Windows Phone 8 has been officially revealed by Microsoft. This is their new mobile phone OS since Windows Phone 7 which is now 2 years old. The new Operating system from Redmond is focused on bringing the people you care about to the surface of the phone while pushing back the, cold, static, uninformative grid of apps and icons. This is ever more present with their "Live tiles" which display content and information, associated with an app, as they happen in real time.
If you wan't to see a brief overview of Windows Phone 8 without the details scroll down to the Features section.
Here, Joe Belfiore summarises by demonstrating the new Windows Phone 8 features:
Start menu
The new start screen is an evolution of the live tiles found in Windows Phone 7. As inherited, it has tiles that give you live information on the things that matter to you the most as they happen. It can also be rearranged easily.
The new feature in the start screen is the ability to resize the tiles to show more/less information as required so you can prioritise them to your usage and importance.
New "Live" lock screen
One of the most useful features brought by Windows Phone 8 is the redesigned lock screen. This, being the first thing you see when you unlock your phone, has now become as lively as the "Live" tiles on the start screen. Now there are such things as "Lock screen apps" for which you can choose. There are several configurations for the lock screen:
Bing wallpaper: Bing is known for the beautiful pictures that it displays on its homepage, changing every day. Now, the lock screen can change to those pictures, changing every day so you always have something new and amazing.
News updates: News feeds such as sports scores of your favourite team, recent events and stocks.
You can choose the type of notification icons that you wan't to be displayed and the custom text.
Social networks: Facebook notifications and tweets come to the lock screen in real time using interchangeable notification icons.
Facebook Photos: The lock screen will delight you with a live gallery of your Facebook photos
The purpose of the new lock screen features is that you can glance-and-go without having to spend time observing the screen while the world moves on with out you.
Data Sense
For those of us with a tight budged or a limited data plan it is very risky and at the same time, too easy to exceed the limit knowing how dependant we and our smartphones are on the internet, thus being charged huge amounts by our network providers. The solution to this is the built in Data Sense app which features:
3G/4G data usage tracker with a user defined limit
When nearing the limit, the phone automatically takes advantage of nearby WiFi access points and moves background tasks that consume data to the WiFi connections available.
Shows data usage of each app.
Pin-able tile to the start screen to show you your data usage in real time and lets you know how close to your data limit you are.
Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud storage stores data of the most popular websites and compresses them to give you an extra 47% more browsing (on average) while on the same data plan.
Voice control
Microsoft's voice dictation technology, "Microsoft Tell Me", has been present in Windows Phone 7 and is now adapted to be more useful. It can be activated at any time by holding on the start button.
The new features include
Voice-to-text note making
Make calls, texts
App commands (when in or out of app). This can be adapted by the apps that you install giving this feature a greater purpose rather than a gimmick.
Support for more languages (Can be downloaded)
Kids Corner
Have kids? maybe a little brother, sister, nephew, niece? Windows Phone has Xbox Live which makes it great for gaming which is very sought after by young ones. Been in that situation where you would give your phone to them but there's the issue of keeping certain data, important emails/messages games/content away from them. The Kids corner is the solution. It is essentially an OS within the OS which has rules that can be defined by you and customised by the kids.
Skype
Skype is now fully integrated in to the OS which means that you can receive video calls or messages through Skype at any time without worrying about battery life.
People hub
The People hub is built around connecting with the people that matter to you and is much more than your usual address book or contacts app. People hub has
a "what's new" section which ties together all the recent updates concerning your friends & family in one news feed which you can interact with by liking, commenting, tweeting and so on with out the need to use a separate Facebook or Twitter app.
Groups: lets you see social network updates of a chosen group, contact a whole group of people in one message
Features:
Home Screen
Three tile sizes on screen wide
More accent colours
Data Sense / Data Profiling
Live Tile with data usage
Data Compression
E-mail
Emails dictation
Large live tile with the latest e-mail subject
Subject of the newest e-mail on the lock screen
Camera
Lenses
Pinch-to-zoom
Upload / Backup to SkyDrive
Office
New "Office 2013" design
Improved synchronization
OneNote now standalone app
Wallet / Wallet Centralized management of all payment methods Saving offers and coupons