At today's Lumia 925 launch event, we had a brief opportunity to play with a version of Windows Phone 8 that's newer than the current shipping version. While not a whole lot has changed, we did spot a couple of changes.

One of the features is brand new: you will be able to pick a "Lens" app to be run automatically whenever you press the camera button. Lens apps are what Microsoft calls camera-driven applications such as the forthcoming Nokia Smart Camera and Hipstamatic.

Currently, to launch a Lens app you have to fire up the built-in camera app and then pick the Lens of your choosing from a list. In the summer release, named GDR2 (for "General Distribution Release"), you'll be able to skip this intermediate step and go straight to the Lens.

The other two features are the reinstatement of features included in Windows Phone 7 but omitted from Windows Phone 8. First, FM radio hardware will be supported. As long as you have headphones attached, you'll be able to listen to broadcast radio.

The second is the reinstatement of podcast support. Although the podcast category in the Music and Video hub is shown to customers around the world, podcasts themselves are managed through the Store. At the moment, the Store only supports podcast subscriptions and downloading for Microsoft Accounts based in the US. With GDR2, it appears that this will be rolled out internationally.

It was never entirely clear to us why international support was removed in the first place.

Update: Microsoft has also officially announced some of the features, including CardDAV and CalDAV support, to ensure continued compatibility with Google accounts.