#LIVE TILES WINDOWS PHONE 8 1080P#
#LIVE TILES WINDOWS PHONE 8 UPDATE#
#LIVE TILES WINDOWS PHONE 8 BLUETOOTH#

It'll show if the battery is being used by apps in the background or in the foreground.

Battery Sense - The phone can tell you what apps are eating the battery, and when they are eating it.

The predictive text has gotten better as well.

Keyboard Swiping - It's built into the main keyboard now, no separate app.

You can choose to never see the text until you stop.

#LIVE TILES WINDOWS PHONE 8 BLUETOOTH#

It knows you're driving because you associate your cars' Bluetooth with it, then it will text folks 'I'm driving, I'll get back to you' if they text you.

#LIVE TILES WINDOWS PHONE 8 UPDATE#

Driving Mode - This was added in a Windows Phone 8 update but I love it.

Quiet Hours takes this a little further with the concept of an 'Inner Circle' and a more sophisticated series of configurable rules like 'Don't bother me at night on weekdays unless it's these three people, and text everyone else back that I'm not answering calls.'

Quiet Hours - I use Do Not Disturb on my iPhone.

You can say 'Call my wife' and she'll say 'Who is your wife?' then associate a contact with that nomenclature. You can ask questions like 'How old is Oprah' and she (or he) just knows. The voice recognition happens as you speak as opposed to after the fact, which is nice.

Cortana Voice Assistant - You could say this is the Windows' Siri, but it's more like Google Now with a personality.

See on the 920 on the right, at the bottom, that's a pinned flipped tile showing a story from my blog. The surprise was that Windows Phone 8.1 now supports that same technique and I didn't need to do anything. I talked to the front end developer at The Verge and he added the feature for as well. I recently added support to my blog for IE11 Pinned Tiles, so you can pin this website to your start screen and get an updated Live Tile showing the latest stories.

Pinnable Website Tiles - This one surprised me.

Now smaller screen devices can choose their start screen size and add LOTS more info to a single screen. Previously only high-res screens got the extra column of tiles.

#LIVE TILES WINDOWS PHONE 8 1080P#

'Show more Tiles' on smaller resolution devices - The 1520 on the right has the 1080p screen, while the 920 is a lower resolution screen.

It also has a nice parallax effect when scrolling.

Transparent Live Tiles - You can use a background image for your whole start screen, and it will show through transparent tiles.

You can also swipe down then press Settings as a fast way to get to the main settings page. Even better, those buttons are configurable. Just like an iPhone you get quick access buttons for airplane mode, wireless, etc. Swipe down from the top and get notifications in one place. There's a lot of new stuff, but a few things really grabbed my attention that my iPhone doesn't have yet: From a general functionality perspective, this 8.1 update brings the Windows Phone (finally) on par with my iPhone 5s, and in some cases, takes it beyond. It's the platform Windows Phone should have been from the beginning. Man, Windows Phone 8.1 is definitely more than 'point 1 better.' Seriously. I always say 'when it's an awesome phone platform, I'll use it.' Folks tease me at work and at conferences for not using a Windows Phone. It's just prettier than my iPhone, but my iPhone has a lot of apps.so I stay with it. I've had an iPhone since the 3GS (I have a 5S right now) but I'm always flirting with the Windows Phone.

Live tiles windows phone 8