VoIP and Video Chat 
•Incoming VoIP calls work like any other call
•Integrates with built-in phone features
•VoIP apps continue to run in the background
•Available to all developers
Bluetooth and NFC
•Create apps that communicate with other phones using Bluetooth technology
•Bluetooth API enables the following scenarios for Windows Phone 8:
•App-to-app communication
•App-to-device communication
•Proximity API enables:
•App-to-app connection using Bluetooth technology
•Establish a Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi Direct connection between your app and an instance of your app on a proximate device
•Send data between devices using NFC.
•Use a phone to interact with NFC tags
Other Networking Enhancements
•Windows.Networking Windows Phone Runtime API
•New networking API highly compatible with Windows 8
•Incoming Sockets
•Supported in both System.Net.Sockets and Windows.Networking.Sockets, which means your app can listen for an incoming network connection
•Support for IPV6
•Winsock native API support
•Helps porting of existing native libraries that use the Winsock API
Storage – Read from SD Card
•Apps can use the Microsoft.Phone.Storage API to read files from an SD card
•User can also use SD card to extend device storage for their personal files and media
•Store photos, music, videos
•Can install apps from a MicroSD store
Custom Contact Store
•Create a set of contacts owned exclusively by the app, though visible through the phones built-in Contacts app
•APIs are provided to create, update, delete, and query the app‟s contacts
•Sync the app‟s contact list with a remote list maintained by the app‟s cloud service
File and Protocol Associations
Enables App to App Communication
•App can register a File Association
•Automatically launch your app when a file of the registered type is received as an email attachment or opened in the browser, or through Sharepoint
•One app can launch another by sending it a file of the registered type
•App can register a protocol
•Allows your app to automatically launch when another app „opens‟ a special URI
•Protocol is the first part of a URI, e.g. myprotocol:/ShowProducts?CategoryID=aea6ae1f
•App launches another and passes it data in the remainder of the launch URI
In-App Purchase
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Attract a larger user base with free baseline experience
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Upsell users to purchase paid digital goods and services that enhance or extend the app experience in the app itself
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Add and modify different paid options for different user segments
Enterprise app deployment
License apps directly to business
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Build enterprise apps, for example LOB, Expense reports, Remote Access, HR, Sales
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Promote and offer the apps to enterprise customers
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Design the right business model, e.g. volume discount
Company Hub
Localization and Globalization
RTL and BiDirectional Support
•Windows Phone 8 supports languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Persian that are read from right to left
•FrameworkElement.FlowDirection property allows right-to-left layout in StackPanels and other content controls
•FlowDirection property also enables RTL text display in text controls
•Sometimes RTL languages contain content that flows from left to right. For example, a network share name such as \\server1\folder\file.ext, should always be displayed LTR
•In such cases, you can use the Run element to contain the LTR text, and then set the FlowDirection property on the Run element to “LeftToRight”
Languages: 26 new
Camera and Photos
•Lenses
•Type of extensibility available to apps that provide unique camera functionality via the camera APIs
•As a lens, your app provides the user with a viewfinder experience and interacts directly with the camera
•New Picture.GetPreviewImage() method to return thumbnail images
•New Photos extensibility features
•In addition to extending the Photos Hub, the photo app picker, and the share picker, your app can now integrate with the photo edit picker or register as a rich media editor
•Background Photo Auto-upload
•Automatically upload photos to a photo storage service using a resource-intensive background agent
•Advanced camera capture APIs for apps that require fine control of the camera
•Use the PhotoCaptureDevice class to control photo properties such as ISO, white balance, and exposure. You can even programmatically adjust the focus position.
•The AudioVideoCaptureDevice class offers a similar level of control for video and audio recording
Media
•Music media library
•Add and remove music files from the user‟s music collection with the SaveSong and Delete methods of the MediaLibrary class
•Pictures media library
•In Windows Phone 8, for each picture saved on the phone, the following two thumbnail images are automatically created and can be retrieved by your apps
•A small thumbnail image. You can retrieve this thumbnail with the GetThumbnail method of the Picture class.
•A preview image that has the same dimensions as the phone's screen. You can retrieve this preview image with the new GetPreviewImage extension method of the Picture class.
•Background Audio
•New PlayStateChangedEventArgs returns data when the state of the BackgroundAudioPlayer changes
Windows Phone 8 Apps Run Faster
•Managed Apps are NGEN‟d for you (compiled to native) in the Windows Phone Store in Windows Phone 8, so typically start and run faster J
•When you build your app in Visual Studio, the code is not compiled into a native image, but into a machine-independent Common Intermediate Language (CIL) binary file (formerly known as Microsoft Intermediate Language, or MSIL)
•When you submit your app to the Windows Phone Store, you submit the CIL file
•On submission, CIL file is converted to optimized Machine Dependent Intermediate Language, or MDIL
•When a user downloads your app to a device, it is pre-jitted to a native image
Summary
Windows Phone 8 has very many new features
The shared core means that at a low level, components of the OS are the same between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8
Windows Phone 8 supports XAML+managed, XNA+managed, Direct3D+native app development, and hybrids of those
Apps built for Windows Phone OS 7.1 in general run without modification or recompilation on Windows Phone 8
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