October 1, 2011

For the first time, Windows Phone can compete with Android and become a true smartphone (previously it was merely a lame feature phone) with Windows Phone Mango.

Previously I have reviewed pre-mango Windows Phone 7 and now I am reviewing Mango itself! Mango is Windows Phone 7.5 where OS version is 7.10 to make things even more confusing (when developing apps for Mango developers must choose “7.10″ and pre-Mango 7.0):

The Mango update came to users via Zune software running on PC – such clone of iTunes – and users who didn’t get it (because it was rolled out in waves) could enforce installation via trick (disconnecting Internet when Zune software was checking whether new update is there).

Windows Phone Mango brings not only many new APIs (Application Programming Interface) including camera API for direct access to camera (here: bar-code scanning that is built-in into Bing that is built-in into Windows Phone, but augmented reality apps are also now possible!).

This includes access to contacts via API which made possible such apps like WhatsApp for Windows Phone that is now available.

This includes many other uses like TCP protocol access and not just use of HTTP.

However most users will not understand that new APIs means many new apps, and for them the most important new feature of Windows Phone mango is multi-tasking whereby you can see mini-screenshots (frozen) of apps so you can e.g. compare text and info side by side.

This multi-tasking is of “freeze and resume state” type i.e. like in iPhone not like in Android, but in fact some activities (like in iPhone) are possible in background, e.g. audio streaming (this pop-up at the top comes when you press one of two volume buttons).

Finally one can also save settings in standard camera app.

Thanks to the camera API there are camera APIs with anti-shake and with silent photographing.

Also Xbox Live support has been improved in Mango.

It works smoothly and gamers can compare achievements to what others played recently etc. It’s a native app of Microsoft and built-in into Windows Phone – much unlike many unofficial and limited apps for Xbox Live for Android and iPhone. Also Xbox avatar customization and other Xbox-y stuff is possible. Not to mention that while playing Windows Phone games one can score points just like playing Xbox, but it’s the same as in pre-Mango Windows Phone so let’s not dwell on it like baboon who stole handbag, didn’t find any food in it but was still put to sleep.

While Internet Explorer – the built-in browser for Windows Phone – has been improved and is now using the same engine as Internet Explorer 9 for PC, it’s still lame and only HTML5 compatible to a small degree (and doesn’t support in-browser either Adobe Flash nor, stupidly, Silverlight embedded in web pages).

What is 141 points compared to 296 points in Safari browser in iOS 5.

It is worth mentioning that while publishing Windows Phone games as “Xbox Live” titles is still not available for indie developers (but only to big companies and developers invited by Microsoft), in fact now 3rd party apps can also display information via “live tiles.” But I don’t give a monkey, not even a baboon about tiles – although I occasionally glance at an HTC tile to see the weather.

Conclusions and commentary

It’s idiotic that there is still no on-device screenshot taking so users can’t spread Windows Phone via viral marketing due to this flaw. But Windows Phone Mango is indeed very very good. It has an extremely fluid user experience and with multi-tasking and camera API, literally thousands of new apps are appearing each month. The fact of the matter is that Nokia, still the biggest cellphone manufacturer in the world, has picked Windows Phone as its main platform for smartphones. Nokia will be spending literally billion dollars on marketing (billion = 1,000,000,000), so we can expect true explosion of Windows Phone cellphones and apps for them. It is annoying that Microsoft’s own Skype (yes, Microsoft bought this company from pocket money) and Photosynth are still not available for Windows Phone but, in fact, many other big names have their apps (including Kindle, albeit without search and including Flickr and many others) already on sale for Windows Phone. Nonetheless, many Windows Phone apps are not as good and not as ripe as similar or the same apps for iOS and Android.

Finally, while Windows Phone 7.5 mango still can’t compete with iPhone (and iOS 5) it is clearly a good alternative for Android, and in fact for the first time in history Microsoft has a solid mobile operating system!

It remains to be seen whether sales of Windows Phone cellphones will explode, now when Mango is out and when Nokia is joining the attack on the side of Microsoft, because ultimately it will be the end users who decide, not carriers/operators.

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