ASTOUNDING WINDOWS PHONE 8.1

Ever felt wonder at the unbelievable products of Microsoft? Guess what! Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore says the company will “technically” support all existing Windows Phone 8 devices in upragding to Windows 8.1. That’s one step ahead from the Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8 release, where existing devices were able to upgrade to 7.8, but not to the latest 8.0 version.

Microsoft will support on-screen forums(virtual buttons) with Windows Phone 8.1, apart from the new hardware support for Snapdragon 200, 400 and 400 LTE chipsets. Both changes will allow the Windows Phone makers to develop cheaper devices. Succinctly, the point seems to be targeting Android manufacturers to reuse the skeleton of the existing phones. Microsoft’s spring update for Windows Phone will also include support for apps to be stored on memory cards, allowing phone makers to ship handsets with just 512MB of memory and 4GB of storage.

Yet another significant change to Windows Phone 8.1 is the inclusion of dual-SIM experience, with Live Tiles for each EIM on windows Phone 8.1 and the ability to link those in the user interface. While dual-SIM support isn’t widely used in high-end smartphones today, Microsoft appears to be targeting emerging markets and countries where dual-SIM is key. Microsoft is largely focusing on some of its hardware changes before planning a full unveil of the features and changes at its Build developer conference in April, 2014.

I’m awaiting the release of this massive update. What about you?