from Windows Phone 8. Yes, it’s a somewhat of an odd question because as you know, Microsoft has not “officially” unveiled the entire consumer features of our waiting-in-the-wings OS. But you do know what we’ve shown you from the leaked SDK. Moreover, we know for a fact that some people back in Redmond want to know your thoughts on what you’ve seen so far—otherwise we wouldn’t be asking.

So consider this an unofficial-official survey of the largest Windows Phone community on the Internet...

Windows Phone 8 SDK reveals new Tile counter, cycles image feature

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Monday, Jul 30, 2012 at 12:05 pm

Looks like that Windows Phone 8 SDK preview (leaked on the web a few days ago) is still coughing up many little changes. The latest deals with the Live Tiles of Windows Phone 8 and yes, there are some subtle but welcome changes.

New Live Tile counter – instead of a black circle we now have a square which more closely matches the Metro UI
Tiles can cycle through images – we’re not sure what this is called but evidently a Live Tile can have multiple images within it, allowing it to run through them.

The first one is well overdue in our opinion as the circle counter really never fit in with the Tiles not to mention they sometimes were jaggy. Going to Square looks much better to us and we bet you’ll agree too...

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Trove of Windows Phone 8 SDK images arrive exposing app backup, storage options and more

By Daniel Rubino, Friday, Jul 27, 2012 at 12:25 am

Images from the Windows Phone 8 SDK show off updated Office, SMS backup

It’s still technically the same day as the leak of the Windows Phone 8 SDK and now some images are showing up online showcasing some new features of the updated OS (we’re visiting Canada and don’t have access to our Win 8 machine to run the SDK ourselves). The images come via WP7.Hu who has thrown no less than 30 images up on their site.

Images are stronger than words so we’ll keep this one brief. These images show of various new or updates features in Windows Phone 8 which consumers will be more than glad to gander. Here’s what is displayed after the break (and above):

Text message backup to SkyDrive
Office 2013 for Windows Phone
Photo options
New Accent colors
Lock screen options
Phone storage (+ SD card support)
App list + setting backup feature
Microsoft Account
Voice Command options
Xbox Music

Needless to say, it’s a lot so head past the break to see it all in its glory. Make sure to "click to enlarge" to get a better look. Thanks, xajuan, for the tip

Windows Phone 8 allows Lock-screen notifications and wallpaper for 3rd party apps

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Thursday, Jul 26, 2012 at 11:42 am

We’ve hinted at this before and the leak of the Windows Phone 8 SDK is validating our claim that “Apollo” will allow richer notification support for 3^rd party developers.

Developers will now be able to have their app send notifications to the Lock Screen with the content reflecting the app’s Live Tile:

“In Windows Phone, the lock screen contained a handful of notifications such as the number of new Outlook emails and text messages. In Windows Phone 8 Developer Preview, end users can choose to customize this area with any third party apps they choose. As a developer, you can enable your app to be used in this feature. “

An app can provide content for the following four items on the lock screen:

The background image. This image is unrelated to lock screen notifications, and is documented at Lock screen background for Windows Phone.
An app icon
An app count
App text

Windows Phone 8 bringing Lenses feature to expand camera functionality

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Thursday, Jul 26, 2012 at 11:30 am

As we parse our way through the new Windows Phone 8 SDK which was leaked this morning, we’re starting to get an idea of some of the new features.

One of those is Camera Lenses, a method by which developers can add a “mini app” of sorts to within in the camera function. This will allow devs to have much more creative control over the Windows Phone camera app, allowing the creation of unique augmented reality apps and filters to really add a customized experience.

Head past the break to read the excerpts from the SDK…