Windows Phone 8 Unveiled: Hot New Features

[comp@ddict]

Shared Core, Dual Cores, HD screen among the works.

Complete preview here:

Windows Phone 8 Unveiled: Hot New Features | Gadgetronica

Head over and give it a read.

I think WP8 is promising!

What about you?

[AndroidFan]

Yeah... Was reading the liveblog right now... Sounds very good... but as suspected no upgrade path to old WP7 devices... They will be getting an update to WP 7.8 with a few features...

I believe WP7 will continue to be sold on cheap entry-level devices... WP8 has highend support... like dual-core processors, high-end graphics, high-res screens... So, they will all be expensive, highend phones...

Its launching in October... just in time to compete with the new iPhone and the new Nexus device... it will be a lot of fun...

[sanjoy.bose]

Looks promising...

[ssk_the_gr8]

so as i had predicted, we get WP 7.8 . i thought it would be 7.7
anyway i'm happy that WP7 users have not been left out in the cold which would have been foolish

the new start screen is awesome

[AndroidFan]

The new startscreen could become a mess quickly...

[comp@ddict]

^^ Now that you say it, it looks like a mess man!

[ssk_the_gr8]

yup, it depends on the user, how they use it, they could turn it into a mess, but it does give you the ability to customize which some people whine about

[sam]

WP8 has highend support... like dual-core processors, high-end graphics, high-res screens... So, they will all be expensive, highend phones...

I was expecting more feature

Its launching in October... just in time to compete with the new iPhone and the new Nexus device... it will be a lot of fun...

Nexus will be launched by July most probably. But depends who manufactures Nexus mobile this time.

anyway i'm happy that WP7 users have not been left out in the cold which would have been foolishso as i had predicted, we get WP 7.8 . i thought it would be 7.7

I remember M$ saying something about app compatibility and user experience when asked about if WP7.5 will get updated to WP8. I think it was when Lumia 900 got launched. I said then no update even for 900.

The new startscreen could become a mess quickly...

is there a minimum size one can resize the apps to? I think this should be limited depending on screen resolution as well as screen size else one may end up with 20-30 icons on a 3.7" screen and totally unusable.

So Tango will be WP7.8? End of road for Lumia 710/800 Omnia W & HTC Radar. I am sure HTC is pissed and Samsung is smiling.

[ssk_the_gr8]

Tango is 7.5 refresh
7.8 comes later, so its not end of the road
And 7.8 is at least better than not getting the update at all
You get the main update the new start screen
Its similar to apple updating iPhone 4 to ios 5 and not Giving it siri or some other feature because the old hardware won't support it
Btw,is siri available on iPhone 4 legally?

There will most probably be 3-4 fixed sizes for live tiles, I'm pretty sure

[dashing.sujay]

Why Sony is not in the list?

[ico]

Its similar to apple updating iPhone 4 to ios 5 and not Giving it siri or some other feature because the old hardware won't support it

dunno if "Siri" in iOS 5/iPhone 4 was not there because of "hardware." It's a stupid app which Apple wanted to be exclusive for iPhone 4S - so that their poodle cult get a lol reason to buy the new phone.

[ssk_the_gr8]

Why Sony is not in the list?

they want to focus on droid

dunno if "Siri" in iOS 5/iPhone 4 was not there because of "hardware." It's a stupid app which Apple wanted to be exclusive for iPhone 4S - so that their poodle cult get a lol reason to buy the new phone.

true, but I read that siri required advanced hardware which 4 didn't have

[Empirial]

I want WP8 Phone as soon as possible

[noob]

Impressed with WP8 development. Perfect time to sell iPad & iPhone. Also sad to see that not even a single WP will get WP8 update. WP fragmentation story starts here. This month is awesome. Apple, MS & Google announcing huge plans moving forward. This is called competition driven innovation. Big win for end users.

But now what's the guarantee that WP8 device with get WP OS9 update? This is where Apple excels.

Don't underestimate today's WP8 announcements. It's a total game changer IMO. iPad sales are gonna hurt badly now starting next year. Moving forward its only MS vs Google for me. Each have its core strengths in respective areas. Excepting some major announcements from Google in future about bit more hardware & software control.

And yeah, Start screen still sucks and no notification hub yet.

[reniarahim1]

Good that i waited...Looking forward for the WP8 device....Now its a full fledged mobile OS.

[Terabyte]

I want WP8 Phone as soon as possible

Me too

[tarey_g]

true, but I read that siri required advanced hardware which 4 didn't have

No, Siri app is used to send your voice data to Apple servers, where its processed and and sent back to you, all the hard work is done by the Apple servers, your iPhone does not have to do much sh1t. So the hhardware thing is stupid, it similar to what many Android apps do , and thesse apps easily run on chepo low end Androids.

[abhidev]

looks impressive...

[amjath]

I always wanted a Windows phone and Windows Tablet, I think the time has come

[Vyom]

So, MicroSD card support! Finally.

Now, just a gazillion other shortcomings to sort out!

But I hope we can use the card to store files directly from our PC's without Zune. That would alone be called coming of a Windows Phone, a long way.

[AndroidFan]

I remember M$ saying something about app compatibility and user experience when asked about if WP7.5 will get updated to WP8. I think it was when Lumia 900 got launched. I said then no update even for 900.

Microsoft is completely changing the kernel core... from WinCE to WinNT... They want good apps and games support, and make it easier for developers to reuse their code... Also, native C and C++ support, which is really awesome...

IMO, the new WP8 will go x86 Intel Medfield processors instead of ARM...

