Tag Archives: windows phone 8.1

Windows 8

Windows Phone 8.1 and its first update could appear this week

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This might be the first time an OS and patch came out simultaneously.

Windows Phone 8.1, the revision to Microsoft’s mobile OS that has taken longer to manifest than Windows 8.1, might finally show up this week or next, along with its first update.

Improvements in 10GbE technology, lower pricing, and improved performance make 10GbE for the mid-market

Windows Phone 8.0 came out in October 2012. That’s 20 months between major releases if 8.1 shows up this month, longer than the gap between Windows 8 and 8.1, and far, far longer than the updates between iOS and Android.

Fortunately, there’s a lot to love in this point release, which is really closer to a full revision. The big addition is Cortana, the voice assistant, along with the App Framework that makes it easier for Windows 8.1 apps to be ported between a PC and phone.

Well, the news site Neowin is claiming that Windows Phone 8.1 has been done for a while, and not only will it be pushed out soon, so will the first update to the OS, called a General Distribution Release (GDR). The GDR will be relatively minor, with a small set of enhancements, such as native folder support. That will enable users to create folders of tiles by dropping a tile on top of another, something iOS and Android have had for a while.

Of course, first thing we need is WP 8.1. Microsoft has kept the release date quiet, but someone from Microsoft India tweeted that the OS could roll out in the first or second week of July. He didn’t say if that’s for the U.S., India (where WP is popular), or worldwide.

Given the GDR hasn’t even shown up on the developer network for testing, we can only take this with a few grains of salt. If Microsoft does indeed have an update ready to go this fast, then it’s more evidence of its plans to reduce the time between software updates, something CEO Satya Nadella has promised.

I just hope it does something to get WP moving. This 3% market share is pitiful, as is the lack of apps. As a WP phone owner (Samsung ATIV SE), I’m getting tired of searching for apps and coming up empty. As Beta News noted, the Windows Phone app store is a ghost town, not an encouraging sign for a platform that is solid and should be a lot more popular than it is.

I’m not clamoring to return to the iPhone, but I’m not blindly loyal, either.

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Windows Phone

6 reasons you’ll love Windows Phone 8.1

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The mobile world’s whipping post deserves a fresh look, thanks to some compelling new features

6 reasons you’ll love Windows Phone 8.1
Microsoft has struggled to get the smartphone right, with four widely panned versions of Windows Phone since 2010. But finally, its fifth version — Windows Phone 8.1, due out later this year — delivers something people will really want: A simple but capable smartphone that has a slick interface.

Believe me, this is a real change of pace for Windows Phone.
Highlighted here are six capabilities that are breathing new life into Windows Phone — and that should get you to take a fresh look at Microsoft’s revamped smartphone.

Pull-out calendar view
One of my favorite Windows Phone 8.1 features is how it displays calendar information for a specific day when in week or month view. Tap a day, and its details pull out from the view, giving you a handy snapshot of the day’s events within the greater context of your weekly or monthly calendar.

Weather and traffic in your calendar
It’s a small thing, but nicely done: You can set Windows Phone to show the weather in your calendar via icons if you let it access your location information.

Likewise, Windows Phone clones one of iOS 7’s most useful additions: The ability to receive a head’s-up as to when you should leave for an appointment based on traffic conditions.

Support for Apple’s iCloud
The truth is that even Windows users favor the iPad as their tablets, and many have Macs at home as well. Microsoft now embraces that multiplatform reality and supports Apple’s iCloud accounts for email, calendars, and contacts, so you can more easily integrate the Apple part of your technology world with Windows Phone. Even better, changes are updated bidirectionally, so you can really use iCloud without worry.

Cortana voice assistant
In 2011, Apple’s Siri was the talk of the town, an electronic assistant that could interpret free-form voice queries and respond with relevant information most of the time. Although Android had voice-based search at the time, it was nothing like Siri.

Since then, Android has caught up. And with Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft introduces Cortana — a surprisingly good voice response technology, capable of handling free-form requests as accurately as Siri and Google Now. Although technically still in beta, Cortana comes off as a polished final product, not a first try.

