Microsoft has announced Windows Phone 8.1, its first major update to the Windows Phone mobile operating system, which introduces a virtual personal assistant named Cortana, several cool design tweaks, and a host of new features. Microsoft now says it’ll be released before mid-July.
During the Build 2014 keynote, following a lengthy introduction to the software, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore gave an approximate release timeframe for the update. How approximate? Simply that it will be out in the coming months. Not very precise, but then getting it out the door isn’t entirely down to Microsoft.
Since then, the company added Windows Phone 8.1 to its Support Lifecycle pages, with a start date of June 24. While this turned out not be the exact day Windows Phone owners got the update sent to their phones, it may be very soon afterwards.
Microsoft India tweeted a response to a follower saying, “The Windows Phone 8.1 update will rollout to existing Windows Phone 8 users during the first two weeks of July.” It’s not clear whether this is a global rollout, or if it’ll be specific to India. If it’s the latter then we should expect a U.S. and European release to perhaps come shortly before mid-July. Don’t forget the networks have a say in when the software reaches your phone, so don’t be surprised if some locked devices don’t see the update straight away.
Additionally, Microsoft has given the new OS an end date of July 11 2017, which is when it plans to stop supporting the software.
So have you updated your Windows 8 phone to 8.1 ?