In June of 2012, Microsoft revealed their plans for the Windows Phone 7.8, the newest (and potentially last) update to their Windows Phone 7 OS. Though Windows Phone 8 has already been on the market for some time now, older models running on Windows 7 are incapable of running on Windows 8. As a result, Microsoft will soon launch the 7.8 update for Windows Phone 7, which aims to improve the OS once more before moving on to the next.
As revealed by Windows Phone Central in their January 24th article, Microsoft is gearing up to release 7.8 on January 30th. On that day, the Nokia Lumia 900 will receive the 100MB update. Although other Windows Phones will not receive the update immediately, Microsoft does plan on eventually rolling out the update to a larger selection of phones. However, they have yet to announce so much as a tentative schedule for such plans.
The update will include the following modifications, as revealed by WPChannel:
- New start screen: the new start screen has been made to resemble Windows Phone 8. Moreover, some new customization options have been added, such as the option of pinning tiles to the start screen and setting the size of these tiles (either small, medium or large). The “gutter” (a vertical black band on the right side of the screen) has also been removed.
- New theme colours.
- Bing’s “Image of the Day” as lock screen: this new option allows users to set Bing’s “image of the day” as their lock screen.
- Improve protection against accidental swipe unlocks: The lock screen has been improved to reduce the occurrence of accidental unlocks.
- Quality and security enhancement: stability and stored information security have been increased.
- Improved marketplace experience: the marketplace and the download process have been optimized.
