Windows Phone 8

What gets into your mind when you hear of a Windows Phone? Many do think of Nokia Lumia Series. Yeah that’s right, Lumia phones carries the biggest share of Windows Phone but also we have others like Samsung, Htc, Huawei.... but how did it all start?


Windows Phone is the Microsoft's latest attempt to make a significant dent in the mobile market. With the release of Windows Phone 8, it marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Microsoft's operating system for mobile phones and this means the users now can enjoy the expanded hardware access, the new support for high-end gaming and better OS integration. It has not been an easy road for Microsoft, who launched Windows Phone 7 Series that rose from the ashes and it came to the public nearly 2 years before Windows 8.  Windows Phone 7 was destined to be the replacement solution for an obsolete Windows Mobile 6.x platform and it did its best to disrupt the industry by offering its unique Metro user interface and slick performance across the board.

After releasing this new OS, Microsoft has offered up a list of hardware requirements for each phone to run it.

1. Basically all WP8 devices must include the same standard set of buttons: each one needs to have Camera, Search, Start, Power, Back and Volume Keys.
2. Multi-touch capacitive touch screen with minimum of four simultaneous points
3. Minimum 4GB flash memory
4. GPS and A-GNSS; GLONASS is supported if OEMs decide to include it
5. Support for micro-USB 2.0
6. Rear-facing AF camera with LED or Xenon flash, optional front-facing camera (both need to be VGA or better) and dedicated camera button
7. Accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensors, as well as vibration motor (magnetometer and gyroscope are optional)
8. Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor
9. Minimum 512MB RAM for WVGA phones; minimum 1GB RAM for 720p / WXGA
10. 802.11b/g and Bluetooth (802.11n is optional)
11. DirectX graphics hardware support with hardware acceleration for Direct3D using programmable CPU
12. 3.5mm stereo headphone jack with three-button detection support

All of this features sounds promising, given that Windows Phone 7 was frustrating cause of hardware restrictions. Following the release of Windows Phone 8 and new hardware from Nokia (Lumia Series) it had been able to match its rival devices and indeed has outlasted BlackBerry.

Windows Phone has always been deliberately different, in earlier versions like Windows Phone OS7 and its upgrades to 7.8 had lot of features missing like no SD card support and tight control of what apps could do to protect battery life.

By introducing WP8, Microsoft had been able to fill up the gaps that were missing in WP7 without losing the positive aspects of its UI like; having new look for the Start screen is a great example of this; you still get live tiles for the apps that you choose to pin to Start but now you can set the size for every app, making it twice the width of a standard tile, or a tiny quarter-size tile; you can make the tile for any app larger; that's no longer restricted to built in apps from Microsoft and phone makers.

It have made a big bite on the market share progress, bolstered its app store depth, and has more or less become the accepted third place mobile platform.

The new features embedded on the Windows Phone device brings you closer to the people, places, and things you care about all designed and customized in a user design perspective that’s unique on its own. The design is tailored to offer simple refinements that makes your phone a delight to use every day while at the same time safeguards so as to help keep your data secure and your mind at ease.

On Windows Phone 8, Microsoft went ahead and added over twenty different accent colors to choose from as well. More to add salt on what users like to be displayed with, the lock screen had been redefined to allow the user personalize it, for example one can get the image of the day from Bing or have a of an image from once Facebook photos, or even choose once favourite photos on the device.

Windows Phone ended 2012 with 2.8% global market share. It concluded 2013 with 3.6%, a mere 28.57% increase.  How about of 2014??
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