Microsoft Windows Phone 8 launches this fall with e-wallet support

Posted:
in iPhone edited May 2014
Microsoft on Wednesday took the wraps off of Windows Phone 8, set to launch this fall alongside Windows 8 for PCs and the new Surface tablet, featuring e-wallet support with NFC chips, as well as support for high-definition screens.

Windows Phone 8 was unveiled at Microsoft's Windows Phone Developer Summit, where the company announced that the platform will support multi-core CPUs and high-definition screen resolutions. The new Windows Phone 8 will also borrow much of its code base from Windows 8, which will allow developers to create applications that can be run on phones, tablets and desktops all running Microsoft's operating systems.

Windows Phone 8 also features Internet Explorer 10, which Microsoft said has four-times faster JavaScript performance than its predecessor, Windows Phone 7.5, and also twice the feature support for HTML5. Microsoft says that Internet Explorer 10 for Windows Phone 8 gets a better SunSpider score when testing Web browsing than the iPhone 4S running Apple's first beta of iOS 6.

The operating system will also support near-field communications chips with a native wallet application that will store credit and debit cards, as well as loyalty and membership cards. Microsoft Vice President Joe Belfiore also demonstrated onstage on Wednesday how the new NFC functionality in Windows Phone 8 will allow handsets to scan NFC-enabled advertisements or business cards.

Microsoft is also focusing on enterprise users with Windows Phone 8, offering encryption, secure boot, and IT device management. And turn-by-turn navigation will also be built in to the operating system with Nokia map technology.

Windows Phone 8


Starting with Windows Phone 8, developers will also be able to offer in-application purchases. That means upgrades and other content can be purchase with an integrated tool part of the operating system.

Microsoft is also enhancing its speech support with the latest version of Windows Phone. But in one onstage demonstration, the Audible application was asked to play "Game of Thrones," but the phone mistakenly tried to search for "St. Louis, Missouri." After the technical hiccup, Microsoft showed how speech recognition could be used by third-party developers for functions like searching, and playback and pausing of content.

Windows Phone 8


Devices currently running Windows Phone 7.5 will not be able to upgrade to the new Windows Phone 8. Instead, Microsoft announced on Wednesday that some of the new features, such as an updated Start screen, will be brought to legacy devices with the Windows Phone 7.8 update.

The unveiling of Windows Phone 8 comes only a few days after Microsoft held a heavily hyped, high-profile event in Hollywood to unveil Surface, its new touchscreen tablet that will compete with Apple's iPad when it hits the market this fall. Surface will be built by Microsoft itself, and will come in two forms: an ARM-based model running the Windows RT operating system, and a "pro" model featuring an Intel processor and running the full Windows 8 operating system.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 90
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Lemme guess… the eWallet thing is proprietary to only Microsoft systems and software.

    [QUOTE]Microsoft is also enhancing its speech support with the latest version of Windows Phone. But in one onstage demonstration, the Audible application was asked to play "Game of Thrones," but the phone mistakenly tried to search for "St. Louis, Missouri." [/QUOTE]

    Good ol' Microsoft! At least they're consistent!
  • Reply 2 of 90
    buckalecbuckalec Posts: 203member


    Getting so many flashbacks to the Zune hype

  • Reply 3 of 90
    povilaspovilas Posts: 473member
    Yeah takes me back ...
  • Reply 4 of 90
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member


    Zzzzzz . . . . 


     


    The entire Windows Phone effort is just so anticlimactic.

  • Reply 5 of 90
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    I just finished with the presentation. The truth is that it looks pretty good. They seem to have fixed most of the flaws. Now it will remain to be seen if consumers take it up any more than before.
  • Reply 6 of 90
    jlanddjlandd Posts: 873member




     But in one onstage demonstration, the Audible application was asked to play "Game of Thrones," but the phone mistakenly tried to search for "St. Louis, Missouri." 


     


     


    I can see how that happened.  I make that mistake all the time. 

  • Reply 7 of 90
    ivladivlad Posts: 742member


    Metro UI was cool when it first came out, but it's wearing out so fast.

  • Reply 8 of 90

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post







    Microsoft is also enhancing its speech support with the latest version of Windows Phone. But in one onstage demonstration, the Audible application was asked to play "Game of Thrones," but the phone mistakenly tried to search for "St. Louis, Missouri."


    Good ol' Microsoft! At least they're consistent!


     


     


    Oops!  ;)

  • Reply 9 of 90
    roboduderobodude Posts: 273member
    Screw the Dark Knight Lumia. Nokia needs to come out with an Iron Patriot design - they just Osborned their platform yet again!
  • Reply 10 of 90

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post



    I just finished with the presentation. The truth is that it looks pretty good. They seem to have fixed most of the flaws. Now it will remain to be seen if consumers take it up any more than before.


