Microsoft Begins Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) Rollout 127
MojoKid writes "While the news of late has focused on Apple's upcoming iPhone 5 launch, Microsoft has some news of their own on the mobile OS front. Windows Phone 7.5 is the first major overhaul of the system since the smaller, incremental NoDo updates began to roll out a few months ago. Starting this week, WP7 users should begin to see the v7.5 update roll their way. Microsoft claims that this release has a 'people-first' attitude, with a focus on multitasking, more integrated apps, and better mobile Web browsing, along with personalized tools, like integrated social networking and conversation threads for connecting with the people."
Developer side-track: (Score:4, Interesting)
I just feel that it would open Windows 8 on ARM to many established Windows Phone 7 applications (giving it a base to tap into, much like what the iPad had going for it), but given the differences between WP7 and Windows 8, this is just a pipe dream for me. Oh well.
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Windows 8 is over a year away. Perhaps Windows Phone 8 will be out by then which will allow this kind of capability.
The way the MS marketing guys play with version numbers, it'll probably be Windows Phone XIV or something. The new version is marketed as 7.5 but reports itself as 7.1 internally.
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I believe marketing has been tasked with determining the best way to add "Live" and "Bing" to the Windows Phone brand.
Fast track (Score:2)
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I am sorry but it is totally vice versa.
Apple has single operating system what it use in every device.
Microsoft has two operating systems what it sells.
Now you are trying to click "reply" or mod as troll etc. But hear out facts.
The operating system is not the software system what you talk about. The operating system is lowest level of the software stack. The operating system operates hardware and allocates its resources to other software. The top layers of the software stack are application programs and us
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ATT is pushing already (Score:3, Informative)
I got the update today for my Samsung Focus, so far it looks like a solid upgrade.
Way to be a day late! (Score:5, Interesting)
I installed 7.5 yesterday and I haven't had a ton of time to play around with it, what I've seen so far, I like. The multitasking is smooth, and the full integration of social media is handy. I'm not sure when I'd use the Facebook chat feature, but it works. They made some changes to the Metro UI, the best part is related to searching and scrolling.
What really blows me away are the integrated search features. Rather than having to jump to a specialized application for a restaurant, I'm able to quickly find what I'm looking for, with reviews and other information, right from the search.
The reason I chose a windows phone in the first place was because of the clean interface that presents everything I need to know at a glance. 7.5 improves upon that while making significant changes under the hood. This won't convince anyone to buy a windows phone (not sure what will), but I've been very happy with my experience.
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http://www.wpcentral.com/force-mango-update-early-through-zune-software [wpcentral.com]
Make that one of two... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a Dell Venue Pro (unlocked), and I'm extremely happy with it. This is after two years of an iPhone, and 6 months of an Android phone.
Android felt like a basic copy of the iPhone in a lot of ways, and the battery life was so bad I couldn't keep using it. Windows Phone came out and I checked it out, seemed pretty good and different, and the battery goes on for two days with regular use. While I don't think I'll be convincing anybody here, I have to say that I've found this phone the best one so far, and with the cloud integration I find it extremely handy in a pinch.
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I also have a Dell Venue Pro, but it ends up being used primarily as a PDA at various meetings at work. To become my primary phone, it would need a decent GTalk client (with push notifications!), and Skype.
It's actually kinda annoying... it's touted as a phone with integrated IM - which is true, it does seamlessly integrate SMS / Live Messenger / Facebook Chat in a single view with threaded conversations across all three - but this seems to be hardcoded and not extensible with other services. And there's no
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Oh, and what's up with wireless hotspot being disabled for existing phones, even though the OS can do it?
Not every Windows Phone hardware contains a wireless chipset which supports acting as an access point, others may require a firmware update.
The other reason is, of course, that your friendly telecommunications carrier wishes to give you the opportunity to pay them more money to have it enabled.
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Every phone can do it - there's no such thing these days as a chipset that can't - but new drivers need to be made available in an OEM update and your carrier needs to prop a webservice allowing the phone to check up if you're provisioned for tethering (i.e. whether you have paid the appropriate tithes for using your laptop via your phone).
Most WP7 phones if dropped into engineering mode allow you to use them as USB modems though.
Re:Way to be a day late! (Score:4, Informative)
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LoB
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That would be because you can't possibly believe that anyone could like a Microsoft product over an Apple product. Seriously, people make personal choices and have individual opinions. Film at 11.
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LoB
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LoB
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I just don't want people to dismiss WP out-of-hand because it's Microsoft. They have foisted plenty of crap products on an unwitting public, but the WP7 is not one of them. It's a good product, that isn't for everyone, but it doesn't suck.
