Windows Phone 8.1 Features

[mgsstar]

 

[spoiler=Features (There are lots of them )]

 

Action Center

Notification center – Alerts, non-Toast notifications, update history, more

Quick-access to customized actions, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Plane mode, etc.

 

Apps + Store

Apps can capture audio/video from themselves; be limited for copyright concerns

App and Game data stored on SD cards

Apps on SD Cards are only allowed from ONE originating phone. If it detects that apps from another phone are installed on the SD Card, then it will ask to delete those first

App Suggestions by location

Backup of App + Game data to OneDrive (if developer enabled)

Facebook app comes with OS, updates independently, hooks into OS

Filter through installed apps by usage/install date

Manual Update checks

Option to update store apps automatically

Option to update store apps when only on Wi-Fi

Single sign-in for apps (like on Windows 8) with Microsoft Account; sign in will persist across devices + apps with permissions prompt

 

Calendar

Google calendar support, with multiple calendars

Weather in calendar

Week view in calendar

 

Camera

Burst camera mode, including auto-deletion of bursts

New layout

 

Bing

Bing smart search (similar search system as Windows 8.1)

Podcast app powered by Bing, full featured

 

Browser

Internet Explorer 11

IE 11 to save and remember your password for websites

JavaScript and HTML for app development

Upload files through Internet Explorer 11

Tabs now show up individually in multi-task window

WebGL and Normal mapping support

YouTube Player including HTML5 video support

 

Developer

Background tasks: Bluetooth signal strength, Chat message notification, Device connection change, Device use trigger, Gatt characteristic notification, Location, Push notification, Rfcomm connection, System event, Timer

XAP replaced by APPX

​​Audio/video transcoding that’s hardware accelerated

New dev tools including: SemanticZoom, DatePicker, TimePicker

Actionable notifications for apps

Silent/ghost notifications for apps

 

Email

Encrypted and signed e-mail support

New Email sync options with accordance to usage patterns (i.e. If you get a lot of mail on particular days and if you don’t check mail every day).

Option to always download emails and pictures within them

 

Enterprise and Office

Enterprise enrolled phones can have their passwords changed and remotely locked

Password protected Office document support

Office Lens support for scanning documents with camera, import into Office with OCR

Rebranding of SkyDrive to OneDrive

VPN support built in

S/MIME to sign and encrypt email

Access to corporate resources behind the firewall with app aware 

Auto-triggered VPN 

Certificate management to enroll, update and revoke certificates for user authentication 

Enhanced MDM policies to lock down functionality on the phone for more enterprise control, in addition to richer application management such as allowing or denying the installing of certain apps. 

Enterprise Wi-Fi support with EAP-TLS

 

General User Experience changes

Start screen backgrounds

Back button no longer closes apps, instead it suspends them

Double-Tap to unlock your phone (Feature from Lumia devices on Amber Update and newer)

Double Tap to Power Off

Favorite photos by tapping a heart icon

File picker

Kid's Corner - Password won't be displayed (bug fix)

Live Tiles – mark as red by swiping from the left over the Tile

Live Tiles – Three column support (maybe)

Navigation bar for phones without physical keys on the front

Notification if charger isn’t of adequate power

Quiet Hours - Disable notifications during pre-selected timeframe

Screenshot button combination is now Power + Volume Up

Search button will be the new way to open Speech (aka ‘Cortana’)

Separate volume controls for ringtones/notifications and music/media

Set default Voice Navigation app for the OS

Swipe down to close apps in multitasking view

Voice Narrator for Accessibility

 

Keyboard

General keyboard enhancements, show emoji when typing

Swipe keyboard option - “Write, when I swipe through letters”.

 

Media

Audio/video transcoding, Hardware accelerated

Media editing:  audio and video; Audio effects, video effects; Slow motion video

Xbox Music and Xbox Video as standalone apps instead of the Music + Video Hub (allowing more updates to be pushed)

 

Messaging

Change default SMS app. You can also change which SMS app will show notifications.

Mute Thread - Optionally silence text threads, no longer receive notifications or Live Tile updates

 

Phone + Contacts

Contact list sorting of those with phone numbers

In-call speech commands. You’ll be able to say “Call XXXXXX”.

Inner Circle of contacts. Up to 40 contacts can be in the inner circle.

Operators can also install certain applications once a SIM card is detected

 

Sense

Battery Power Sense – App to monitor which apps draw the most power

Battery Saver (under Battery Sense) will have an app exclusion list

Data Sense – Operators can now control Data Sense limits remotely

Wi-Fi Sense – Sharing secured WI-Fi Networks with contacts if they have Wi-Fi Sense. They don’t get to see the shared password though

 

System

Bluetooth 4.0 LE

Chkdsk for SD cards to ensure card health

Geofence monitoring support. Geofence is a boundary around a place of interest to you. Location services can monitor geofences to tell your apps when you’re entering and leaving them. This would be really good for IFTTT

Miracast, PlayTo, mirror and project via wireless display or USB-out

Mouse and keyboard support (HID)

Stereoscopic 3D support

The phone will have to update to the latest version before you can restore it to factory settings

Trusted app list for NFC that will remove the need for asking whether you want to open a particular app

Virtual SmartCard support

Wallet supports tickets and membership cards

Windows Phone 8.1 apps won't run on 8.0 devices until they upgrade

Source:http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-81-features

There are lots of features that are added to Windows Phone 8.1. The features that I like are Swipe keyboard, File viewer, and and start screen backgrounds. The greatest features that I like are the notification bar and restoring saves using OneDrive if the developer supports it and downloading game data on the SD Card as my HTC 8S is low on internal storage. But I think it would take a while imo for all apps to switch to 8.1.

[legopc]

i want my phone to stop randomly closing apps and i want more apps... 

[samuel]

Everything but a true file manager.

But still, my 520 is ready! Developer unlocked and... .

[WereCat]

Finaly. But YT already works in IE without need of a app. Anyways... VPN and all other features will be finaly available.

[Covalent]

I think this is the first time windows phone looks somewhat compelling.

[samuel]

[dalekphalm]

Sweet, looks good. I'm quite interested in seeing how the notification center is like. The main complaint of my WP7.8 device is lack of a single location for notifications.

[MbV93]

If WP does get Cortana with the voice of Jen Taylor, I'm switching over!