Microsoft has finally announced an updated version for Windows Phone- 8.1. And this time, it has left no stones unturned to strangle the competition. Dive in to know more.
The flagship feature has to be Cortana, the virtual assistant on 8.1, named after the AI in Microsoft's popular game series, Halo. Microsoft's answer to Siri, Cortana promises to be much more interactive and fun.
Actually more functional than Siri on iOS, it also gets you real time updates on your apps, checks forecast, looks for tickets online and so on. Yes, it beats Google Now as well. Pretty impressive. Cortana actually claims to be learning from you, The way you use your phone. And this helps the interaction with the user. You can strike a casual conversation with Cortana, as you see with Siri.
Live tiles on the start screen has been revamped. You can now customize the start screen tiles with your favourite photos. And this looked awesome. Atleast in the given picture :P
8.1 is also graced by new set of lockscreen themes, a very refreshing change from the current 8.0 lockscreen, which was way too boring compared to the update.
You also get a notification center and quick shortcuts, unfortunately, couldn't get the snapshots.
Microsoft claims to have tweaked the keyboard on the 8.1, naming it the Word Flow keyboard. As astonishing it may sound, the Word flow keyboard outdid the previous world record on a Swype keyboard on a Galaxy S4, beating it by 8 seconds!
Availability and Release:
As of now, the 8.1 update is available only to developers in beta. Windows 8.1 will come bundled with newly announced phones in the Lumia series i.e. Lumia 630, 635 and 930. To current users, you may have to wait till the year end as the update is still in development phase. And approximate release in India is slated in early 2015, which may seem a bit late, so lets just hope that it'll be worth the wait. Microsoft has announced 9 new partners and Micromax is one of them. So next year may witness some great releases and some serious competiton.
The flagship feature has to be Cortana, the virtual assistant on 8.1, named after the AI in Microsoft's popular game series, Halo. Microsoft's answer to Siri, Cortana promises to be much more interactive and fun.
Actually more functional than Siri on iOS, it also gets you real time updates on your apps, checks forecast, looks for tickets online and so on. Yes, it beats Google Now as well. Pretty impressive. Cortana actually claims to be learning from you, The way you use your phone. And this helps the interaction with the user. You can strike a casual conversation with Cortana, as you see with Siri.
Live tiles on the start screen has been revamped. You can now customize the start screen tiles with your favourite photos. And this looked awesome. Atleast in the given picture :P
8.1 is also graced by new set of lockscreen themes, a very refreshing change from the current 8.0 lockscreen, which was way too boring compared to the update.
You also get a notification center and quick shortcuts, unfortunately, couldn't get the snapshots.
Microsoft claims to have tweaked the keyboard on the 8.1, naming it the Word Flow keyboard. As astonishing it may sound, the Word flow keyboard outdid the previous world record on a Swype keyboard on a Galaxy S4, beating it by 8 seconds!
Availability and Release:
As of now, the 8.1 update is available only to developers in beta. Windows 8.1 will come bundled with newly announced phones in the Lumia series i.e. Lumia 630, 635 and 930. To current users, you may have to wait till the year end as the update is still in development phase. And approximate release in India is slated in early 2015, which may seem a bit late, so lets just hope that it'll be worth the wait. Microsoft has announced 9 new partners and Micromax is one of them. So next year may witness some great releases and some serious competiton.
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