Big Update to Windows Phone 8.1

Joe Belfiore at the Windows Phone Blog:

Whew, what a day! What a week! I’ve just gotten off the stage at Build in front of 5,000 of our beloved developers talking about the future of the Windows platform. And now I’m here to tell YOU about the stuff we’ve been working on to delight all our Windows Phone users and fans!

More personalisation options on the lock & start screens, Cortana (a Siri-like voice assistant), a new notification pane, a Swpye-esque keyboard and a slew of smaller changes. This looks like an impressive update.

Stephen Elop also jumped up on stage to announce a bunch of new Nokia phones running Windows Phone 8.1, to be launched in May and June.