Oh boy. Someone from China keeps leaking new stuff related to Windows and Windows Phone. Here’s more for the week – they’ve leaked the Windows Phone 8 SDK. In other words, we’re now able to learn about some of the new features that will be coming in the next big update to Windows Phone.

Now, I’m sure the devs will dig out information by installing the SDK itself, hence, what does it have for us, the end users? Here’s the list.

1. New Maps features – 3D landmarks. Also, third party developers will be able to download maps for offline use in their own app.
2. Third party developers will be able to access the voice system. This was rumored for quite some time, so I’m not surprised. The devs can use Voice access to execute actions and launch the app. Speech-to-text is what is exciting to me, at least. Imagine having your tweets sent via your favorite apps, without installing some other dedicated voice app.
3. Setting default apps for launching a certain type of file will also be possible. Android has this, and I do like it.
4. Photo apps will be able to upload photos in the background. I’d like this to be possible even for apps like Skydrive and Box.
5. Lenses feature in the Camera app allows for more options to the developers. e.g., ISO speed and exposure, filters and effects etc.
6. Improved notifications on the lockscreen. Third party apps can show their app’s notifications on the lockscreen, which currently isn’t possible. Also, they can have “background images” pushed here, which could be used for something like “App of the day” feature.
7. App-to-app and App-to-device Bluetooth file transfer. In app-to-app transfer, the said app needs to be on the two devices. App-to-device transfers are nothing but normal transfer of files over Bluetooth, only that you’ll have to send the file via the app.
8. In-app purchasing.

This gets me excited really. I’d like to see more features, but this is not going to provide you the entire picture. The launch will. But I’m pretty confident about Windows Phone 8 now.

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