Nokia's new Amber update for its Lumia Windows Phone 8 based phones will release in August, if a tweet by Nokia Spain's Twitter account is to be believed.
The Amber update was unveiled at the time of the launch of
Nokia Lumia 925. The update, which is part of the Lumia 925's firmware already, will bring a slew of camera features including a new Nokia Smart Camera mode that allows users to create high quality images, offering the ability to take ten shots at once and then edit them afterwards with tools and effects like Best Shot, Action Shot and Motion Focus. The update is also expected to bring 'double tap to wake up' lock screen gesture to some Lumia phones.
In addition to these Lumia-only features, the update will also bring features like
FM radio and add CalDAV and CardDav support, which will extend support for Gmail and other Google services. It will activate FM radio in handsets that feature capable hardware. It's interesting to note that Windows Phone 7.x supported FM radio while Windows Phone 8 did not have this feature until this update. Nokia's new lineup of smartphones (barring the Lumia 620) sport FM hardware that will become functional after the update.
It's worth pointing out that Twitter accounts do not have a very good record of dispensing accurate information, but we expect the update to be delivered before end of July, as the
sunset date for Google Sync services for new users is July 31. This would mean that Windows Phone users won't have been able to setup their Google account on the OS beyond this date using Google's implementation of the ActiveSync protocol called Google Sync.
The Windows Phone 8 Amber update will bring support for the protocols CalDAV (for Calendars) and CardDAV (for Contacts), which, when combined with IMAP (for Email, already in Windows Phone 8) will be able to fully replace the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol, to synchronise email, contacts, and calendar with Google and other services that support these protocols.
The update will also bring some changes to Xbox Music making it easier to select, download, and pin tunes in Xbox Music and improve the accuracy of song information and other metadata. It will also extend the Data Sense feature of Windows Phone 8 to more telecom operators.