Windows Phone Mango feature list

[Abooie]

Winrumors have posted a pretty comprehensive list of what we should expect in the upcoming windows phone update.

http://www.winrumors.com/windows-phone-7-5-mango-feature-list-and-demos/

I'm pretty stunned by what they're adding and really can't think of much else I'd want. All I have to do now is endure the painful wait until it's released.

■Outlook Conversation View – Emails combined together in threads
■Lync Messaging Client – Enterprise messaging client
■Twitter integration – Tweets integration into people hub
■Office 365 integration – Office 365 features built-in
■Bing Vision – Scan QR, Microsoft Tags, books, CDs and DVDs
■Bing Audio – Similar to Shazam, will identify songs
■Windows Live Messenger integration – Integrated into the people hub and messaging hub
■Facebook Chat integration – Integrated into the people hub and messaging hub
■AOL Messenger integration – Integrated into the people hub and messaging hub
■Contacts grouping – Create groups of contacts to send messages to
■Xbox LIVE sync function – Sync function to likely sync settings/games across devices
■Now playing artist information on lock screen – album art on the lock screen
■Visual Voicemail support - Visual voicemail using same method as iOS/Android
■Network awareness NCSI support – improvements for switching between networks/optimization
■Internet Explorer 9 mobile – HTML5 support and hardware acceleration
■Multitasking support – switch quickly between apps
■Fast application resume – quickly resume recently used apps
■Podcast support – download podcasts via the Marketplace
■Turn-by-turn navigation in Bing Maps - voice guided directions and turn-by-turn
■SMS dictation – Microsoft tellme dictates messages
■East Asian Language keyboard support – additional language support
■Handwriting and dictionary support – support for writing Chinese characters
■Pin Outlook Folders – Pin folders as favorites inside Outlook
■SkyDrive integration – Access SkyDrive documents from Office Hub
■Kinect support for games - interact with Kinect and Xbox games from Windows Phone
■Outlook email server search – search Exchange servers from Outlook client
■ Complex (alpha-numeric) password support – strong number and character password support
■Information Rights Management – support for protecting e-mails and Office documents
■Ringtone support – third party ringtone support
■App list – automatically detect list, implemented jump list and search for apps
■Marketplace search improvements – apps, podcasts, music separated for easy search
■App install improvements – progress bar install UI
■Search extras – User search actions can be connected to third-party apps
■Motion Sensor – apps to use new gyroscope hardware
■Background audio – apps can run audio in the background
■File download service – third-party apps can download files from the web
■Alarms – alarm notifications for third-party apps
■Pin app features – Users can pin live tiles of deep app features in third-party apps
■Zune Smart DJ mix – allows users to discover new music and save/create playlists
■Camera sound toggle – users can now disable the camera shutter sound
■WiFi improvements – support for hidden SSID networks

 

[Abooie]

For those that are interested, the live stream of Microsofts Mango press briefing is up: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/windowsphone/liveevent.aspx

It starts at 3.

 

[Abooie]

I couldn't be doing with Facebook, SMS and Live messenger all in one stream. Unless the party you're talking to also has this, then it's bound to lead to confusion as you can see chats with them from 3 different networks while they won't.

That's why it's optional. You can view a conversation as either of these or combined as a 'thread'.

 

[Abooie]

If the Samsung was $150 cheaper than I'd buy it straight unlocked before coming home. Don't like WP7 enough to stick to a contract though.



To me it's all or nothing. Here's a new feature which could lead to confusion so you may just want to keep it off.

Which is why I'd keep it on. When I first saw a conversation view for texts years ago it was a revelation and there's no way I could go back to a chronological view.

With Mango they're expanding this to emails and seperately also across IMs / texting. I personally think it'll also be revelation. MS are sticking true to their guns that the person is the centre of the social experience not the service or app as it is with iOS and Android. Rather than open MSN or Skype or facebook or my Text app one at a time to see whether they're online I just click on them and it tells me how or if they're connected.

At the moment it's just texts, emails, phone numbers and facebook integrated and it's a pain to have to open my twitter app. Once you've got used to this way of doing it you'll understand why WP7 users can't wait for twitter, msn, skype etc. to be integrated.