Microsoft will formally launch the updated Windows Phone 8 smartphone OS on Monday, October 29, at a news event in San Francisco.
Manufacturers including Nokia, HTC, Samsung and Motorola have WP8 devices ready to go on sale, we expect, in mid-November.
Current Windows Phone devices are not upgradeable to WP8, which, not surprisingly, caused anger among owners. But Microsoft has promised an update for current devices to WP7.8. It says the update will have some of the features of WP8, including customisable Start Screen tiles. But we don't know what other features and we don't know when WP7.8 will be released.
We hope we will know more on Monday.
Here are the improvement we know will be in WP8:
Customisable Tiles: you'll be able to choose between three Start Screen tile sizes and the live tiles will contain more streaming information. There will also be more theme colours.
Better Camera App: there'll be pinch-to-zoom and different "lenses" for special effects.
Screenshots: yayyyy...you'll at last be able to take screenshots. And you'll do it the same way as iPhone owners - press the Home and Sleep buttons at the same time.
Here are improvements we expect to be in WP8:
Live Lockscreen Wallpapers: we don't know much about this, but it could give much more functionality to the lockscreen. We also expect more notification symbols on the lockscreen. Facebook and Twitter notifications could join Messages and Mail.
Near Field Communication: NFC would let you use your WP device to make payments for purchases and could also make device-to-device transfers of things like photos easier.
Better Cloud Syncing: perhaps even automatic back-ups.
And here are improvements we hope for in WP8:
Customisable Fonts: One of our major problems with the current Windows Phone software is the font size. Very often it's simply too small to read easily. For example. events in the Calendar app have you squinting and swearing. We need the choice of bigger fonts throughout the OS.
Repeat Notification Alerts: We need repeat alerts for messages, missed calls and the like. Just one tone sound or vibrate isn't enough and can be easily missed.
Customisable Alert Sounds: at the moment, we can load our own ringtones. But we can't load custom alert tones. Ridiculous. Especially as the pre-loaded tones aren't good.
Oh, and we want all these new features to be included in WP7.8 as well as WP8. OK, that won't happen, but would be nice.
We will add to this list as we think of things and please feel free to add comments with your thoughts and hopes.
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