Epeg

It’s widely known that Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 has had a tough time gaining a significant slice of the mobile device market since its introduction late last year. Regardless of decent reviews and respectable performance, it’s been fighting a hard battle when it comes to gaining approval with a wider audience. The most recent update to the current WP7 iteration, nicknamed “Mango”, may go some way in alleviating that problem.

Major New Features
The new upgrades, which collectively comprise Windows Phone 7.5, make several interactive changes that users will see immediately. The biggest difference is that 7.5 allows for multi-tasking, a feature which was conspicuously missing in the debut version. In addition, Mango now has 3rd party app support for live tiles, as well as a host of minor and major effectiveness tweaks for bigger performance and productiveness.

Emphasis On Networking and Social Media
Like or not, Facebook and Twitter outline plenty of people’s lives on the internet. As such, no mobile OS can afford to brush off these platforms if they’d like to attract consumers. Mango does a superb job of integrating interactivity with both services into the grand scheme of things. As an example, the “Me” Hub gives users the ability to check their Facebook Wall, post messages, and get live standing updates delivered right to the primary screen in real time. Mango also enables you to group your Facebook and Twitter contacts in your live tiles as you see fit, rather akin to how Google+ operates.

Improved Messaging and Search
While the engineers at Microsoft have gone out of their way to make WP 7.5 as social media-friendly as practicable they haven’t forgotten about the basics. Email on Mango has been drastically improved, allowing users to group all of their accounts under one live tile. That’s terrific in and of itself, but Bing Vision is what you ought to be really anticipating from Mango. In addition to providing first class web search functionality, Bing Vision has a QR code and barcode reader built in by default. It can also scan, digitize, and translate any text you need to capture with the press of a button.

Last Thoughts
Mango looks a lot like the first stock version of WP7 which came before it. The Metro UI is largely the same, in most respects. But look a bit closer, and you’ll find that a lot has changed in the past few months. Microsoft appears to be quickly understanding what’s needed to make it in the mobile sphere. Though they are a bit late to the party, WP7 actually has a serious shot at turning into a challenger to either iOS or Android in the subsequent year or 2 if they maintain this speed of improvement and innovation.