[Nabkawe5]

If you're new to WP8 you might use your software like an ***** for a while ignoring cool small things that saves you lots of headaches.
Like if a notification popped up you might wait for it to go away to continue your game while not knowing you could swipe it to the right and be done with it, or when you're using the keyboard and don't know that if you held the &123 key and went to the number/symbol you wanted you can skip the layout change.
or that you can actually call the person you're texting by clicking his name on top. or switch to Facebook messaging by clicking the arrows bellow.
Eventually you'll learn it , but here's top notch small feature you didn't know it was there (or perhaps what to do with it. )

The most amazing feature in WP8 (and exclusive I might add) that no one seems to use often (although very important)
is the magnifying glass
Yeah I know old news, well people just don't use it creatively that's all , its a feature that can be enabled by going to the accessibility settings, when activated it allows you to zoom anywhere by a 2 fingers double click ,the good news its GLOBAL , it can be used everywhere and I mean everywhere , even when you power off your phone and that little good bye shows you can zoom on that ! :)
even when launching the phone you could zoom on the Windows Phone splash screen.
Zooming doesn't impair your apps or games or UI , in fact it responds to touches which will come In handy when you're faced with an app with small buttons. even more you can PAN by sliding your 2 fingers meaning you don't have to zoom out unless you're done . isn't that great ?.

By now you are saying its just zoom relax ... :) Well as a guy with glasses I hate small text and this helps , but the reason I love this is how I actually use it to zoom in a video which isn't really available natively anywhere this would come handy to get a persons face or a text/clock[/B] .

Another use case would be Close ups photography , you know that feeling when you want to zoom so you can frame or insure the focus of your shot but you still don't want to actually zoom and ruin the picture , this is the solution for you my flower shooting loving friends.

another cool usage case is photo editing , in apps like Nokia exclusives (Burton/Cinemagraph) or professional photo editing tools (Fantasia Painter) , you might want a more accurate brush strokes and zooming again saves the day.

I think there are as many use cases for this as one could be creative to think of so don't ignore it , show it off to your friends and enjoy your WP8 phones.
Sound off your thanks/questions to me at @nabkawe5.

[Tafsern]

Great trick there :)

[Nabkawe5]

thanks dude , i edited the post for more tricks.

[Raghav94]

>or when you're using the keyboard and don't know that if you held the &123 key and went to the number/symbol you wanted you can skip the layout change.

I'm sorry, what is this?

[psiu_glen]

Raghav, instead of using the symbols key as a toggle, you can hit it, keep finger to glass, slide to character you want. When you let go, that character is inserted and keyboard stays on alphabet.

[Andrea988]

I know it's an old thread but I haven't had my WP for that long. The magnifier IS old news, pinch to zoom has been available on most smartphones for a long time now. It isn't universal either. For example, you can zoom in on an email message, but not on the inbox list of messages. Sorry, but I was expecting to read about something unique and exciting.

The keyboard trick is brilliant though, I use numbers a lot and didn't know about that one. The trick now is to remember it. You can't zoom in on the keyboard though ;)

[SammyD97]

I also didn't know about the keyboard thing. Thanks

[Nabkawe5]

I know it's an old thread but I haven't had my WP for that long. The magnifier IS old news, pinch to zoom has been available on most smartphones for a long time now. It isn't universal either. For example, you can zoom in on an email message, but not on the inbox list of messages. Sorry, but I was expecting to read about something unique and exciting.

The keyboard trick is brilliant though, I use numbers a lot and didn't know about that one. The trick now is to remember it. You can't zoom in on the keyboard though ;)

The article is old and yes there were and still are zoom options on other platforms (Not on Android on that time it was OEM dependent) also all of the zooms I've seen to this day DESTROY the experience, they get in the way or have shortcuts that are easily triggered by accident or hard to trigger all together they also lagged a lot so NO you can't say the magnifier isn't unique in WP8/8.1 its still one of my favorite feature, when I can't zoom anymore on a pic or a horrible website decides not to allow zooming this feature is there to save me.

About the keyboard I spent months before finding out about it myself :D

[psiu_glen]

You didn't read the post correctly. It certainly is universal, and will certainly zoom in on the inbox. It will zoom in on EVERYTHING.

You need to enable it under Settings -> Ease of Access, however. Go try it. (and read the navigation instructions first before you accidentally get zoomed and are frustrated and unable to pan around :D )

edit: You can also zoom in on the keyboard with this.

I know it's an old thread but I haven't had my WP for that long. The magnifier IS old news, pinch to zoom has been available on most smartphones for a long time now. It isn't universal either. For example, you can zoom in on an email message, but not on the inbox list of messages. Sorry, but I was expecting to read about something unique and exciting.

The keyboard trick is brilliant though, I use numbers a lot and didn't know about that one. The trick now is to remember it. You can't zoom in on the keyboard though ;)