Microsoft has launched Windows Phone 8 OS at an event in San Francisco on Monday, to take head on with iPhone of Apple and Android devices such as Galaxy range of smartphones by Samsung, LG’s highly successful Optimus range and Xperia range of devices by Sony. The Windows 8 Mobile OS is very crucial for Nokia who has unveiled its flagship smartphone Lumia 920 based on this latest OS and Lumia 820, which it is rolling out in the first week of November. The success of Windows 8 OS is very important for Lumia 920 and 820 because Nokia has put all their eggs in the basket of Microsoft. Besides Nokia, Samsung’s Ativ S on Windows 8 and HTC’s Windows Phone 8X, which have already been announced, will go on sale globally from November.
“It has been for us an exciting and energizing few days,” Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said while unveiling the slick new smartphones at a media event in San Francisco. “Windows PCs (personal computers) really are the best PCs ever and today we are bringing phones into the Windows family with Windows 8.”
The key feature of the new Windows Phone software is Live Tiles, which Microsoft says differentiates its products from its competitors – Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. A “live apps” feature allows for sports scores, messages, images or other data to be streamed to an ever-changing lock-page on phones.
The new Kid’s Corner feature allows parents to stop worrying when their kids play with their phone. Using Kid’s Corner children can access only the apps, games, music and videos picked by their parents. Microsoft has also added a group feature to its People Hub.
Acording to Microsoft corporate vice president Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s online shop is stocked with more than 120,000 applications tailored for Windows 8 phones and the number is growing. Microsoft partnered with Facebook to optimize a Windows 8 version of the leading social network’s application that includes serving up slide shows of personal pictures to handset lock-screens.
A Twitter application was also tailored with Windows 8, and a specially designed Skype “app” is in the works, according to Belfiore. Data Sense lets users easily control how much information is flying across telecom networks in order to avoid potentially punishing overage charges from carriers. The Windows Phone 8 has SkyDrive cloud service built-in and it will be able to sync with Windows 8 PCs, Microsoft Surface devices and the Xbox 360 console.
Now, the stage is set for Nokia,Samsung and HTC to roll out their hardware devices running on Windows 8 Mobile OS and let us see how the buyers accept this new OS and the coming months are very critical especially for Nokia, who is solely dependent upon Microsoft Windows 8 OS.
