Yesterday, Microsoft surprised us by not only announcing the features coming in GDR3 (also known as Update 3), but by releasing the update for download through their new Developer Preview Program. We have a fairly good idea of what’s new and improved with the update, but small trinkets are still being discovered by developers and enthusiasts around the globe. The latest discovery is one that can help make Windows Phone even more personal.
You’re missing out if you’ve downloaded GDR3 for your Windows Phone 8 device and haven’t yet checked out our Windows Phone 8 GDR3 Forums. Other members in the Windows Phone Central community are playing with the update and finding all sorts of new features, like this one.
With Update 3 for Windows Phone 8, developers can introduce custom sounds in toasts notifications. Pretty awesome right? While Microsoft may or may not call their future personal assistant Cortana, there’s no reason developers can’t get creative with this new feature.
Here are the limitations for developers implementing this feature. Sound files can be in WAV, WMA, or MP3 format and must be less than 10 seconds long. That’s it.
While Windows Phone 8.1 will introduce a proper notification center, it’s not coming out until early 2014. Until then, it still is fairly common to hear a toast notification on your phone, but miss pulling it out to see what it was before it disappears. Now developers can get creative with this feature by introducing custom sounds that go with toasts. For example, we could get Jay Bennett’s voice to announce when a new article is published on Windows Phone Central. That would be pretty rad.
Developers, head to the source link below to read up on the documentation around this feature and sound off with your thoughts. Everyone else, give developers some creative ideas of how to implement this and whether or not you’d use it.
Source: MSDN, Via: Windows Phone Central Forums; Thanks, Anthony A., for the tip
