Windows Phone Mango – Nokia’s future operating system

Windows Phone Mango - screenshot

Microsoft Windows Phone, LocalScout screenshots

Joe Belfiore is Microsoft’s corporate vice president and director of Windows Phone Program Management, and a couple of days ago he showed off the upcoming Mango release of the Windows Phone operating system.

With Mango, Twitter and Linked-In receive the same integration that Facebook received in the Windows Phone 7. It also groups together all of your conversations in these services, plus SMS and chat, much like HTC has been doing for some time with its People-centric communication app.



It is this version of Windows Phone that will run on phones stemming from Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft. The Mango version of Windows Phone is down for a Northern Hemisphere autumn release, while the new Nokia phones running it are thought to be coming to market in late-2011.

“We are very excited about our strategic partnership with Microsoft, and Mango is a great milestone for the first Nokia with Windows Phone devices,” said Jo Harlow, executive vice president for Smart Devices, Nokia. “We believe Mango offers developers opportunities to create new mobile experiences leveraging both companies complementary assets while providing consumers with a new choice in mobile.”

Belfiore appears in an 11-minute video demonstrating Mango, including:

  • A speed demo of the IE9 browser running against current smartphones
  • Local Scout – uses your GPS location to suggest places to eat and drink, things to see and do, where to shop, or your saved favourites from previous times you’ve been at a particular location. It looks a slicker version of Foursquare.
  • Bing Vision – see the cover of a book photographed with the phone’s camera, and then the book uploaded to phone’s Kindle app

See all of this, and more. To the video…

If you want a quicker video overview of what Microsoft are up to with with the next version of Windows Phone, here’s its 90-second commercial:

| Microsoft |