Microsoft has officially announced the latest version of its Windows Phone 7, being the Windows Phone Mango. This version of WP has more than 500 new features and all eligible current WP 7 users will be able to upgrade their phones for free to Mango, when it is available during this fall.
With WP Mango, users get Internet Explorer 9 with hardware-accelerated graphics and support for HTML5.
Microsoft has not announced all the 500 new features, however are a few which were unveiled:
- Multitasking, which allows users to switch between applications and get back to recent apps by pressing and holding the back key.
- Improved and more personalized Live Tiles, through which users can access individual and group contacts from the home screen.
- Threads which let you switch between text, Facebook chat and Windows Live Messenger within the same conversation.
- Deeper social network integration with Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
- Better support for voice-to-text and text-to-voice, thereby enabling hands-free messaging.
- Multiple email accounts can be combined and linked to a single inbox.
- Local Scout, which helps in locating nearby restaurants, shopping and activities in an easy-to-use guide.
- App Connect, through which apps are connected to search results and deepening their integration with Windows Phone Hubs, including Music and Video and Pictures, Mango allows apps to be surfaced when and where they make sense.
- Improved Bing search through Bing Vision, Music Search and Voice.
