Hobel over on the Verge forums put together a pretty nice list of changes between 8.0 and 8.1.
PERSONALIZATION
Slide show on lock screen
○ Local or SkyDrive pictures
○ Option to show seasonal slide shows (based on when your photos were taken)
Fully adjustable theme colors
○ A lot more nuances to choose from
○ Set colors separately for background and accent color
○ Colour settings moved from PC-Settings to Settings Charm of the Start screen
New start screen backgrounds
○ 5 new ones, 12 old ones
○ Including animated ones (dragon, robots, fish, etc.), some of which move in sync with your scrolling
Set desktop wallpaper as start screen background
○ applies to app list as well
LIVE TILES
New tile sizes
○ Large (2x2 medium tile size) for more information
○ Small (providing live information such as mail count)
Colorful and rich tiles enabled for desktop apps
New way of adjusting live tiles
○ Press and hold to resize, rearrange or uninstall tiles, and to rename groups
○ Select multiple tiles to resize, rearrange, group or uninstall them
APPS LIST
New way of accessing app list
○ Touch: swipe up from the bottom of the start screen
○ Mouse: Down arrow appears on the bottom of the start screen
○ Option to go directly to app list when you click/press Start
New sorting options
○ Sort by name, date installed (today, earlier this week, last week, older), usage (most used, moderatley used, etc.), category (same categories as in app store)
○ “List desktop apps first when sorted by category” option
Apps are not pinned automatically upon installation
○ Instead they are listed in the app list (marked as “new”)
○ Press and hold to pin
SNAP VIEW
○ Up to 4 apps per display side by side (depending on screen resolution)
○ Drag windows across multiple displays
○ Resize windows to any size (minimum size equals snap view size in 8.0, apps automatically adjust content layout/view to size of window)
○ Multiple windows of the same app side by side (only with certain apps?)
○ No minimal screen resolution required
○ When app is opened from another app, apps are resized automatically and intelligently (open photo from mail - 60/40 photo/mail, open website from mail - 50/50)
○ White line next to the three dots on the separation line indicates, which of the windows you are actively using
PC SETTINGS
○ Most settings accessible in Modern style PC settings app (as well as the traditional Control Panel)
SEARCH
More universal search
○ Search Charm does universal search by default, switch to contextual search via drop down menu (everywhere, settings, files, web images, web videos, current app), or use in-app search boxes)
○ Universal search results shown directly opon entry (apps, settings, files, web search queries)
○ Play songs from your library or Xbox Music collection directly from search results
Search Hero
○ Hitting “enter” opens full screen search results (behaves like an app)
○ Not all search queries produce Search Heros (initially about 10%, ultimately up to 30% of search queries), other queries produce less rich results according to their contexts
○ Hero = search results from various Bing services and third party apps (Including: Bing images, Wikipedia, Bing news, website previews, local media files, xBox music, biographical information, information related to places, related search terms, apps, and others)
○ Filtering options for web images and web videos
○ Viewed full screen, horizontally scrolling
○ Quick actions directly from Search Hero (play songs/videos)
Win+S shortcut for Search Charm
○ From both Modern UI and Desktop
SKYDRIVE INTEGRATION
○ SkyDrive fully integrated into the system (file system devided into “Skydrive” and “This PC”)
○ Content information and previews (“stubs”) are automatically synchronized
○ Choose which file, folders or types of files to synchronize for offline access
○ PC settings, app settings and app data are synchronized across multiple PCs via SkyDrive (Including Reading List bookmarks and IE tabs)
○ Manage SkyDrive storage via PC settings
ON-SCREEN KEYBOARD
Secondary characters
○ Access secondary characters by swiping away from the key in the direction of the pop-up
○ Numbers as secondary characters on the top row of keys
○ Secondary characters for punctuation marks and symbols
Spelling suggestions
○ 3 pop-up suggestions (below the text)
○ Swipe across space bar to cycle through suggestions, tap space bar to insert them
○ Accuracy improved from 60% to >90%
○ Spelling suggestions engine constantly updated with new terms
○ Spelling suggestions influenced by what words the user frequently uses
109 languages
HOT CORNERS
○ Current hovering Start “tip” replaced by Windows logo (Always visible on the taskbar, not optional)
○ Adjustable hot corners functionality (disable upper right and upper left hot corners, replace command prompt with Windows PowerShell in the menu that appears as you right click in the lower left corner)
○ When you use a mouse, the Charms icons are at the top of the charm bar - closer to the hot corner (probably only on large screens?)
