The first images of the new Notification Center, dubbed 'Action Center', for Windows Phone 8.1 have made their way on to the web. The screenshots appeared on the site Winphollowers and Windows Phone Central is able to confirm their authenticity at this time.
The screenshots appear to have come from a confidential email sent
around Microsoft, detailing various aspects of the new OS. Only one page
of the email, or slide deck, is shown and it’s the one that details the
Action and Notification Center.
The image of the Action Center for 8.1 (aka 'Blue') shows the ability
to enable / disable connections such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Airplane Mode
and Driving Mode. These are of course, configurable for the user.
On the left side, you can see an option to 'Clear All', that is, clear
the notification list. To the right, a user can access 'All Settings',
including the ability to configure the quick access tasks, mentioned
above. Users swipe down once for the quick-actions, and can swipe again
for the notifications.
In addition, it is now clear that a battery percentage can be shown
to users below the battery icon at the top left (in addition to the
date), yet another minor feature that many users have requested.
The slidedeck also mentions about how apps can ‘intelligently manage
notifications’ such as silently add, update and delay alerts. We’ve
mentioned these in the past under the name ‘ghost notifications’
whereby a user won’t be actively alerted, like current Toast
notifications, but instead, the alert will show in the Action Center.
This will be useful for less important alerts to the user, and
developers will be able to leverage these independently on their apps
according to their design.
From sources familiar with the matter, we can also confirm some of the
behavior of this Action Center. For example, if a user is playing a full
screen game and they ‘swipe down’ accidentally, they won’t see a huge
center come down, but instead will just see a small, blue tab (akin to
the blue bar in the image). This intelligent usage of the Action Center
will ensure users only can use it in appropriate contexts and not in
others.
Windows Phone 8.1 is expected to be announced by Microsoft on April 2 during their Build conference
in San Franciso, with new devices being announced at a later date. A
developer preview of 8.1 will also be announced on the same day, with
it being opened up as an opt-in program akin to the current Developer Preview program for Update 3.
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