Anton Sugar
Member
Big thanks to Brotkasten for his help on this OT!
Third time's a charm.
Windows Phone 8 (codenamed Apollo) has arrived and with it comes a complete overhaul of the acclaimed operating system. With the update, WP8 makes an even stronger case to be taken seriously as a modern smartphone contender and almost everything you loved about Windows Phone 7 has been improved.
Despite the massive underlying changes, the unique look and feel of the previous version remains the same. Features like Live Tiles and Hubs were improved, new features were added and almost all of the 120,000 Windows Phone 7 apps work flawlessly.
New to Windows Phone? Take a look at these videos to learn the basics:
- Meet Windows Phone 8
- Getting started with Windows Phone 8
- Pinning, theme colors, and more
- Speech features
- Text your current location
- Keyboard tips and tricks
- Save a doc to Skydrive
- Take a screenshot
With Windows Phone 8, Microsoft attempts to unify the code base for their desktop and mobile operating systems. The OS is now based on the same NT kernel as Windows 8 and finally brings support for modern CPUs, new resolutions, and native code.
Along with the above enhancements and major changes, the following features have been enhanced:
- Internet Explorer 10: IE10 has received serious performance and standards (HTML5, etc.) support
- Word Flow: predictive text messaging saves you time and learns your typing habits
- NFC: Tap+send functionality is now supported
- MicroSD: Phones may now use removable media to augment phone storage
- VOIP Integration: Third-party apps using VOIP are now supported and can be integrated into the OS
In lieu of a notification center (which Microsoft has acknowledged and said is coming), Live Tiles provide live information/notification updates. With live tiles, you can:
- View the preview of a text/e-mail message from the tile and count of unread messages
- Check your next calendar meeting and location
- Display the latest news headlines and images
- Check the weather for today and the forecast for tomorrow
- Receive turn notifications for games
- See previews of your favorite images from your pictures
- View traffic updates and commute information
Just like in the previous versions of Windows Phone, you can pin your apps, contacts, pictures, videos or even just specific features of one app. However, instead of having a single, uniform size, live tiles now have three different sizes available.
The information displayed on a live tile will dynamically change based on tile size. For example, the large Mail tile will give me my total unread count, as well as a preview of the most recent e-mail. As you decrease it in size, extra details (like the preview) are hidden, but the most important information (unread mail count) is still displayed.
Some sample GAF Start screens:
To switch between tiles sizes, long press on any tile to enter the Start screen "edit" mode. From here, you can:
- Rearrange tiles
- Resize tiles
- Remove tiles
With Windows Phone 8, MS brings additional live update functionality directly to the lock screen. The term Live App refers to an app that can be used as your lock screen wallpaper and updates dynamically.
An example of this functionality is the Facebook app. If you choose to set your lock screen wallpaper to the Facebook app, you can then choose to rotate through your Facebook album photos for your lock screen. Similarly, the Bing app can update your wallpaper with a new daily Bing wallpaper.
Expanded functionality is planned, but has yet to be introduced. Some previews of this have shown an ESPN app giving instant score updates on the lock screen, and it is feasible that weather or news apps could display weather or breaking news updates, respectively.
The People Hub remains a great aggregator of all your social networking content, including your Microsoft account, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Skype (if installed).
Information displayed can be narrowed down to one or more sources (e.g., Facebook, Facebook and Twitter, etc.), and you can write directly on someone's wall, reply to a tweet, or comment on a post.
A Room allows you to create a shared experience between yourself and your selected room members. Within a Room, you can share:
- Calendar
- Photos
- Notes
- Chat
Think of a room as a "folder" that automatically shares any and all messages, photos, calendar invites, etc., with the members. For example, you can choose to share a picture, or folder of pictures, with a group. Once shared, any one of those members can view these pictures. The chat function as a group chat between all members, constantly connecting you.
Groups, as opposed to Rooms, are an easy way for you to view updates from a group of people. You can view their latest social updates and latest photos, as well as easily send a group message to all of them.
Compared to Groups, Rooms are more collaborative; while Groups let you interact with the members via text, it really is more useful as a way of aggregating social updates from certain people.
The development on the Zune desktop client was effectively stopped two years ago and with the discontinuation of the Zune brand, Microsoft decided to completely ditch the Zune software in favor of a lighter, but less capable syncing client.
The Windows Phone tool, as the new client is called, lets you sync your music, videos and pictures.
Features
- Get your music, photos, and videos from your computer to your phone (and vice versa).
- Import from iTunes
- Quickly share things from your phone with Windows 8 apps (like Photos, or Search). You don’t even have to open the Windows Phone app to move things around.
- Automatically save photos and videos you take with your phone to your PC.
- See at a glance how much space you’re using for each type of content, so it’s easy to make sure you never run out of room on your phone.
While some users favor the light Active Sync-like client, dropped features like wireless sync and podcast management are significant losses for Windows Phone fans.
