Windows Phone 8 GDR 3 Compared to 8.1

Mathew Miller, aka millermk90 on Twitter has put together a few comparison screen shoots of how some apps and settings look on the current latest build of Windows Phone 8, GDR 3 (also known as Lumia Black on Nokia devices) against the new Windows Phone 8.1 SDK. Over all not a lot has changed visually which is a good thing in my opinion, Windows Phone has a very nice interface.

The picture above shows the settings page for the People Hub, and one of the biggest differences among the screen shots is that in 8.1 you will have the ability to filter your contacts to only show ones with a phone number attached, which is great because at the moment with all your social network contacts included in the list things can become very cluttered.

Other changes include Data sense, where you can now change the level which web sites are compressed.

One particularly nice UI touch coming with 8.1 is the ability to swipe down to close apps in the Fast App Switcher view, rather than pressing the “X” button. Not something you can demonstrate very well in a screen shot, but Mathew does point out the new icon for Word documents in the picture below.

There is also a new button on the messaging app, along side the current “Send” “Attach” and “Voice” buttons is something which I’d guess is “Add Recipients”. Take a look below:

Take a look at Mathew Miller’s Twitter feed for more on these comparisons HERE.

We have seen a pretty comprehensive list of new features coming with Windows Phone 8.1 update which wasn’t viewable in the SDK, Cortana voice recognition, and possibly the option to select your own image for the Start Screen background for example. Windows Phone 8.1 should get it’s official announcement in April.