Microsoft’s Windows Phone event has kicked off today with the promise of revealing what new features will be brought to their devices through its Mango update. However, the good folks over at Pocket Now have gotten their hands on what those features are ahead of the event. And while the update contains over 500 new features, Pocket Now does a bang up job at giving us a list of the best of the update:
A. Communications, with information organized around a person or a group
– the ability to toggle between Facebook Chat, Windows Live Messenger Chat and Messages, all in one conversation
– Contact groups can be turned into personalized Live Tiles for a quick glance of recent status updates as well as a fast way of interacting right from the Start screen
– Twitter integration as well as LinkedIn integration with Contacts
– Facebook check-ins with better face detection and easy tagging
– Linked inbox for combining several accounts with grouped messages and conversation view
– Hands-free messaging with speech-to-text and text-to-speech
B. Applications
– Multitasking with some applications having the ability to run in the background. The user can easily toggle between them
– Improved Dynamic Live Tiles allow for easy information retrieval and update without the need for the corresponding app to be open
– Applications will be featured on Search results and Hubs and will be displayed when necessary
C. Internet
– Internet Explorer 9 brings PC browser power to your smartphone with HTML 5 and hardware acceleration
– Local Scout gives you local recommendations for restaurants, shops, activities in your vicinity while displaying them in an easy to read manner
– Improved Bing featuring Bing Vision, Music Search and Voice for easily recognizing images, tags, songs and your speech
– Quick Cards will bring you a relevant summary and applications while searching for a product, movie, event or place.
D. The Ecosystem
The platform and ecosystem will be further improved by welcoming three new hardware partners: Acer, Fujitsu Ltd and ZTE. These OEMs committed to delivering Windows Phones on a global scale by the end of this year.
E. Windows Phone Beta Tools
The new Mango Tools for developers will go live on Microsoft’s page in the upcoming 24 hours for developers to download and use to create a new generation of Mango apps and games that will take advantage of the new features introduced.
With these updated features and Microsoft’s new partnerships, including the main one with Nokia, the worlds largest handset manufacturer by far, Windows Phone seems poised to begin its ascent from the bottom of the Ecosystem to actually living up to its promise of making this a “three horse race” in the mobile computing world.