New Windows Phone 8.1 gallery shows off navigation bar and more

A flurry of Windows Phone 8.1 news has been coming out today. That’s mostly thanks to information leaking out onto the interwebs thanks to developers with access to the private Windows Phone 8.1 SDK program. Our heads are still spinning with all the new info coming out, but there’s a lot more to come. Over on Twitter, @AngelWZR has shared a ton of new screenshots from Windows Phone 8.1. Check them out below. 

First up we have some screenshots of the navigation bar that will be coming in Windows Phone 8.1 (for new hardware with keys). It’s a swanky little feature that we’re going to come to love. You can control some of the behaviors of the navigation bar via settings. For example here we see that the nav bar can auto hide or auto show and that we can toggle that behavior. We can also select the color of the navigation bar to always be dark, match the background or match the phone’s accent color. You can then see how the navigation bar persists throughout the operating system. 

Podcasts and OAuth 

Looks like Windows Phone 8.1 will bring some dedicated love for supporting podcasts. We’ll be able to use Bing to search for podcasts and of course control things like whether to only download over Wi-Fi. There’s also OAuth support for when signing into Gmail. 

Lock screen, music UI and advertising ID

Here we see the Lock screen, notice that the time is larger. There’s the UI for Xbox Music and a setting page for something called “advertising ID”. It looks like some apps will be able to look at your behavior across other apps for advertising purposes. You can reset your activity if that’s a little too creepy for you. 

Project my screen, photos+camera settings and new NFC support

Want to project your Windows Phone screen to a TV, monitor or project? Plug in via USB and you can. It also looks like some devices, probably newer ones, will be able to do this wirelessly. New settings page for photos+camera. Looks like NFC support is getting a little more powerful with Windows Phone 8.1. Here we see support to pay for things via NFC and toggle it to work with a locked screen. 

New calendar week view and syncing across apps

New week view for the calendar! Plus a mini month view in the bottom right. The next two screenshots show a cool feature we’re looking forward to with all the Bing apps – personalization and syncing across apps. Here you can sign in with your Microsoft account and have your preferences follow you between Windows 8 and Windows Phone for all the Bing apps, this particular example is of Bing news. Actually, developers can utilize account syncing too, so that should be really useful for people with multiple devices.

Share UI, Battery Power Sense and new messaging settings

New sharing screen. Notice how your recent destinations are on top? Good move because it’s always a pain to scroll down to Twitter, especially if you use it often. Next screen here shows off a new thing called “battery power sense” which will show you which apps are killing your battery. Messaging is getting an overhaul. Notice how it says “receive texts using”? We’re guessing you can select your preferred messaging platform as default. 

Ringtone settings, separate volue controls and location settings

Here you can look at the new settings for the ringtones+sounds settings page. Separate volume controls for ringtones/notifications and media/apps. Also shortcut to sound settings. Apps that use your location show that little circle icon. Now you can toggle off whether or not they show the icon when accessing your location.

We’ll keep poking around the interwebs for more information on Windows Phone 8.1. In the meantime, tell us what you like the most in the above screenshots!

CATEGORIES
Sam Sabri
Latest in Windows Phone
Windows Phones
Windows 10 Mobile’s app store bites the dust, half a decade after support ended
Lumia 950 XL
The director for one of 2025's best games was a Windows Phone fan, says Microsoft was "shocked" that he was voluntarily using it — I experienced similar
Lumia 1020 case with an iPhone SE (Gen 3) inside
Windows Phone revived: Tech Enthusiast "upgrades" Lumia 1020 with full-fledged iOS
Launcher 10 being used to make a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra look like a Windows Phone.
Here's how to turn your Android Phone into a 'Windows Phone' in 2024
POCO X3 Pro closeup shot featuring the back of the device.
Windows Phone in 2024?! Not exactly, but this is close.
iPhone home screen
Apple adding this feature to iOS 18 in 2024 is so basic it hurts my brain, and it makes me miss Windows Phone
Latest in News
Cover art for Heroes of the Storm.
Xbox Game Pass will give you more benefits in free-to-play games like Heroes of the Storm
Surface Pro 11
Microsoft’s smaller Surface Pro appears in certification database ahead of rumored launch this spring
Artificial intelligence mobile apps for DeepSeek, ChatGPT and Google Gemini arranged.
Google says its latest reasoning model is its "most intelligent" — but Microsoft's CEO claims Google already fumbled its AI opportunity
ChatGPT and Microsoft Logo
ChatGPT’s new image-generation tool is impressive; it can finally create a glass of wine filled to the brim — but it struggles with blank white images and appears to discriminate against 'sexy women'
Microsoft Edge Sidebar
My favorite Microsoft Edge feature just got an AI upgrade — is this the best way to use Copilot on Windows 11?
Professor Sir Roger Penrose, physicist, mathematician and cosmologist
Nobel laureate claims "AI will not be conscious" and shouldn't be considered intelligent — Until it develops its own ideas