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So that's what you're up against around here and if you don't know, Microsoft has been caught red handed many times feeding bloggers and forums via paid employees and "associates". It's all these years of tricks and treats by MS you're dealing with so when you sound l
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LoB
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It's not really multitasking, though, not if you mean the task switch method. IF you mean the background tasks, those are periodic, in the glacial-event realm: a couple of times and hour to run very limited jobs as a separate process from your real app, which is sleeping like a baby, with zero CPU available to it until it comes back to the foreground. The only real difference there, between what you have there now and what you had before, is the memory is still yours. Before, everything you owned was rel
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Um, if your app needs it, it can actually go into the background and keep processing - TuneIn Radio is probably the best example of this. Start it, select a stream, it starts playing and you can go back to the home screen and start something else or whatever.
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That is not the app in the background, but a background agent. It is limited in what it can do (not the app, since it is sleeping, but the agent itself). Audio is a special-case background agent that continues to run. But it's not the app that's running. It is a background agent. This is not your father's multitasking. It's your grandfather's. It's like Win16's, the great taskswitcher.
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Ah, I see. I'll confess I've not had need to write any backgrounding stuff, so hadn't fully looked into it.
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You can install Google stuff on WP7 if you want (Google has made some available), but you can't bake them into the OS to replace Bing services - just like Android with Google services. Your "terrible feature" is bollocks.
All credit to Apple though, at least you can swap to Ya.... yeah, sorry. I couldn't say it. Just too hard to say without disintegrating into fits of laughter.
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Android offers much better "at glance" usability functionality and seamless search function as well.
How so? I'm not saying it's wrong but i'm not sure how you're quantifying this.
it does not work so well when you compare Bing and Google.
What doesn't work so well? I've tried bing services like local scout across an europe and australia, seems to very well.
And you can not install Google services to WP7.5 at all. What is terrible feature.
Huh? Of course you can, have you actually used a WP7 device?
About Android, every WP7 fan always leaves out the functionality of its multiple screens, widgets
WP7 and iOS aren't designed for widgets, hence the reason they are left out, just the same as Android isn't designed for live tiles.
global gestures and buttons
global gestures? you mean the ability to use the same gesture to do the same thing in different places? pretty sure WP7 a
Hardware (Score:1)
I will only be interested in Windows Phone once it is released on modern hardware. (dual core 1.2ghz+)
Current and planned Windows Phone devices have pathetic hardware.
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I have to agree that Android is very very slow. iOS is much more snappy in this regard. But if WP7 is really as optimized as you say it is, I might take a look someday. Not today though. My pain from my last Windows 6.5 is still way too fresh in my mind. I know they've redone it all, but I just can't get my mind to getting a Windows Phone. Not yet.
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I have to agree that Android is very very slow.
And as an owner of several Android handsets, a Xoom, an iPad, and an HD7, I have to disagree. There is nothing inherently slow about [youtube.com] Android. [youtube.com]
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The Xoom has a dual core processor. I have an iPhone 3GS which is a piece of crap compared to that and my UI feels as snappy as the Xoom's (I know, I have a few friends with a Xoom) Every piece of Android I've seen on comparable hardware as the 3GS is laggy and feels just horribly slow.
It might be me though.
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Thats not the reason Android feels laggy. It is due to the fact that the UI is not full hardware accelerated.
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914 [google.com]
An example of that can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZEdxqZt6uw [youtube.com]
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As for GUI acceleration, Gingerbread is much farther along in that respect and ICS will be better still. Again,
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That was true in Android 2.x. It is (supposedly) no longer true in Honeycomb.
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Well isn't Honeycomb restricted to tablets? Also the Xoom while nice on features, still lags a bit on stuff like pinch-to-zoom compared to the ipad2. Lets see what icecreamsandwich brings..
Google made a mistake in dropping GPU h/w requirements for android logo branding in phones. It has allowed too many cheap android phones on weak hardware. They should just lay down the hammer before it damages the brand.
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Current and planned Windows Phone devices have pathetic hardware.
And yet they are performs generally better (scrolling, zooming, animations, loading times) compared to those "modern" phones.
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Oh my, you certainly caught me!
fortune cookie say (Score:2)
Update from MS or provider? (Score:2)
Is the update coming direct from Microsoft (like all desktop Windows updates do), or from the cell provider (ATT/Verizon/etc)? It would be nice if it came from Microsoft, to avoid the (days/months/years) of delay for the provider to supply it.
