Tesmond's Useful Design

Windows 8 may only have gained a single point release, but it really is amazing how much is included. While some of the features have been in android and iOS for some time, there are brand new features such as WiFi sense and clever refinements of existing features like Cortana. WiFi sense is a clever piece of software which shares out your WiFi hotspots with your friends. Of course sadly as most of your friends won't have a Windows phone this isn't very useful, but perhaps on the future it might save you from that annoying what's your WiFi password hunt and then entering a stupidly long code. My favourite feature is the shape typing, which I am using now to write this. It is fast and accurate and for the first time I feel able to write a long piece of text on my Windows phone. The notification pull down menu brings WP8.1 in line with android and iOS and even after just a day you can see it is better than live tiles on their own. The sounds are now split further so t...

Obviously I was up to speed on all of the new rumoured features, however, to avoid potential disappointment I was resigning myself to the probability that at least one of the rumours was untrue. Luckily all the features I was looking for have been introduced and more! Swype-like keyboard (Shape Typing) Notification bar (Action Center) Cortana Virtual Assistant Shape Typing Swype-like keyboard is probably my most wanted feature. Since switching to Windows Phone I have often been waiting to gain access to a desktop before responding to emails because my typing speed has dropped dramatically. While Swype on Android it felt like I was not far from keyboard speed, the standard MS Keyboard felt like I was just wasting my time even starting to type. Action Center It is difficult to explain how nice it is to read all your notifications, body text and all, just from a quick swipe on the lock screen unless you have experienced it in Android, preferably stock Android as Samsung ten...