14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.1 is a huge step into the right direction, but we fear that it won’t be enough for the mobile platform to survive on a market dominated by two other giants, Android and Apple.
Nevertheless, there’s no comparison between the previous version of Windows Phone and 8.1 OS, which comes with lots of new features and improvements. There is still a lot of work to be done, but Microsoft seems to be on the right track, which is very important for its current base of users.
Many of Windows Phone 8.1 new features and improvements have been detailed over the last couple of months, but those who are still carrying smartphones powered by other mobile platforms and consider switching to Microsoft’s operating system may want to read on for one of the major new options included.
In fact, this is one of the most requested features that Microsoft managed to add to Windows Phone 8.1, which is probably one of the reasons it also advertises it as very important for the ecosystem.
We’re talking about the option to install applications and games on the SD card rather than the phone’s internal memory. This feature was not available on previous Windows Phone versions, but with 8.1 OS users will be able to take advantage of this function.
The whole process of installing apps and games on SD card is detailed by Microsoft in a blog post. The company uses the newest Windows Phone 8.1 smartphone launched on the market, the Lumia 530, to explain how this feature works on the new OS.
According to Matthew Crocker, product manager for Lumia 530 at Microsoft, “moving apps to the SD card once downloaded isn’t a great solution. It’s an extra process that people don’t really want to do. Plus, you may download the file only to realize that it fails half way through due to lack of space, wasting valuable data allowance and time. Our method does away with all of that.”
Even though you can easily move apps and games from the phone’s internal storage to SD card, it is strongly recommended to use the special settings that you can find in the phone’s menu.
Head over to Settings / Storage Sense and change the “Store new apps on my” option to SD card. It’s as simple as that with the new Windows Phone 8.1 operating system.
In the end, Matthew also highlights the fact that Windows Phone has been designed to offer more protection against hacking and malware. Applications can’t access other apps’ data no matter whether they are stored in the phone’s internal memory or on the SD card.