Windows Phone 8.1 was announced officially at the Build conference in early-April by Microsoft. This renewed tiled smartphone operating system is ready to rule the Jungle (smartphone market) with its amazing new features. Some of these features are, the much-awaited notification center and the Cortana personal assistant.

Update version:

Home Screen, UI, Tiles and Theme Syncing:

The UI remains same as the basic Microsoft’s design and maintains the metro look. The start screen has something new in terms of feature. One can set backgrounds for the Start Screen that are overlaid by the tiles. 

Thus one has the option to customize the Start Screen to one’s liking.
The background can be made completely visible as it shows the background image "through the tile" as though the tile is transparent. Although this may not be possible for all the tiles e.g. Facebook tile.

The images for the tiles can be selected from a pre-defined set of images. One could also use the images on the phone or other storage spaces to be set as the background.

There is also an additional set of tiles forming 3 columns thus reducing the need for scrolling. One can also sync the theme color of their phone, laptops and other  devices with Windows 8.1 by doing the follows:

Settings > Sync My Settings > Theme


Check out this video to know more about WP 8.1

                                    

Internet Explorer:

There are some significant updates to the Internet Explorer 11.0. It now comes with reading mode which has significantly improved the readability of many sites. The sites without mobile version can also be made attractive to read on WP. The Reading view basically boosts the text size and improves the mobile reading experience.

Other features included are faster browsers, higher security, and faster URL prediction. Live tile support and private browsing are also some of the attractive features.

Word Flow Key Board:

This is truly a great update from Microsoft. Word flow doesn’t just provide you with the option to type by guiding your fingers over the letters but also learns your frequent expressions and language style. This enables it to predict the words in a much better way compared to its counterparts. It also supports upto 16 languages.

Action and Notification Centre:

This is another awesome feature introduced by Microsoft. Although it is inspired from Android and iOS WP 8.1‘s notification center added with a little more functionality. One can pull down the action center from the top and check the messages, mails and other updates. It also has provisions to allow you to access many other settings from here.

CORTANA- Virtual Personal Assistant:

With Cortana (yeah!! That AI character from Halo games) your phone will transform completely. It will also probably be the best pocket assistant you can have by being proactively useful and answer all the burning questions that you have.

Cortana learns and analyses your likes and frequent usages and this helps Cortana to help you!! She gives you reminders and suggestions manages and schedules your calendar and can send messages as well.

Cortana opens with weather updates and other relevant information like reminder of a meeting or birthday alert, etc. Cortana stores your information in her notepad and uses this information to manage your daily hours. It holds data on your music preferences, quiet hours, hobbies, etc. You can edit these information yourself as well.

You can set the quiet hours on Cortana and she will block all the calls and disturbances that may arise. By setting such quiet hours you can have some time for yourself away from the tech frenzy.







Although you can customize your contacts to be in the ‘inner circle’ (sounds masonic, doesn’t it)  so that they can get through to you even during the quiet hours. After all you don’t want your boss to be pissed off at you because his/her calls were blocked off by Cortana.

You can also use speech to interact with Cortana. It will analyse your speech and know when you are done. Then it will take the appropriate actions. And if you are not in a situation to speak up, then you can type in the question. Could it be any more convenient!!





However Cortana has a few faults as well,


Cortana can have trouble “hearing” things sometimes. Thus you have to type everything in yourself. Also if she doesn't know an answer, you’ll be redirected to Bing!
With a few more tweaks and debugging Cortana can be the best Virtual Personal assistant in the market.

Conclusion :

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