Microsoft is working on a number of new gestures for Windows Phone OS, and has released a new app to start testing them.
The new gestures will allow users to interact with their phones without even having to touch the display. The first batch are available now through a special Gestures Beta app on the Windows Phone Store.
Earlier in the year it was claimed that Microsoft was working on Kinect-like gestures for its Windows Phone OS. This "3D Touch" system had apparently been in development at Nokia for a number of years, and Microsoft was apparently planning to introduced them in the second update to Windows Phone 8.1.
Those plans were cancelled, and now Microsoft is adding those gestures as a stand-alone update.
The first Gestures Beta release allows you to control calls and silence your phone through actions. Picking up the phone and putting it to your ear will answer calls, and placing the phone screen-down on a flat service during a call will mute it.
If you put the phone on a flat surface with the screen facing up, meanwhile, you'll put the call on speaker.
Finally, flipping the phone display-down while it is ringing will silence the ringer.
It seems as if the Gestures Beta app will work with all Lumia phones, but apparently the Lumia 630, Lumia 635 and Lumia 530 have "limited functionality."
Microsoft is said to be building such 3D Touch gestures into the form factor-spanning Windows 10, so this could simply be a test run for such an extended feature.
