Exploring the Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview

At its annual build conference a few weeks ago Microsoft announced a major update to its Windows Phone operating system for phone and tablet devices. This update, dubbed Windows Phone 8.1, brings with it a host of new features to Microsoft’s mobile platform. In this article we’re going to explore those features and locate a number of places where Microsoft latest product still leaves something to be desired.

The most apparent change between the last release of Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8.1 is the inclusion of the action center. Prior to Windows 8.1 there was no way to see all of your notifications in one place at one time. Instead to look for notifications about missed calls, new messages, or new emails you had to glance at the tile for the app that was sending you the notification. This was a system that actually worked pretty well, provided that you kept all of the apps that supported live tile notifications near the top of your start screen so you could see them immediately when  you unlocked the phone.

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