It is now 2015 and I finally got my Lumia updated. Initially, I was expecting to get what was last year called the Cyan update which would bring my Window 8 phone to 8.1. I had my fun with Cortana for New Year’s. She is a bit more fun than Siri. I haven’t had the opportunity to take advantage of location aware reminders, but I have set up quite time. My post isn’t about Cortana. As brilliant as voice recognition is in an digital assistance no one should be ashamed it has taken so long to get it working. Digital sampling rates and short time Fourier analysis combined with ambient noise and the vocal affectations that make every person’s voice different leaves me kind of proud the technology is in my hands, even if it does tend to annoy people in line at the grocery store and bank.

No, this post is about something so brilliant it could only be simple. I downloaded and installed an app Microsoft has called gestures. It does specifically 4 things:

1. If the phone is ringing and I lift it to my ear, it picks up.
2. Silences incoming calls if I place the phone face down on a surface.
3. Mutes the microphone if I place the phone face down during a call.
4. Puts the call on speaker phone if I place the phone face up during a call.