WINDOWS STORE
New design and navigation
○ Apps presented as Screenshot + description + rating instead of tiles
○ Home page with Featured apps, “Picks for you”, “Popular now” and “New releases”
○ Category pages with Features apps and “Popular now”
○ App bar with “Home”, “Your apps”, “Your account” and list of categories
○ Download page with customized recommendations
Recommendations
○ “Picks for you” based on installed apps, app rating and other factors
Apps updated automatically in the background
INTERNET EXPLORER
○ IE11
○ Better performance
○ Websites can have live tiles showing RSS feeds
○"Always show address bar and tabs" option
○ Unlimited number of tabs
○ Tabs menu at the bottom above the address bar
○ Tabs synchronized across PCs (and, at some point in the future, Windows Phone devices)
○ Tabs restored as you open IE (metro version)
○ Restore multiple closed tabs
○ Subfolders for favorites
○ “Hovering” by pressing and holding
○ Contextual menu for links appears in app bar when you use touch input (press and hold)
○ View and manage downloads in metro version
○ WebGL support
○ Phone number detection for skype
○ Share link OR screenshot via share charm
○ IE scans binary extensions (such as ActiveX) for malwarre
○ Reading view (announced but not available in preview)
MAIL
New organizing features (not in preview)
○ Filter for social, newsletters, favourite people
○ Delete multiple mails of a certain type at once
○ Drage & drop
SKYDRIVE APP
○ Doubles as local file manager
○ Much faster (thanks to full skydrive integration)
○ Photos app integrated into Skydrive app (view and edit within Skydrive app)
PHOTOS APP
New design and navigation
○ Only local photo library accessible in preview version
Advanced editing tools
MUSIC APP
Faster
New navigation
○ Navigation menu: Collection, Radio, Explore, Playlists
Import playlists
○ From iTunes
○ From websites containing information on artists/albums/songs (via share charm, not available in preview?)
CAMERA APP
○ Photosynth built in (360° panorama)
○ Adjust brightness
NEW APPS
Outlook RT
○ Outlook (full desktop version) added to the Office suite in Windows RT (preinstalled with 8.1, free)
Office Metro app (?)
○ Coming “later this year” (possibly with 8.1)
Reading List
○ Similar to Instapaper or Pocket
○ Save online content or app content for later
○ Save content via Share charm
○ Bookmarks sorted by date added
○ Bookmarks synchronized across PCs (and, at some point in the future, Windows Phone devices)
○ When you open a bookmark, Reading List is automatically snapped to the side (about 20/80)
Calculator
○ Numeric and scientific calculator
○ Unit conversions (including length, weight, temperature and others)
Alarms
○ Alarm, stopwatch and countdown timer
○ Set time by spinning the finger around the clock
Bing Food & Drink
○ Find recipes (from online sources and from a selection of chefs), plan meals, create shopping lists, learn skills (such as sharpening knives)
○ Hands-free mode (flip pages by waving hand in front of webcam)
Bing Health & Fitness
○ Monitor nutrition habits, exercise routine, overall health
○ Enter symptoms via body diagram to get diagnoses (using “reputable” sources, according to Microsoft)
Scan App
Sound recorder app
Help & Tips
○ Help on how to use Windows 8
“Substantial” updates to all preinstalled apps
