Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 8
Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 8 by UCStrategies Staff
Yesterday, the Windows Phone 8 operating system was released by Microsoft at a San Francisco event. Executives at Microsoft highlighted particularly attractive additions to promote phone sales, which the company hopes will encourage rapid sales of the new product – something which did not happen with any previous launch of Windows Phone 7 or announcement of the Nokia partnership. Microsoft hopes that it can finally compete en par with other OS competitors like Google Android and Apple's iOS.
As well as Nokia, who uses only Windows Phone on its devices following a 2011 Microsoft partnership, other brands will also offer Windows Phone 8 on their handsets. Samsung and HTC will continue to make handsets which run Android, but will also now run the new WP8.
One particular feature of the new OS is called "Kid's Corner," and Jessica Alba was present at the event to promote it. Children will now be able to use parents' phones on a separate user interface to access games and child-friendly apps, but not disrupt other apps or settings.
The new WP8 user interface will be called "Live Tiles" and users can select which apps they want to “pin” to the start menu. Also new is Live Apps, which provides live updates to more popular applications like Facebook, Groupon or news and sports scores applications when users visit their start page.
Apple has 975,000 apps and Google has 675,000, whereas only 120,000 apps are now available on the Windows online application store. However, the corporate vice president for Microsoft and master of ceremonies for the launch event, Joe Belfiore, stated that hundreds of new apps are added every day, and more app developers are building interest in writing apps for WP8.
The CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, stated, “Windows Phone 8 is not a phone for all of us but a phone for each of us.” A more personalized user experience adds to consumer focus. Skype, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion, is delivered in the WP8 package and calls over the internet can be made easily over the user's wireless carrier network. WP8 can also function with SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud-based file storage service, allowing access to files across Windows 8 PCs, tablets and smartphones.
The unique mobile UI with Live Tiles varies greatly from the typical Apple iPhone rows of icons, which Belfiore states Google “copied” for its own Android OS.
Devices which run WP8 will be launched from now until the end of the year, and these releases are dependent upon the device manufacturer and carrier. Various carriers will also begin making available the devices running WP8, beginning this weekend. The Microsoft Store, a chain of 65 retail stores, will make all models available predominantly in the U.S., as well as on Microsoft online. (CY) Link