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Windows Phone 8

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Also known as WP8, Windows Phone 8.0

second generation of Microsoft's Windows Phone mobile operating system

Key facts

Developer
Microsoft Corporation
Os family
Windows 8
Working state
Discontinued
Source model
Closed-source
General availability
October 29, 2012 ; 13 years ago ( 2012-10-29 )
Final release
Update 3 (Build 8.0.10532.166) / April 14, 2014 ; 12 years ago ( 2014-04-14 )
Update method
Firmware over the air
Package manager
XAP, APPX
Supported platforms
32-bit ARM architecture
Kernel type
Hybrid ( NT kernel )
License
Proprietary software licensed to OEMs
Preceded by
Windows Phone 7 (2010)
Succeeded by
Windows Phone 8.1 (2014)
Official website
Archived official website at the Wayback Machine (archive index)

via Wikipedia infobox

~13 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Windows Phone 8 is the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system from Microsoft, released on October 29, 2012. It runs on the Windows NT kernel and is the successor to Windows Phone 7. It was the first Windows platform for mobile devices to be closely related to, and match the version number, of a desktop counterpart, in this case Windows 8.

Like its predecessor, it features a flat user interface based on the Metro design language. Windows Phone 8 replaced the Windows CE kernel used in Windows Phone 7.x with the Windows NT kernel found in Windows 8. As a consequence of this, all Windows Phone 7.x devices cannot run or update to Windows Phone 8, and new applications compiled specifically for Windows Phone 8 are not made available for Windows Phone 7.x devices. Windows Phone 8 devices were manufactured by Nokia, HTC, Samsung and Huawei.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Windows Phone 8” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.