Bing for Windows Phone 8 retains everything that made it great in previous Windows Phone iterations along with a few updates.
The Bing home page changes daily, providing new images with hotspots that you can tap on to help you discover fun facts. You’ll also see your present location, telling you that Bing knows where you are and is ready to deliver location-aware search results. The new "explore" pivot/panorama functionality delivers instant results from Bing for news and entertainment:
- Bing Search: Search the web using Bing. Your search includes any relevant apps, media (including videos), local news, or showtimes
- Top Headlines: Latest headlines from Bing
- Top Videos: Top videos available from Bing
- Local Deals: Local deals based on your location
- In Theaters: Latest movies and showtimes
- Social Events: Local big and/or social events based on your location
Tapping on Local Scout either from the start menu or from the search page gets your windows phone connecting to GPS and the 'net to pull sites of interest to your phone, once it's worked out your location it returns results for Eat + Drink, See + Do, Shop and Highlights.
New to Windows Phone 8 is the "For You" section, which delivers results based on opting into the Bing social scanning/delivery program. This new feature uses social network data to deliver local recommendations to you, and can be refined based on what you like or don't like:
Tapping any result within Local Scout will bring up an information card for that result, which will contain useful information such as the Venues contact details,
reviews of the venue (if available), the option to get directions to the venue from your current location and a link to the venues website (if available).
Local Scout is available here:
Australia, France, United Kingdom and United States
and only on devices with 512mb memory or more.
This can only be accessed from the search page by tapping the Eighth note (quaver) icon, tapping this icon and holding your phone to a music source your phone will recognise the song and then allow you to open the Zune music marketplace to buy/download the album/song. Not quite as capable as Shazam or Soundhound it's a nice feature to be available.
Microsoft saw fit to include a barcode / Microsoft Tags / QR code text reader straight in at OS level, this allows for some cool usage as barcodes and QR codes are all around use now.
Using the phones camera to scan a products barcode you can check instore prices against those online, comparison results are provided by Ciao!
QR codes are commonly being used for advertising campaigns now, to save people having to type a web address you just scan the QR code and get linked to the website, other uses are for contact details, time tables basically anything that's quicker to scan than type can be put into a code.
Vision search also supports OCR which can be used in a couple of ways this first being you can scan a news article from your morning paper, after scanning the article Bing will bring up the web version of the article for easy reading on the go.
The feature will work with over 30,000 publications. Hopefully chances are almost every major publication you can think of will supports the service.
The other way the OCR can be used is to translate text, once in vision search tapping scan while the camera is over text will take a photo of the text, if the OCR is good and the language is recognized you will get the option to translate the text.
Vision search is only available in these regions:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom and United States.
Voice search is available from the search hub, tapping on the microphone icon will activate voice search which can interact with Local Scout if the search is considered to be a search for an activity / event i.e.
saying "Bowling" would open a web search about bowling
saying "Bowling in Boston" would open the Local Scout Panorama and show bowling lanes there.
saying "Bowling in Boston" would open the Local Scout Panorama and show bowling lanes there.
Voice Search is only available in the regions :
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and United States.
Tellme is Microsofts equivalent of Apples Siri. The service can be accessed from anywhere by pressing and holding the Windows key.
Commands you can use are:
Call
usage "Call Mom at home" would start calling your Mom at home (if you had saved the number as contact Mom or added the nickname Mom to the real name contact)
Find
usage "Find neogaf" would open the Bing Web panorama with links about / to NeoGaf
usage "Find pizza" will open the Windows Phone 7 Local Scout panorama showing pizzerias in the local area.
Open
usage "open 4th and Mayor" would launch the 4th and Mayor App (if installed).
Text
"Text Dad" "Fancy playing some golf this weekend" "send" sends a text to your Dad contact.
Note
"Note pick up writing material" adds a new note to OneNote for "pick up writing material".
New to Windows Phone 8 is the integration of third-party apps to Tellme voice commands. A great example of this is the Audible app:
New with Windows Phone 8 is Kid's Corner. Kid's Corner can be enabled in the Settings app and allows you to essentially create a "space" for children to use on the phone. With Kid's Corner, you don't have to worry about children messing with your own apps--it is easy to set up and to access.
While setting up the app, you can choose games, videos, apps, and music that can be accessed from Kid's Corner.
After Kid's Corner has been set up, it can be accessed by swiping right from your lock screen.
It can be lightly customized (name(s), accent colors, and wallpaper). Each tile represents the games, videos, apps, and music that you chose during setup.
Xbox Music is Microsoft’s new all-in-one music service, specially designed to let users listen to music in exactly the way they want. It combines the best aspects of free-streaming radio, music subscription services and music purchasing options, all in one elegant package
With Xbox Music you can access your music collection from any screen, combined with unique social features. It includes a music store for song downloads, music subscription offering, artist-based radio and a great cross-screen client for your personal music collections.
