Windows Phone 8.1 - Initial Thoughts

I’m a goof and had been waiting for Windows Phone 8.1 to come to my phone over the air. My development partner had pointed out to me before this wasn't necessary, and then pointed it out to me again. 

I downloaded it.

My thought stream as I’m trying it out for the first time:

The first thing it does is let you know about new settings.

Wi-Fi sense is an interesting feature. It basically turns your phone into a signal addict that will send your data over any network, secure or otherwise. It will also allow you to exchange Wi-Fi network access with people in your contacts list making the secure networks everyone uses less secure.

I turned it off.

The next feature it tells you about is the ability to automatically update your Store apps.

I turned it off.

After that, there’s a feature that lets apps share your “advertising ID” for “experiences” across apps.

I turned it off.

Scrolling down my home screen, I found a Data Sense app.

Declined setting a data limit and removed it from my home screen.

Moving over to the applications list, I see they've made some changes.

The Battery Saver feature is an app now, cluttering up my app list.

We've got Cortana… I’ll have to try that out later.

FM Radio app. For some people, this could be a thing.

Podcasts app. That’s promising, if it’s decent.

Storage Sense app… appears useless with all options greyed out. Neat.

Xbox Video app… meh.

Swipe down notifications menu is pretty decent.

Checking the Calendar App. The way it renders your schedule is better, and I like the visual changes. Still can’t set events to reoccur beyond a handful of options. It’s still useless, even years later.

I still need a mail app per email account cluttering up my home screen. Not happy about this.

Internet Explorer... switching between tabs is better, faster, and so forth. Hurrah.

Settings menu…

Notification+actions stuffs. Nice that they let you customize the notification area to this degree.

NFC option to turn off or on. I’m pretty sure that’s new. Hurrah.

Project to my screen option. Don’t remember that being there. 

Wife is home, gotta go.