Last month, a report claimed that Microsoft is cooking up two more Portico-like General Distribution Release (GDR) updates for Windows Phone 8 that will be released later in 2013. Now the first details of the next update, dubbed GDR2, have made their way online. According to sources speaking to The Verge, Microsoft will be including FM radio hardware support with the GDR2 update. Both the Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 will allow users to listen to FM radio, as will other phones that include the necessary hardware.

Speaking of Nokia's Lumia phones, today's report also claims that the Finnish phone maker will be baking some of its own special features into the GDR2 update. One of the big upcoming features is a new way for Lumia owners to wake their device's screen from standby mode simply by double-tapping the screen. Also included in Nokia's flavor of the GDR2 update will be a flip-to-silence feature as well as Lumia color profile settings for the phone's display.

Like the original GDR Portico update that began rolling out late last year, this new GDR2 update is expected to be a smaller software bump. However, support for FM radio is actually something that Microsoft included with Windows Phone 7 but left out of Windows Phone 8, so it's good to hear that that feature will be making its triumphant return. Nokia's own additions to the update also sound like nice little tweaks that will improve the usability of its Lumia models. Now we just have to wait for the GDR2 rollout to actually begin, which is expected to happen sometime in the coming months. Sounds like you Windows Phone 8 folk will have plenty of time to research your local FM radio stations in order to find the perfect first station to tune in to on your smartphone.

Via The Verge