WP7 phones cannot be upgraded to WP8. Its too big a leap...

is there a minimum size one can resize the apps to? I think this should be limited depending on screen resolution as well as screen size else one may end up with 20-30 icons on a 3.7" screen and totally unusable.

Live tiles will be resizable in 3 sizes... Small, Standard and Double... How many live tiles you can fit horizontally could depend on the screen resolution...

So Tango will be WP7.8? End of road for Lumia 710/800 Omnia W & HTC Radar. I am sure HTC is pissed and Samsung is smiling.

Surely, HTC will be pissed... all their investment down the drain... and WP7 buyers will be really angry... mainly because they will never get the App support WP8 would get...

Why Sony is not in the list?

Sony will never make WP8 phones because XBox Live is in direct competition with Sony's Playstation platform. Don't want to use a competitor's feature. WP8 is not open, so Sony cannot swap XBox Live for its own Playstation platform... So, Sony will stick to Android...

So, MicroSD card support! Finally.

Now, just a gazillion other shortcomings to sort out!

But I hope we can use the card to store files directly from our PC's without Zune. That would alone be called coming of a Windows Phone, a long way.

Still want to see how good it is... Current WP7 Notification system is not good... Multitasking is not good... Lets see how good it all could be...

[ssk_the_gr8]

Impressed with WP8 development. Perfect time to sell iPad & iPhone. Also sad to see that not even a single WP will get WP8 update. WP fragmentation story starts here. This month is awesome. Apple, MS & Google announcing huge plans moving forward. This is called competition driven innovation. Big win for end users.

But now what's the guarantee that WP8 device with get WP OS9 update? This is where Apple excels.

WP8 phones will get WP 8.5 for sure and it should get WP9 too as now it has NT kernel.*just a hunch*

and about WP 7 users not getting WP 8 .. Well they are getting 7.8 which will have the features of WP8 that the CE kernel can support. So it's good enough, instead of being left out in the cold.

I don't see WP7 users missing much. When they bought into WP7 they knew what they were getting into so 7.8 is good enough.

It's better than iphone 3gs getting ios 5 and slowing down to a crawl, at least 7.8 will be optimized for current Windows Phone and they wont loose out on any performance

btw, start screen is what most people love about WP, i guess it's your opinion

Surely, HTC will be pissed... all their investment down the drain... and WP7 buyers will be really angry... mainly because they will never get the App support WP8 would get...


.

I dont see reason to be pissed, microsoft is updating HD7 a 2 year old phone, So HTC should be happy
and about the people who bought the radar , it's still getting 7.8 , it's better than many android phones, which never get an update

I dont understand why people are making such a hoo-haa about app support.
WP8 will be out before christmas.... so right now development wont stop cuz wp7 apps work in wp8

once wp8 is out , game engines and stuff like that which need native code will be codded for WP8 only but the developers are not stupid. They know that most of the userbase is WP7 so they will code apps for WP7 which will also work in WP8. It will be more convenient for them.

But, post 2013 , in 2014 when WP8 userbase will for sure be greater than wp 7 then there might be issues.

There are developers who support android 2.1 because 7% of their user base is still on it ... so i dont see this as a big issue

[noob]

@SSK : you missed the most important point here

It was a choice not to support WP7/WP7.5 devices in Windows Phone 8. There was no technical barriers making it impossible. MS ****ed up another quarter for Nokia

[ssk_the_gr8]

Another thing is that Msoft needs to learn is to market lies like Apple.

they should have named in wp7.8 as wp 8 CE or something. marketers would be happy, stupid consumers would be happy. And like apple says that your phone gets ios5 but these features wont run because older phones dont have advanced hardware, Msoft should have done the same.

Msoft marketing guys need to learn. No point being honest.

[noob]

I don't see WP7 users missing much. When they bought into WP7 they knew what they were getting into so 7.8 is good enough.

I brought Lumia 800 because i knew hardware was capable of running WP8 OS.

It's better than iphone 3gs getting ios 5 and slowing down to a crawl, at least 7.8 will be optimized for current Windows Phone and they wont loose out on any performance

just count the difference between number of years when 3GS and iOS5 was launched and same for Lumia 800/900 and WP8. This sucks.

[ssk_the_gr8]

@SSK : you missed the most important point here

Msoft must have told nokia before lumia launch that WP8 wont support it. WP8 is not in development for 6 months, it's been in development for more than a year, Nokia are not fools.

true it was a choice and they made the choice with WP 7.8.

WP8 was built for multicore and they didnt want to optimize/leave features etc. to support single core cpus and older gen gpus.

Getting WP8 would be the best case scenario but 7.8 is good enough, that too for 2 year old phones. They could have given everyone wp8 but i guess they didnt want to invest.

And like I said about the apple marketing strategy, Msoft were stupid to not use it

I brought Lumia 800 because i knew hardware was capable of running WP8 OS.

and where was it mentioned that it was capable of WP8?

[noob]

Its common sense, 1.4 ghz single core CPU certainly IS capable of running WP8 OS

[ithehappy]

looks impressive...

Sure it does. At least I now have an option to choose between two OS.

[ssk_the_gr8]

Its common sense, 1.4 ghz single core CPU certainly IS capable of running WP8 OS

well its not so common
They are trying to run w8 nt kernel on arm and they decided it needed dual core at least
If it was an upgraded CE kernel you could have argued

[abhidev]

Sure it does. At least I now have an option to choose between two OS.

I hope they don't follow the apple way and price WP8 devices a fortune