Tag Archives: chevron wp7 labs

mango

Mango NDA Updated,As Developers Speak Freely

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It was just a couple of days ago that Microsoft started pushing Mango Beta along with the Windows Phone Developer Tools to as many as developers of 23 countries worldwide.Though earlier the release was under NDA(Non Disclosure Agreement) So that the features and other things should be kept under the wraps and shouldn’t go public.

But now just hours after the release of the Mango Beta and Dev Tools,Microsoft updated the NDA and now it allows the developers to share with the users and the windows phone enthusiasts screenshots and features of this Pre Release.

So as the NDA gets updated,the developers around the world who already have Mango up and running on their devices starts sharing their thought and reveal the features of Mango.

To Start of with this Revelation and Expression of Features none other than the man himself Long Zheng From the famous Chevron WP7 team.

Here’s the Summary of Long Zheng’s First Impression on this Mango Release

Hits of Mango (Beta Release)

  1. Speech recognition:improved  to support calling, texting, Bing search
  2. Improvements in Bing Maps showing local search listing with basic information.
  3. Several New Features Discovered:
  • Bing Local Scout
  • Bing Maps directions (with tap-by-tap voice guidance including street names)
  • Bing Local search
  • Bing Vision works only for  text, QR codes and Microsoft Tag.
  • Speech-to-text and text-to-speech text messaging

Misses of Mango(Beta Release)

  1. As listed above the Bing Vision doesn’t work withbooks, CDs or DVDs.
  2. Bing Maps Local Listing Doesn’t show Reviews.
  3. While Bing Music Search and Bing Quick Cards Missing from the update.

We can expect the Final Release which is expected to be released in September  will address some of the missing features in the list above,apart from those few misses this Mango release looks quite power packed with a lots of improvements in features.

Watch this space for more bits on Mango and its Features.

[P.S:-  Long Zhengs WP7 device was  set to system region as English (United Kingdom) and search region set to English (Australia)]

 

mango

Windows Phone Mango Beta and Developer Tools Pushed for Developers

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It was only a matter of time for this news to hit the web,the rumors already were floating from past few weeks about the Mango Beta build to be pushed for the developers soon and yesterday  Microsoft officially pushed the Windows Phone Mango Beta along with the Windows Phone developer tools 7.1

Though currently the beta release is restricted to following countries,Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States. So these are the countries are supported officially,so if your phone gets into any unstable state due to the update you made on it you will get official support from company.

So developers who have registered for the Official Account over the App Hub can straight away download the Mango beta and the WP Dev tool 7.1 as long as they are from those supported above mentioned countries.

Great Chance for the Student Developers with Dream Spark Account,Microsoft have got 50  Mango Phones for the students who are already working on great apps for Windows Phone.For an opportunity to grab that device here’s what you need to do:

  1. Make sure you’re registered for DreamSpark
  2. Download and install Expression Studio Ultimate and the new Mango Windows Phone Developer Tools (available free as a member of DreamSpark)
  3. Get the free Sketchflow Template for Windows Phone and create a Sketchflow mock-up of your app
  4. Post the Sketchflow mock-up somewhere online and tweet out the link using the hash tag #WPAppItUp
  5. We will review all prototypes and will contact the developers who submit the best ones and send them a special Mango developer device

For Mango Download Registered Developers will get invite to Microsoft Connect from where they can download Mango.

Download Now[Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta2]

Pure Touch Windows Phones In the Making from Samsung ,HTC,LG?

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We saw the revelation of Nokia’s Maemo 6 based (MeeGo 1.6 API support) N9 device which was announced a few days ago,taking the crown of the Worlds First Pure Touch Phone with no hardware buttons in the front side of the phone,While many welcomed this change ,there were also others who disliked this idea of not having any hardware buttons on the front  panel.

We have already seen the Nokia Sea Ray which is similar to the Nokia N9 but with Windows Phone Mango Operating System,the first Windows Phone from Nokia.That device too is believed to be buttonless in front side (unless the one showcased is an early prototype) and now Eldar Murtzain a well known entity in the mobile review world for testing and reviewing of upcoming phones Tweeted about other manufacturers like HTC ,Samsung and LG who currently have their first generation of Windows Phones in the market can very well follow this pattern and introduce their own versions of Pure Touch Windows Phones.

All the current Windows Phone 7 devices sport 3 hardware buttons in the front,one back , one start  and one Search button.Will this change in design have any good or bad impact on the device sells? Only Time Will Tell.

Update:If we have a look at the new Mango Chassis which was released it included the requirements as the 3 buttons in the front.MTW has made an interesting deduction on this whole 3 hardware  buttons issue.