New Windows Phone 8.1 details announced

Windows Phone 8.1 will receive new customisable lock screens, a notification tray, and a voice assistant, the head of Microsoft’s operating system group, Joe Belfiore, said on Wednesday, 2 April 2014.

Speaking to developers at the 2014 Microsoft Build developer conference, Belfiore showed off two lock screen options.

Developers will also receive access to the application programming interface (API) at a later stage which will let them build their own “interactive lock screen experiences”.

On the start screen, users will now be able to customise the density of the icons displayed, Belfiore said, up to 3 columns of icons.

The new notification tray, which on Windows Phone will be called “Action Centre”, shows the percentage charge left in the battery, customisable quick settings, and notifications.

Belfiore said that users will be able to customise notifications, selecting which will make a sounds, which will only vibrate, and which will go only to Action Centre.

Another feature Belfiore showed off was Cortana, Windows Phone’s new voice assistant which is similar to Apple’s Siri and Google Now.

Belfiore explained that Cortana completely replaces the search functionality in Windows Phone, is powered by Bing (Microsoft’s search engine) and can take either text or voice command inputs.

Cortana behaves in much the same way as Google Now, with a few exceptions which Belfiore highlighted.

Among them is the ability to interact directly with third-party applications. If an application makes use of the Cortana API, a user will be able to issue voice commands to it.

Similar to Siri and Google Now, Cortana is able to set reminders for various times of day and if you are within a certain geographic area (geofencing).

Cortana can also set reminders for when someone in your phone book calls you. It will then display the reminder when a call from that person is received.

Belfiore also demonstrated that Cortana is able to interact with your device’s calendar, setting and moving appointments based on the commands you give it.

Cortana will launch as a beta in the United States, then in the United Kingdom and China, Belfiore said.

Belfiore also unveiled a feature Microsoft dubbed Wi-Fi Sense, which can be enabled to automatically connect your device to open Wi-Fi hotspots.

It remains to be seen whether Microsoft has mitigated any of the security vulnerabilities that go hand-in-hand with enabling a feature such as Wi-Fi Sense.

The last feature Belfiore showed was Windows Phone 8.1’s “shape writing” system. This is a gesture input system for Windows Phone’s keyboard, much the same as that available on Android phones, such as Swype or SwiftKey.

Belfiore said that Windows Phone 8.1 will be rolling out to consumers as an update within the next few months, and that it will be available on brand new phones starting late April and early May 2014.

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