Windows 8 OS for phone

The next generation OS with advanced social features and lots of cool ways to sync your stuff
In a sea of Android and Apple phones, Windows Phone might look pretty unfamiliar. Instead of icons for your apps, you have minimalist square tiles that continually flip and update with more information. Facebook isn’t just Facebook, it’s woven into a whole new People Hub thing. You put in your Hotmail address and suddenly all your photos are backed up online.In an age where over half the UK is using a smartphone, Windows Phone 8 is a refreshing alternative to Android and the iPhone for the growing demographic of tech-savvy users after something different.

Live Tiles

Instead of app icons, the singular home screen – called the Start Screen in Windows parlance – is composed of tiles that update with real-time information in whatever app they represent. Many third-party Windows Phone apps are designed with this system in mind too, and pinning a Live Tile of a new app can often deliver cool content to your Start Screen. 

One pass for everything 

Windows Phone slots smartly into a larger system of general Windows-ness – and that one Hotmail or Microsoft account you used to sign in will sync your Windows computer and Xbox 360. It’ll neatly sync your work and media files so you can head to Office or the photo gallery on your computer and see the exact same things you saw on your phone. Share something with a friend in a Room, and you’ll have it on your PC too.

Information, please 

It’s also all about information, constantly updating, constantly available. Live Tiles are one part, the other is an equally live lock screen that not only shows your newest messages, appointments and alerts, it’ll do you a personalised, rotating collage of photos too.