See, Microsoft really needs to advertise this feature of WP8.1 everywhere. I know a few people at work that have Windows Phones (520s and 521s mostly) with stock WP8 on them. Once I showed them the 8.1 dev preview and what it can do with the Start screen background and the parallaxing effect with the transparent tiles, they were completely blown away! They just had to have it! Needless to say, I had to walk them through how to get the dev preview.. but now, they couldn't be happier!
Thing is though, that like 97% of the general public doesn't know about these new features in WP8.1.. Only us "enthusiasts" here at Wpcentral and a few other tech bloggers etc know about this stuff.
If MS would get their heads out of their asses and advertise these new features (in a creative way), people would be all over them I'm sure.
They need to advertise with real prime time TV ads that show off the new Action/Notification center, the parallaxing effect of the new Start screen background and transparent tiles, and of course Cortana!
I have yet to see ANY ads that show off these new features... and they wonder why we still only have 4% market share...
But instead, they make
an ad showing three friends going on a trip, and we barely see the new 930 taking pics (all smartphones can do that!), taking notes in Onenote, and syncing photos to the camera roll in Onedrive... That's it! NOTHING of the new features of 8.1!!!