There are improvements in Windows Phone 8.1 to Xbox Music and Wallet and Maps, plus better support for dual SIM cards, app updates, and calendar views, but those are tweaks and bugfixes. This is really a story about Cortana, about an entirely different way of interacting with your phone. It’s one part personal assistant, one part shortcut machine, and one part personal newspaper. With a voice shockingly similar to Siri’s, Cortana can do everything from set your alarm to help you find a good restaurant nearby and make sure you get a table. She can also launch apps, search the web, and tell you whether or not the Yankees won last night.

Cortana is now the key to using Windows Phone

It’s all powered by Bing, and it’s incredibly useful. A tap on the search button activates Cortana from anywhere, and it’s the fastest way to do almost anything. Multitasking is a weak point of Windows Phone, but Cortana almost obviates the problem — I don’t have to switch out of Rdio to add a reminder, I can just tap the magnifying glass and say "remind me to pick up my dry cleaning when I get home tomorrow." Cortana has learned where I live and work, and knows what I like to read and listen to; she can be full of useful information and recommendations. It’s all customizable, too, through a clever Notebook feature: I choose what Cortana knows about me, my habits, my interests, and my contacts, and she acts accordingly.

It’s not yet really meaningfully better than what Google Now offers, other than giving me the ability to launch an app or to say "find me a coffee shop" and then "direct me to the third one." But it’s a nice realization of what Windows Phone was always supposed to be: get in, get out, and get back to life. And it’s made me more certain than ever that we’re all going to end up talking at our phones all day whether we like it or not.

Windows Phone’s newfound attentiveness goes beyond Cortana, too. There’s a new WiFi Sense app, which is always looking for and automatically joining open Wi-Fi networks at places like Starbucks — it logs in, accepts terms and conditions, and does it all without your involvement. There’s also Data Sense, which tells you how much data you’re using and lets you set a limit, and Storage Sense, which makes it easy to free up space or delete unnecessary files. But Battery Saver is my favorite: it’s the "which app is killing my battery" app I’ve been wanting on my iPhone since the day I bought it. The three together help you save your battery, your data, and your money, and mostly do it for you. And the more my phone can do for me, the happier I am.