It all started when Ex Microsoft Employee Nawzil Najeeb, Claimed in his tweets that his Windows Phone 8.1 preview unit detected USB storage. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get USB OTG to work on our Lumia 630 or Lumia 1520 with Windows Phone 8.1 Preview. So does that mean, Microsoft has ditched USB OTG support for Windows Phone 8.1 as well?
USB OTG feature lets you connect external USB storage or pen drives with your phone directly. It allows you to carry large media and data files with you and easily access them with your smartphone while on the move. Having USB OTG on Windows Phone 8.1 will open lot of options and help Windows Phone compete with Android platform. We might even see the Xbox Controller support for Windows Phone.
Now a new app listed on Windows Phone 8.1 store confirms the presence of OTG support on Windows Phone 8.1. The credibility is further strengthened by the fact that they are Microsoft partner. Ninko (acquired by Pudice) has listed USB device which claims to work when plugged in a Windows Phone8.1 unit, when accessed via Ninko Windows Phone App.
To verify the claims it would require a Ninko USB device, which is out of stock as of now. The good news however is that Microsoft might officially introduce USB OTG with the upcoming software updates for Windows phone 8.1. A disclaimer on the official download page mentions that this app neither confirms nor denies that OTG support will be included in Windows Phone 8.1
While the chipsets used in Most Windows Phone support USB OTG functionality, we are not sure if the USB ports are suitably wired to act as hosts on last generation Lumia devices.
However, the new Ninko App listing on the playstore does give us enough reason to believe that Microsoft will provide with hardware and software USB OTG support in future Lumia devices running of Windows phone 8.1, if not on already existing Lumia phones.