     


    What impresses me (too much?) is that it uses the same kernel as the other flavors of Windoze.  Reportedly, that will allow easier transformation of full fledged programs to tablet and cellphone apps.


     


    Also, there is backwards compatibility for Winphone 7.5, so legacy phone apps will run on the new hardware/software.


     


    The folks who recently bought windows  7 phones seem to have gotten screwed, however, depending on how good Windows 7.8 turns out to be.


     


    At any rate, this is a bold move by M$, and it makes a whole lot of sense to me that they did it this way.  It will be ugly for a while, especially for the likes of Nokia.  But in the end, I think the overall strategy is sound.  Let's see them execute it.

  • Reply 11 of 90
    pokepoke Posts: 506member


    This is nuclear. Microsoft just deprecated the entire WP7 platform. If you bought a Lumia your phone is now worthless.

  • Reply 12 of 90
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member


    Will not support a single current phone on the market. Absolutely brutal. This is how you retain customer loyalty? And Apple gets raked through the coals when a 2+ year old phone doesn't support all the software features of their newest OS update. 


     


    I never understood the cliche that is always repeated that Apple loves 'obsoleting' people's devices, when it seems they're the best in the bunch by far with supporting their devices. Don't get me started with Android device support. 

  • Reply 13 of 90
    markbyrnmarkbyrn Posts: 661member
    [Quote]Devices currently running Windows Phone 7.5 will not be able to upgrade to the new Windows Phone 8.[/quote]

    So that fine Lumia 900 you bought two months ago has already reached obsolescence and I thought Android was bad. Don't fret though - you can get an update for the new crammed in Tile UI.
  • Reply 14 of 90
    bullheadbullhead Posts: 493member


    I did not think it was possible, but the UI looks even worse now!  And smart move Micro$oft, announce Windows Phone 8 will be available in the fall, and that no current phones can be upgraded.  I am sure that will help them sell more of these fugly, unusable bricks.

  • Reply 15 of 90
    johnnashjohnnash Posts: 129member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by poke View Post


    This is nuclear. Microsoft just deprecated the entire WP7 platform. If you bought a Lumia your phone is now worthless.



    Unlike before?

  • Reply 16 of 90
    theothergeofftheothergeoff Posts: 2,081member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by poke View Post


    This is nuclear. Microsoft just deprecated the entire WP7 platform. If you bought a Lumia your phone is now worthless.



     


    and WP7 was a scorched earth on WP6.   From the snippets I saw, the fact they tying Win8 to WP8 (like OSX to iOS), again, Redmond finally got their copiers working....  but gutting every phone owner, and most app developers 3 times over... not good.

  • Reply 17 of 90
    markbyrnmarkbyrn Posts: 661member
    melgross wrote: »
    I just finished with the presentation. The truth is that it looks pretty good. They seem to have fixed most of the flaws. Now it will remain to be seen if consumers take it up any more than before.

    Really? I was looking at the turn-by-turn navigation demo and the maps looked like something you find on an old Gameboy. Maybe it was the demo pictures that didn't do it justice.
  • Reply 18 of 90


    So Microsoft announce another product that won't be available for months. But worse, they announce that none of the current products will be compatible with it. The Windows Phone market is already tiny and struggling. This is just going to stop it in its tracks until October. Who in their right minds would buy a WinPho now?


     


    Does Microsoft have ANY commercial acumen at the top at all?

  • Reply 19 of 90
    pokepoke Posts: 506member


    Nokia got Double Osborned. After seeing the effects of pre-announcing Symbian being deprecated, how are carriers and customers going to feel about Nokia's WP7 line up now they know that it's not upgradeable and the next version of WP has a completely incompatible API? No developers are going to continue working on WP7. This is very bad news for Nokia. They're toast.

  • Reply 20 of 90
    monstrositymonstrosity Posts: 2,234member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Slurpy View Post


    Will not support a single current phone on the market. Absolutely brutal. This is how you retain customer loyalty? And Apple gets raked through the coals when a 2+ year old phone doesn't support all the software features of their newest OS update. 


     


    I never understood the cliche that is always repeated that Apple loves 'obsoleting' people's devices, when it seems they're the best in the bunch by far with supporting their devices. Don't get me started with Android device support. 



     


    There are so many nonsense memes regarding Apple. Every day some idiot spouts anti Apple crap that would be better directed at Apple's 'competition'.

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