Re:Update from MS or provider? (Score:4, Informative)
It comes from Microsoft, but the cell provider can delay it. So far, only a few specific models are delayed [microsoft.com] (at least in the US).
That leaves the timetable up to Microsoft for most users; however, Microsoft is deliberately delaying it for everybody. If you get it early, great, but you can't count on the update being available to you until a month after the "release date". [windowsteamblog.com] And even if you get an update notification on the phone it will still sometimes refuse to update. I've tried three different desktops—no joy.
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http://www.wpcentral.com/force-mango-update-early-through-zune-software [wpcentral.com]
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It comes from the providers
Michael O-P says:
It comes from Microsoft
sigh.
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Re:Update from MS or provider? (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft includes updates from the provider. But it is Microsoft that's delivering the update itself. It comes through zune and is downloaded from MS servers.
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Worked on my Samsung Focus
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Updating mine now, it's a matter of timing. You have to disconnect after the Zune software sees the update but before Authorization is checked. Zune will then tell you the update is available. Reconnect your internet and press update.
Switched to WP7 from iPhone 4, Still enjoying WP7 (Score:2)
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and since most think that one counter example is proof of something being incorrect, my Android phone has been making phone calls, getting and sending emails and even browsing the web for a long
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Heresy! Scott Adams is a treasured geek icon.
Sure, he could have taken Bill Watterson's ethical, cowardly route: quit after you're popular but before you become a sell-out. But no, he bravely followed Jim Davis' lead: phoning it in week after week, merchandising everything, and cashing big fat paychecks. If the man wants to say nice things about an expensive smartphone that some company gave him for free, let him ride that gravy train!
Mango? (Score:2)
Really? Mango? Is there some deeper meaning in that like "Apple is a fruit and they were successful so let's use a fruit name?" Or to someone does Mango sound fast and cool? Is there target market South America/Africa/SE Asia?
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96 comments... (Score:2)
...and the sweet sound of crickets as MS loses their hegemony to google.
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My question is, if this release is "people first", wtf was first in the other versions? "Smallest effort money grabs first"?
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I think by "people" they mean social networking.
Why does MS seem to think only social networking obsessives use their phones?
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Bullied on by the success of the KIN, they are fancying themselves the new kings of social networking.
Soon to come, Bingbook lets you and your friends star in your own lame commercials!
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The important thing is that Windows Phone 7.5 is out. All four users of Windows Phone 7 should be notified at once. Anyone knows their email address?
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I'm not sure of the first parts, but they end in @Microsoft.com
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This is the Edsel of mobile OSs, apparently
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*sigh*
What makes you think other releases weren't also "people first"? Or maybe "core functionality first"? Or "business applications first"?
I know, it's Microsoft, and this is Slashdot, thus you feel obligated to find something to bitch about. But really, you don't have to. Just this once, you can say "oh, good on MS, updating their product instead of abandoning it the way so many companies do".
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Hmm yeah, I suppose I should give credit where credit is due for 7. They stayed committed, and eventually 5 months after release, they figured out how to do cut and paste. Good job guys! Sorry that I wasn't more positive.
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Yes. In the same way that having a hand chopped off is better than losing your penis.
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Thankyou, first useful answer. It's good that they're now getting a clue, but they're a couple of years late for keeping my custom.
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You obviously haven't used used WP7 at all.
Well duh!
Nobody's bothering to use it, 'cos it's dull, colourless and boring.
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I have a win phone 7, and it (never in 8 months) has crashed less than my android phones did (once every month or two), and has had no issues requiring a reboot (other than running out of battery) vs the androids which required a reboot every two weeks to one month. Battery life is the same. Mind you it's an HTC, and the androids were Samsung. Still, that kind of "windows BSODs" Crap really went out with the 90s unless you buy crap hardware, in which case, no OS will save you.
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crashed less than my android phones did (once every month or two), .... . Still, that kind of "windows BSODs" Crap really went out with the 90s unless you buy crap hardware, in which case, no OS will save you.
So you first blame the crashes on the OS, and then say how it's hardware that causes crashes. You probably had a dodgy phone - my Android has crashed twice since I had it, and I think they were battery/hardware issues anyway. So think about your criticisms of something that you already admit are incorr
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Reading Comprehension: EPIC FAIL.
I stated my previous two phones, which were android, crashed more than my windows phone. I never said it was the OS, in fact, when I did finally assign blame, I placed it on Samsung.
It was a point to emphasize the importance of hardware/manufacturer quality and the fact that something ostensibly good (such as android) can have problems on crap hardware (or if the manufacturer has crap drivers).