Owners of Nokia Lumia phones running Windows Phone 8 in Australia can start updating to the free and much improved Windows Phone 8.1 OS from July 26.
If you’ve purchased a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone handset over the last year or so running Windows Phone 8, your long awaited free “Lumia Cyan” update to Windows Phone 8.1 start arriving as an “over-the-air” download from tomorrow – July 26.
Bringing over 50 new features for Lumia owners, these include the new swipe down notification screen, the Swype-style finger glide keyboard and a third column of Live Tiles that can also be made transparent to better see your home screen image,
Lumia owners will also enjoy the new Nokia Camera and Storyteller apps, with a “brand new way” to experience memories through Living Images, which “automatically stitches a fraction of a second of video footage to still images, portraying the moment of capture like never before.”
Click to enlarge
Nokia Word Flow Swype-style Keyboard |
Your phone will automatically notify you that the update is available, and you can then go to “Settings” and then “Phone Update” to start the download.
Other new WinPhone 8.1 OS features include an update Office for Windows Phone suite with new enterprise features, the ability to install apps to any installed microSD card, improvements for the Lumia 1520 audio recording capabilities which let you record immersive audio in your videos with Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 and a new Nokia Device Hub to more easily manage phone accessories.
There’s also Microsoft’s new
Video Tuner app, which only works with Windows Phone 8.1, letting you easily and quickly edit and then share high quality videos.
It includes range of tools “to crop, rotate, flip, mirror and change videos’ speed; adjust volume and music; apply fun filters, effects, and more”, with easy sharing via the built-in OneDrive cloud sharing service.
More information on the free Windows Phone 8.1 update for older Lumias running WinPhone 8 at
Microsoft’s blog here.
