Gradual progress
It's fair to say that things have gone pretty quiet on the Windows Phone 7 front. There have been no new handsets since the first lot were launched back in October, and there have barely been any updates to the platform, in a time when its competitors have had several.
The ‘NoDo' release has had its issues and a major release codenamed ‘Mango', which will introduce multi-tasking among other things, is rumoured to be arriving sometime between September and the end of the year.
Yesterday, at an event called MIX11, Microsoft VP of WP program management, Joe Belfiore, talked up the ‘forthcoming release of WP, coming later this year', which we understand to mean Mango. MIX11 is a developer event, so much of the talk was directed at that community, but a few nuggets of general interest also emerged.
"The next release of Windows Phone represents the evolution of our strategy for ensuring that developers are at the forefront of ‘what's next' by investing in even richer customer experiences, a powerful application platform and a thriving ecosystem," said Belfiore. "We will soon deliver a new set of Windows Phone Developer Tools that will enable developers to create a new generation of apps that are even faster, more capable and better integrated with Windows Phone."
Here are the key new features:
- Application multitasking for background processing, audio and file transfer, and fast application switching
- Deeper phone integration so apps can, for example, take better advantage of the versatility of Live Tiles
- Access to the camera and Motion Sensor library so developers can build apps that incorporate device hardware and build augmented reality experiences
There were also some demonstrations of future apps and how they might take advantage of WP7 goodness to come, such as the Amazon one below.
The lack of new WP7 handsets is entirely consistent with our view that it will eventually become the NokiaSoft show, with HTC, Samsung and LG quietly committing exclusively to Android, with maybe the odd token WP7 launch to keep the Microsoft MDF (market development funds) flowing.
So it's quite timely that Russian Nokia-watcher Eldar Murtazin has blogged that he's got hold of some NokiaSoft prototypes. He's only written about it in Russian, although he has tweeted a bit in English, so this stuff needs to be taken with an even bigger pinch of salt than usual. But then again, Murtazin has a reasonable track-record of Nokia scoops.
Four devices are apparently in development right now. The W7 is apparently being used as the main test device, and is reminiscent of the HTC Mozart, according to Murtazin, while the W8 will be an evolution of the N8. Another model seems like a WP7 version of the E6 (the W6?), and the last one is a cheaper version of the W7. It seems Nokia will be obliged to make friends with Qualcomm for the SoCs.
