The Windows Phone 8.1 beta SDK has given hints as to what will be in the Windows Phone 8.1 OS. While features revealed in that SDK are likely to go to the final version for consumers, there are no guarantees.

Here’s what we know so far about potential new features in Windows Phone 8.1. We’ll update this page as new information becomes available.

Want to discuss more? Head into our 8.1 forums.

Action Center (hands on video)

Notification center – Alerts, non-Toast notifications, update history, more

Quick-access to customized actions, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Plane mode, etc.

Apps + Store

Apps can capture audio/video from themselves; be limited for copyright concerns

App and Game data stored on SD cards

Apps on SD Cards are only allowed from ONE originating phone. If it detects that apps from another phone are installed on the SD Card, then it will ask to delete those first

App Suggestions by location

Backup of App + Game data to OneDrive (if developer enabled)

Facebook app comes with OS, updates independently, hooks into OS

Filter through installed apps by usage/install date

Manual Update checks

New Store design and features

Option to update store apps automatically

Option to update store apps when only on Wi-Fi

Single sign-in for apps (like on Windows 8) with Microsoft Account; sign in will persist across devices + apps with permissions prompt

Calendar

Google calendar support, with multiple calendars

Weather in calendar

Week view in calendar

Camera

Burst camera mode, including auto-deletion of bursts

New layout

Bing

Bing smart search (similar search system as Windows 8.1)

Podcast app powered by Bing, full featured

Browser

Internet Explorer 11

IE 11 to save and remember your password for websites

JavaScript and HTML for app development

Upload files through Internet Explorer 11

Tabs now show up individually in multi-task window

WebGL and Normal mapping support

YouTube Player including HTML5 video support

Developer

Background tasks: Bluetooth signal strength, Chat message notification, Device connection change, Device use trigger, Gatt characteristic notification, Location, Push notification, Rfcomm connection, System event, Timer

XAP replaced by APPX

​​Audio/video transcoding that’s hardware accelerated

New dev tools including: SemanticZoom, DatePicker, TimePicker

Actionable notifications for apps

Silent/ghost notifications for apps

Email

Encrypted and signed e-mail support

New Email sync options with accordance to usage patterns (i.e. If you get a lot of mail on particular days and if you don’t check mail every day).

Option to always download emails and pictures within them

Enterprise and Office

Enterprise enrolled phones can have their passwords changed and remotely locked

Password protected Office document support

Office Lens support for scanning documents with camera, import into Office with OCR

Rebranding of SkyDrive to OneDrive

VPN support built in

S/MIME to sign and encrypt email

Access to corporate resources behind the firewall with app aware

Auto-triggered VPN

Certificate management to enroll, update and revoke certificates for user authentication

Enhanced MDM policies to lock down functionality on the phone for more enterprise control, in addition to richer application management such as allowing or denying the installing of certain apps.

Enterprise Wi-Fi support with EAP-TLS

General User Experience changes

Start screen backgrounds with parallax motion

Back button no longer closes apps, instead it suspends them

Double-Tap to unlock your phone (Feature from Lumia devices on Amber Update and newer)

Double Tap to Power Off

Favorite photos by tapping a heart icon

File picker

Kid's Corner - Password won't be displayed (bug fix)

Live Tiles – mark as red by swiping from the left over the Tile

Live Tiles – Three column support (maybe)

Navigation bar for phones without physical keys on the front

Notification if charger isn’t of adequate power

Quiet Hours - Disable notifications during pre-selected timeframe

Screenshot button combination is now Power + Volume Up

Search button will be the new way to open Speech (aka ‘Cortana’)

Separate volume controls for ringtones/notifications and music/media

Set default Voice Navigation app for the OS

Swipe down to close apps in multitasking view

Voice Narrator for Accessibility

Keyboard

General keyboard enhancements, show emoji when typing

Swipe keyboard option - “Write, when I swipe through letters”.

Media

Audio/video transcoding, Hardware accelerated

Media editing: audio and video; Audio effects, video effects; Slow motion video

Xbox Music and Xbox Video as standalone apps instead of the Music + Video Hub (allowing more updates to be pushed)

Messaging

Change default SMS app. You can also change which SMS app will show notifications.

Mute Thread - Optionally silence text threads, no longer receive notifications or Live Tile updates

Phone + Contacts

Contact list sorting of those with phone numbers

Call duration (press and hold reveals a "details" menu in call history)

In-call speech commands. You’ll be able to say “Call XXXXXX”.

Inner Circle of contacts. Up to 40 contacts can be in the inner circle.

Operators can also install certain applications once a SIM card is detected

Sense

Battery Power Sense – App to monitor which apps draw the most power

Battery Saver (under Battery Sense) will have an app exclusion list

Data Sense – Operators can now control Data Sense limits remotely

Wi-Fi Sense – Sharing secured WI-Fi Networks with contacts if they have Wi-Fi Sense. They don’t get to see the shared password though

Wi-Fi can auto re-enable after a set duration of time

Wi-Fi Direct

System