windows
Windows Phone 8 Preview
So what’s up with Windows Phone 8, folks? This is just a preview, but that does not mean big things are in store. We have word that Windows Phone 8 will be shipping with a shared Windows Core, and when loosely translated to English, Microsoft is talking about a set of components such as the kernel and graphics support, where it will change the way the entire platform works. Hopefully for the better, of course. In some way, it will be the same familiarity with Windows that more than 1.3 billion people use worldwide each day, and a wider range of devices for consumers.
Needless to say, this would also mean a greater amount of app compatibility, where it will be easy to make a transition from Windows 8 to Windows Phone, as well as the other way around. Multi-core support is thrown into the bag of announced goodies, where it will be accompanied by multiple screen resolution support, including WVGA, WXGA and 720p, not to mention 1280 x 768 in a 16:9 aspect ratio. Read more about Windows Phone 8 in the extended post.
A microSD memory card slot is also added, so it would make it easier to store and transfer information from one device to another. Internet Explorer 10, or IE 10 for short, has also been built right into Windows Phone 8. This new version will offer an anti-phishing filter, a superior than before JavaScript performance, additional HTML5 feature support that has Touch Support, too.
You can be sure that better games are also coming your way, as both platforms share native code support, making life easier for game developers (as well as normal developers alike) to churn out bigger and more stunning apps at a faster rate.
In order to keep up with the Joneses, NFC support is also added to the list, slowly but surely shortening the bucket list for Windows Phone. Not only that, Windows Phone 8 comes with a Wallet feature where Microsoft has every intention of replacing the entire wallet instead of just handling payments. Guess Google Wallet and Apple’s Passbook is up against a potentially stiff competition here.
Windows Phone 8 is said to come with Nokia’s mapping technology, so that means you get to enjoy offline map support, thanks to map data provided by the good people over at Navteq. No longer do you need to get lost even when overseas, as an offline map means no exorbitant data roaming charges!
Microsoft has also beefed up enterprise security on Windows Phone 8 by offering encryption and secure boot, with bitlocker technology being at the heart of things.
There is also a new Start screen in town, where it comprises of large, medium and small tiles – which of course, you are able to set the size of these tiles according to your whim and fancy – subject to the screen size of the device, of course.
Image courtesy of Engadget.
It is quite a feeling to have a smartphone getting the latest operating system update up and running, that is for sure. After all, you can never quite tell just what kind of goodies that your handset would receive now, can you? Those who are rocking to a Windows Phone 8.1 device might be looking forward to spending Christmas with a Windows 10 Mobile update but it seems that such hopes will have to be shelved for the moment.
It seems that there will be no Windows 10 update arriving this month as originally speculated, and the time frame itself has been altered, being even more vague in nature – where it has been mentioned to be “early next year”, which could jolly well mean any time, even in April. Looks like patience needs to be had in boatloads here.
So, you are still rocking to the Xiaomi Mi 4 and are more than happy with the device, right? Well, how about enjoying an operating system upgrade when December 3rd rolls around? This is what will happen to the Xiaomi Mi 4, where it has been teased by Xiaomi’s Founder and President Lin Bin on Weibo, citing the December 3rd date. I suppose it is encouraging to take note that this bit arrives close to nine months after Microsoft and Xiaomi came to an agreement, where there would be support for the Windows 10 Technical Preview on the Mi 4 handset.
Just in case you were wondering, there is another device from Xiaomi which will rock to the Windows 10 OS, and that would be the recently announced Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 tablet, with that particular device arriving in a 64GB memory configuration alongside an asking price of $205 thereabouts.
Trivia lovers, here is something that might just pique your interest. After all, don’t you wish you had all sorts of information at your fingertips? Windows Phone lovers will be pleased to hear that there is a leak concerning information about the Windows Phone Store, and such information can be said to be ‘ancient”, as it dates back all the way to October 2011 with the introduction of Windows Phone 7.5.
So far, the most popular downloaded app happens to be Facebook with more than 112 million installations – no surprise there at all, I suppose. WhatsApp is behind Facebook considerably at 92 million downloads, while OneDrive has 62.5 million downloads. Located close to the bottom of the food chain would be PayPal that picked up a mere 1.6 million downloads all this while, and 2.5 million for Telegraph.
Third party apps as well as games have had their fair share of hits, too, like Tube HD that handles the playback of YouTube videos with more than 13 million downloads. Of course, these figures would pale in comparison to what Android and iOS platforms have garnered all this while.