Right on cue, Microsoft has released the SDK and dev tools Release Candidate for developers to start developing and submitting apps for Windows Phone 7.5 aka Mango. The first wave of Windows Phone devices running Mango update are expected to be released next month with HTC’s September 1 event expected to be solely about them. Samsung too, is hosting an event on the same day in Berlin, where we could probably witness its first Windows Phone 7.5 smartphone. Nokia, on the other hand, is expected to announc...

More signs that Microsoft is ready to release the first major update to its Windows Phone 7 platform. Microsoft will begin accepting apps enabled for Windows Phone 7 Mango update (Windows Phone 7.5) starting August 22, Matt Bencke, the GM for Windows Phone apps at Microsoft, announced via Twitter. In later Tweets he clarifies that this is the date when developers can start submitting apps but consumers will get the updated platform sometime later. We have high hopes from Windows Phone Mango and are keeping ou...

Bernstein Research analyst Pierre Ferragu didn’t say that Nokia should go back to making boots in his note to investors on Wednesday, but he came pretty close. Citing Nokia’s inability to adapt in a fast-changing market, Ferragu cut his rating on Nokia stock to under-perform and dropped his price target from $7.33 to $4. “In a fast changing market, Nokia is losing ground very rapidly,” the analyst writes. “The profit warning for the second quarter provided evidence that the next couple of y...

Paul Bryan, Microsoft’s senior director of business experiences product management for Windows Phone, has written a blog post that details Windows Phone Mango’s business productivity features. The update, which will be discussed in deeper detail during a press conference in New York City on May 24th, will include pinnable email folders for quick access from the homescreen, conversation view in email, server search, and a new Lync application for business chat users. Bryan also said there will be a...

Several new features set to be introduced in Microsoft’s upcoming “Mango” update for Windows Phone were revealed this past weekend. We already knew that Mango is set to be a major update to the Windows Phone platform — perhaps the most anticipated new feature is improved multitasking support — but Microsoft had been keeping several upcoming additions under wraps. Newly revealed features include Bing Audio, which will identify songs by listening to music, a la Shazam; Bing Vision, which w...

During Microsoft’s MIX conference in Las Vegas, Windows Phone director Joe Belfiore took the stage to demonstrate how well Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 9 mobile browser can render HTML5 websites. He fired up a device running Microsoft’s new Windows Phone “Mango” update with IE9 installed and hardware acceleration, and then started an HTML5 speed test pitting the Mango device against the iPhone 4 and the Google Nexus S. Belfiore was so confident in the new browser that he gav...

During its MIX11 conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft discussed the new minimum requirements that manufacturers will have to meet in order to run the Windows Phone operating system on a phone. The biggest change is that OEMs must now choose to include a Qualcomm MSM7x30 or MSM8x55 Snapdragon processor, as opposed to the original 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8x50 chip. The newer 8×55 chip supports CPU speeds up to 1.4GHz, and also has the more recent Adreno 205 graphics processor. The MSM7x30 supports CPU speeds betwee...

During a meeting with Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore, AllThingsD was able to confirm that Rovio’s smash hit Angry Birds game will be available for Windows Phone 7 devices beginning on May 25th. That will leave BlackBerry OS as the last modern operating system to lack support for the title. Belfiore didn’t comment on how much the game would cost, but we hope it’s in the free to $0.99 range. Rovio has launched a number of seasonal updates to Angry Birds and most recently published Angry Birds Rio. ...

AllThingsD had a chance to sit down with Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore to discuss the new Windows Phone 7 “Mango” update, which the Redmond-based firm is discussing during the MIX 11 conference in Las Vegas today. Belfiore confirmed that Mango will offer a new browsing experience using Internet Explorer 9, and noted that it will have integrated Twitter features. Similarly, Mango will allow users to run multiple programs at the same time – complete with background audio support. That means you could ...

This feels like a bit of a stretch to us, but Windows Phone Secrets believes it caught a glimpse of Microsoft’s upcoming “Mango” update for Windows Phone 7. During a YouTube user’s NoDo update walkthrough video, right around the 2:48 mark, the cameraman pans his shooter to a second Windows Phone 7 smartphone for just a few seconds. Oddly enough, that smartphone has a feature we’ve never seen before in current builds of Microsoft’s mobile operating system. Inside the main me...

HTC put on a big show during CTIA Wireless 2011, and it looks like it’s taking the show on the road. On Thursday HTC began sending out invites to European press urging them to come “see what’s next” on April 12th at 1:30p.m. GMT in London. We’re not sure what HTC has in store for the event, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it lift the curtain on a European model of the EVO 3D, which is launching on Sprint in the United States. Most every other new announcement during CTI...

Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed that its first major update for the Windows Phone 7 platform is now being rolled out to users. Internally referred to as “NoDo” — which is said to be short for “No Donuts,” mocking Google’s first Android update dubbed “Donut” — the update adds much sought after copy/paste functionality to Windows Phone 7 devices. It also adds support for “tombstoning,” improves Marketplace searches, fixes a variety of bugs and adds sup...