A minute of silence as Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows Phone 8.1, for those of you who have been paying attention, the inevitable has happened. Effective today, Microsoft is ceasing support for Windows Phone 8.1. Though phones running the platform will not be bricked, but the company will not be pushing any future updates for Windows Phone 8.1. The Windows Phone operating system was Microsoft’s biggest efforts in countering Android and iOS. However, as 99.6% of the smartphones run Android or iOS Microsoft failed to capture the market with Windows Phone and it never truly got off the ground.

While a few good phones were launched in the early days by HTC and then by [...]