Windows Phone 8 Details Emerge

Posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes

Some details of thew next big release of Windows Phone, codenamed ‘Apollo’ have emerged today from a video hosted by Windows Phone chief Joe Belfiore for partners including Nokia, and seen by PocketNow.  The video covered a few themes that are all logical evolutions of the platform.

Hardware

Windows Phone 8 is set to have some changes made to the supported hardware now that it is a mature platform.  These changes include support for multi-core processors and three new screen resolutions.  These weren’t specified but we can expect them to be both lower and higher than the current 800 by 480 pixels.  This will allow new high-end handsets to compete more effectively with the iPhone and some Android phones, while also opening up new markets for low-price smartphones, a market Microsoft has been keen to get into.  NFC will also be supported for contactless payments and finally Micro SD Card support is coming to the platform which will be welcomed by many people.

Windows 8 Integration & Data Management

The new version of Windows Phone will work more effectively with Windows 8, no longer requiring the Zune desktop software to synchronise music, photos and files. There’s no word on how Microsoft will actually do this but there will be a new “syncing relationship” with Windows 8.

There will also be a new Xbox companion app for Windows 8 and better SkyDrive support, which might explain the different Windows 8 sync.  For those worried about their data connection the OS will be better able to handle WiFi networks, automatically prioritising them for data, and providing a Live Tile showing your data usage and throughput.  It will also auto-connect to available and appropriate networks, though presumably security conscious owners will be able to turn this feature off.

Internet Explorer 10 on the phone will also use a proxy server to compress images.  Microsoft say this can save up to 30% of the total browsing data usage on the phone.

Developers

Microsoft are going to continue the already excellent work they are doing for app developers by further improving the tools that can convert iPhone and Android apps for Windows Phone.  Belfiore apparently said he expects 100,000 apps for Windows Phone by the time Apollo is available at the end of this year.

Business Support

Businesses are also being catered for with better features including 128-bit full disk Bitlocker encryption and, finally, the ability to deploy custom apps directly from a Windows Server environment without having to go through the Windows Phone app store.

The Apollo update is expected at the end of this year along with handsets that will have it pre-installed.  This probably means we will begin to see leaked details of these new handsets around late summer with releases in late October to get them out for the Christmas market.  A launch at this time will match the expected launch of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8.

These are just a few details of the next major update for Windows Phone that is still also rumoured to run on the Windows desktop MinWin kernel.  We will no doubt hear further details later in the year but it is clear that Microsoft are aiming to ‘evolve’ the operating system in sensible and organic ways, with the better integration with Windows 8 a particularly good idea.

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