As expected, Microsoft is finally revealing all there is about Update 1 for Windows Phone 8.1. Known internally as GDR1 for ‘general distribution release,’ this update is one of two for the 8.1 operating system in 2014. The news comes out of Beijing, China where Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore announced the release during his keynote, in addition to the expansion of Cortana to the UK and China.
Coming next week for Preview for Developers. If Microsoft can keep this pace of updates up, they’ve got something very good going. A very welcome contrast to the slow and monolithic approach the company took in the first few years of Windows Phone’s existence.
Update 1 also brings a few other improvements, including SMS merge and forwarding, which gives users “the ability to select multiple SMS messages for deletion and forwarding.”
really? it must be nice back there in 2006.
Well, MS is already talking about 8.1u1 where as majority of devices have not even declared eligible for 8.1. Yeah I know that there is a dev preview to get 8.1 but that does not count right now. MS can do many things but the update rollout has failed so far.
The Cyan rollout can be tracked here:
http://www.nokia.com/global/support/software-update/wp8-software-up…
Edited 2014-07-31 06:39 UTC
The Developer Preview is nothing more than an attempt to bypass the carriers. Everyone that cares about updates can sign up and follow the releases.
The developer preview is only as such in name. Effectively, it turns your device into an iPhone or custom Android ROM device when it comes to updates. It’s not really alpha stuff or anything.
Also there are problems with updating from the preview to the Cyan update: http://allaboutwindowsphone.com/flow/item/19991_The_editorial_1520_…
I repeat, that If I would’ve wanted to get 8.1 then I know where to get it. Instead I stress, that the overall official update rollout is a failure. It is not much about carriers as it is about Microsoft. With WP, the carriers do not have much to say about the OS as they provide no customization anyway (at least the phone I got had stock WP on it). So Microsoft said quite some time ago that WP8.1 is released but only handful of devices have it officially available and thats the problem.
Nope, it is the carriers. The Developer Preview is proof that Microsoft already rolled out 8.1 and will roll out 8.1 Update 1 next week.
However, it is also a problem of Cyan, which is Nokia, which is Microsoft!
8.1: Carriers, bad
Cyan: Microsoft, bad
Firmware updates still go through carrier testing.
Firmware updates only go through carriers if you have a carrier. If you just buy a phone you also get updates quicker because your carrier gets out of the way. So I get 8.1 and Cyan from Microsoft…which hasn’t happened for Cyan yet. It looks like I will be getting 8.1 Update 1 before Cyan next week
If you have the 8.1 DP installed you won’t get Cyan rolled out at all for now, if ever. I’m not convinced they’re going to eventually fix the issue holding it up.
I don’t know if the 8.1 U1 build coming out next week will require a downgrade to 8.0 and then to 8.1 RTM, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
This whole thing has been a real clusterfuck so far though, Cyan should’ve been out a while ago. I think this acquisition gummed up a lot of the works at Microsoft (even more than usual).
8.1 U1 so soon definitely surprised me though.
I don’t know if there is any issue, except for on AT&T. But yes, they did screw this up as Microsoft actually said that this would just work and none of what they wrote before actually turned out to be true:
http://dev.windows.com/en-us/develop/devpreview
After you update your phone to a preview version of the operating system, you can’t go back to a previous released version of the operating system. When the new operating system is released to the public, you’ll get the update on your phone, but there’s no going back before then.
8.1 Update 1 WILL be rolled out to everyone in the Developer Preview and you won’t have to go back. 8.1 Dev Preview has actually already been updated a few times! This is also not a surprise as “every 4 months” seems to be the schedule for the last year or so. 8.1 has been available since April. You should expect “8.1.U2” in December and “9” in April 2015.
I think I’ve got it worst. I’m on an HTC* 8XT*, on a Sprint* MVNO*, running the Developer Preview*.
*Each asterisk indicates a roadblock to me getting any updates in the foreseeable future. Yes, even the Developer Preview; 8.1 was pulled from the Preview program for HTC 8XT phones due to a wifi issue. I have yet to see anything beyond 8.0 GDR3.
This would be unnecessary if Windows Phone had multi-user support, correct?
Does any modern smartphone operating system have multi-user support?
(A serious question. I have basically zero experience with any smartphones.)
Android has it built in, but it is disabled on Phones.(tablets only) Supposedly “L’s” new enterprise features will be based on user accounts. Maybe Cyanogenmod has this enabled on the oneplusone?
Windows Phone 8 is just the Windows 8 kernel that supports multi-user so I am assuming that internally Windows Phone supports multi-user. But phones are personal devices (much more personal than pc’s even) that SHOULD be single-user to the outside world. I wish there was a way to benefit from the multi-user insides without making the outside complicated.
A work/private profile would make sense to me. So when I leave a company that has EAS do a remote wipe, only my work stuff should be removed by default (having a full wipe in case of theft or sale is useful)
<rant>
Another major WP update, and still no native support for connecting to/sharing via SMB? What, was Microsoft worried about being shaken-down for patent royalties… by themselves? Though, on a less-sarcastic note, I realize it’s probably something mandated by carriers and/or something Microsoft voluntarily leaves out to appease carriers (since being forced to use “the cloud” for everything means more data passing over the mobile networks, AKA more revenue for carriers).
Maybe I’m just getting old, but even on a fast terrestrial connection, it seems absurdly inefficient & wasteful to send several hundred MB of files over a few thousand KM to a Skydrive account… just to transfer them between two devices that are physically in the same room. But on a slow connection, it gets truly ridiculous – I recently spent the better part of an afternoon trying to move some videos from a cheap Lumia, while only having access to a 1.5 down/0.5 up WiMax connection. I didn’t have a micro USB cable handy, so the only other options were: wait 4 or 5 hours for the files to upload to SkyDrive, wait 2 or 3 hours for them transfer via BlueTooth, or compress & send them by EMail. The last option is by far the least useful – converting a 100-200 MB 720p video to a size small enough to EMail (under 5MB) gives you output that resembles QuickTime movies from early-90s “multimedia” CD-ROMs.
Truly, we are LIVING IN THE FUTURE! …that is, the future as envisioned by Neal Stephenson, Robert Heinlein, Douglas Adams, and Kurt Vonnegut – if I can find any fault in their predictions, it’s merely that they weren’t cynical enough.
</rant>
Not native and not free, but should solve most of your problems: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/sharefolder-explorer/e2…
Otherwise: Have you tried NFC-tap-to-share? It basically shares through local Wifi without touching the internet. I only used it once for a big transfer of a movie-file between a 1020 and S3. About 500 MB in a few minutes (slow Wifi)