- Xbox Music Pass. Want unlimited access to the songs and artists you care about, including offline access? Get an Xbox Music Pass for ad-free, unlimited playback of any track in our subscription catalog across your tablet, PC, phone and Xbox 360 for US$9.99 per month. Xbox Music Pass also unlocks unlimited access to tens of thousands of music videos on your Xbox 360.
- Xbox Music Store. Want to own the music you love? The Xbox Music Store is a comprehensive MP3 marketplace giving you the opportunity to purchase a single track or entire album on your Windows 8 or Windows RT tablet or PC and Windows Phone 8.
- Smart DJ. Creating a new form of artist-based radio, the Smart DJ feature is a quick and dynamic way to personalize your collection, discover new favorites and create ultimate playlists by launching instant mixes based on your favorite artists. With unlimited skips and a view of the full recommended music stream, Smart DJ puts you in control of your Internet radio experience.
- Cloud Storage. Available in the coming year, a scan-and-match feature will take you beyond the 30 million tracks globally offered through Xbox Music. It will add all the music you own to your Xbox Music cloud catalog, including music acquired through other services. This means you can add almost any content you have to your personal Xbox Music collection, even if it’s not available in the Xbox Music catalog.
- Free streaming music on Windows 8 and Windows RT. Enjoy on-demand access to tens of millions of songs for free on all Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets and PCs. Discovering and enjoying free music on Windows 8 and Windows RT is as easy as typing an artist or song name and hitting “play” — songs are instantly available to stream and for you to create an unlimited amount of playlists.
- Social Music. Xbox Music will add unique social features in the coming year that let you share your music experiences with friends and family.
Xbox Music Pass:
The Zune Music Pass subscription service offers unlimited music streaming and is available in following countries:
USA ($9,99 per month)
Canada ($9.99)
Australia ($11.99)
UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Austria (£8.99 / €9.99 per month)
Canada ($9.99)
Australia ($11.99)
UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Austria (£8.99 / €9.99 per month)
Xbox Music:
The Zune Music marketplace offers over 30 million songs and is available in:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States
Xbox Video:
Video purchase is available in:
US, UK, France, Germany, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
Movie rental is available in:US, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Mexico, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
Podcasts
The Podcast section of the marketplace is only available in the US. Users outside the US have access to various podcast apps that are available in the Windows Phone Store. Ask people in the thread for recommendations.
The Xbox SmartGlass application allows remote control and access of applications on an Xbox game console. Using SmartGlass, users can control various applications or discover additional information on an application or media (game, movie, etc.) being played:
- On election day, watch news coverage on the Xbox NBC app, and look at an electoral college map on your phone/tablet running SmartGlass
- Use SmartGlass to find information on a movie you're watching or music you're listening to
- Access bonus content for a game being played on your Xbox
- Use your SmartGlass device as a remote control for your Xbox
The Office app has been updated with a new look similar to Office 2013, and has full access to documents stored in Skydrive. Office documents may be edited, commented on, and shared directly from your Windows Phone; resume work on your documents from any device with access to Skydrive.
OneNote is now its own app and has robust support in Windows Phone 8, including the ability to add photos to notes and to quickly record voice memos by utilizing Bing's voice commands.
As its own app, OneNote has much improved support for notebook and note navigation.
Any device with Skydrive access can view your notes, and notes can be shared with other users and with your Rooms.
With the underlying changes Microsoft made to the OS, Windows Phone finally supports a much wider range of hardware. The former limitations of the CE kernel, like max. 512 MB RAM or the lack of multi-core CPU support are gone.
The first version of the OS will be limited to Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 SoC, but support for other chipsets will be added shortly after launch.
Microsoft updated the minimum chassis requirements accordingly:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor
- Minimum 512MB RAM for WVGA phones; minimum 1GB RAM for 720p / WXGA
- Minimum 4GB flash memory
- GPS and A-GNSS; GLONASS is supported if OEMs decide to include it
- Support for micro-USB 2.0
- 3.5mm stereo headphone jack with three-button detection support
- Rear-facing AF camera with LED or Xenon flash, optional front-facing camera (both need to be VGA or better) and dedicated camera button
- Accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensors, as well as vibration motor (magnetometer and gyroscope are optional)
- 802.11b/g and Bluetooth (802.11n is optional)
- DirectX graphics hardware support with hardware acceleration for Direct3D using programmable GPU
- Multi-touch capacitive touch screen with minimum of four simultaneous points
Note: While 512 MB RAM devices are supported, Microsoft recommends 1 GB RAM for full app and feature compatibility.
With the switch to the NT kernel, Microsoft dropped support for the previous two generations, which means that Windows Phone 7 user won't get an update to the new OS.
Here's a list of new phones you can buy instead!
, you'll get the update as soon as it's released. 