Notifications center
Windows Phone’s live tiles were intended to be your go-to source for notifications at a glance. The truth is, few apps use them well — or even at all. With Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft clones the Notification Center from iOS, adding quick-access controls à la Android for accessing notifications and most networking controls from any app. Just pull down from the top of the screen to open the new Action Center.

Tip: If you want to get your music and video playback controls, you won’t find them here. Instead, push on the volume rocker to open a separate control tray for that.

Local phone search
Windows Phone also joins iOS and Android in letting you search for information on your smartphone, not just on the Web. Use the labels at the top of the search screen to switch among search targets such as the Web or your phone.

InfoWorld scores the top smartphones and tablets
In the market for a new smartphone or tablet? InfoWorld has rated the top contenders suitable for business users. Check out how each rates in InfoWorld’s mobile scorecard.

And if you’re looking for productivity apps for your tablet, check out InfoWorld’s scorecard for the best iPad office apps and our recommendations for the best Android productivity apps.

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Tech

Windows Phone Builds some momentum

It has the apps and now corporate support is starting to tick up. What more does Windows Phone need to compete with Android?

Even in the days leading up to the Build conference, it was clear Windows Phone was getting some wind behind its back. Windows Phone has surpassed 400,000 apps and the Windows Store now gets 14 million downloads a day. IBM has sort-of endorsed WP as its mobile OS of choice, although not officially.

RELATED: Why IBM thinks Windows Phone is best for the enterprise

Now there are more endorsements coming in the form of company-issued phones. Nokia just announced it has struck a deal with Spanish financial services group CaixaBank for 30,000 Lumia 925 smartphones to be issued to staff, with options to upgrade to future Lumia models.

CaixaBank employees will also be able to acquire Lumia phones for their personal use and for their family and friends as part of this deal. This comes on the heels of a deal with Delta Airlines to provide their 19,000 flight attendants with Lumia 1520 phones.

The latest news is what I’ve been waiting for. Samsung seems finally ready to make an effort. It was supposed to jump into the WP market with the ATIV S, a Galaxy S III handset, but now The Verge reports Samsung will reportedly release the ATIV SE, a Galaxy S IV running Windows Phone 8.

Now, I know that I slagged the Galaxy S IV in the past, but that I felt was more due to Android and all of the extra stuff Samsung loaded on it. The hardware, at least on paper, should be high-performance. We’ll see if that’s the case with the ATIV SE, assuming Samsung doesn’t kill it right before shipping it like it did before.

The only area of contention, at least according to The Verge, is whether it will ship with Windows Phone 8 or 8.1, which Microsoft just announced at Build. Either way doesn’t matter much, since Microsoft plans to start rolling out 8.1 in the next few weeks.

So what more does WP need? It’s still hovering at the 3-4% mark for overall market share, even with BlackBerry out of the way.

Well, Microsoft is making headway on apps, with 400,000 (vs. one million for iOS and Android), and at Build, it announced an update to Visual Studio that will make it possible for a single code base to be easily ported between Windows 8.1, PC and tablet edition, and Windows Phone. Microsoft claims developers will be able to reuse 90% of code between the two disparate platforms.

That helps, but the big news is the new price for Windows Phone: zero. Just a few weeks ago Microsoft hinted this was coming by making Windows Phone royalty-free for some Indian handset makers. Now it has announced that anything with a screen under nine inches will get Windows for free as well, both Windows and Windows Phone, depending on the device.

That’s a smart move, because IDC’s tablet research shows the greatest interest is in devices smaller than 8 inches. The company projects tablets 8 inches and under to grow from 27% of the market in 2011 to 57% by 2017, compared with 8- to 11-inch tablets dropping from 73% of the market in 2011 to 37% in 2017. Tablets larger than 11 inches would only reach 6% market share by 2017, because who wants to carry something that big?

So Microsoft made a great strategic move. It targeted the growth market with the free OS. You could argue that it should have made the desktop OS free because it needs more help, what with PC sales in decline. But that’s a mature market and, while in decline, it will always be there and doesn’t need seeding. PCs aren’t going away. But tablets are a growth market and Microsoft is now in a position to grab some share.

 

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