The guys at Windows Phone Dev Podcast have done it again, and appropriately they have titled it “More Mango Madness”. The almost insane fascination of early adopters of WP7, with what is seen to be the most significant update to the OS, we will see, hopefully this year, that fascination hasn’t been dulled. SO what are we talking about here, First, Facebook IM and Windows Live Messenger integration. Something that’s been previously rumoured, as well as native Twitter integration. The ability to create Groups from our contacts so that we can send multiple SMS to a user defined contact list at one time. This should also be available for email as well. What looks to be a massive leap, improvement, in making Windows Phone much more compatible with enterprise needs, Office 365 and improved SkyDrive support. Seems the games hub has also been redesigned, and games sports some new settings, Auto Sync in fact. While many think this may be just for Xbox stats, I wonder if this bridges the gap, and will also sync game progress for Xbox titles on the phone.
There’s also some features, that will bring the lock screen to life, showing album art, when using the phone for a PMP.
There’s a hellish amount of new features detailed, other than the few I’ve touched on here, you need to listen to the podcast, and view all of the screenshots at the WPDEVPodcast site, and draw your own conclusions. The much anticipated Mango update, will be large, take that for granted, it also seems it will be large on feature improvements. With Microsoft expected to release the SDK on May 24th at an event, hopefully that is enough time for developers to include/update their apps to take advantage of the new features. Even more important here, releasing titbits that will keep the army of early adopters, enthused, and on the edge of their seats, waiting for the sort of functionality that will really firm up Windows phone as a competitor in the mobile market.
