The future of Windows Phone to be Mango, Tango and then Apollo

Microsoft was leading some tests of white spectrum data transmission in the UK the other day, and a picture was taken of Dr Victor Bahl, who is the Director of Mobile Computing Research in Microsoft Research, while the white board behind him still wasn't wiped after a presentation.

The handwriting, while pretty illegible, confirmed the codename of an upcoming Windows Phone update, Apollo, which is speculated to be Windows Phone 8, coming next year. We hear about another one now, when it was reported that Compal, which will produce the first batch of Nokia Windows Phones, got a deal with Microsoft for licensing an update after Mango, called... er, Tango, apparently scheduled before Apollo.

These white board scribbles confirm some Apollo features. Mango will apparently include TIPC/S support, which is a network protocol, checkmarking one more feature in the 500+ new ones Steve Ballmer promised for Mango. Cool stuff comes with Apollo too - localization, something called Inspiration Engine, and also one handed input with next gen soft keyboard. Voice Typing was another feature written on the board, and Context Engine is obviously considered for "beyond Apollo", whatever that gets named.

Microsoft is obviously trying to inundate its Windows Phone mobile operating system with features to differentiate it from the competition, so it is not just resting on its laurels of hammering out a cool and sleek innovative interface with WP7. Those Nokia Windows Phones can't come soon enough to leverage the new mobile OS platform beyond the critical mass of 10 million devices sold, which seems to be the threshold for developing houses to pay serious attention towards a platform.

source: MobileCrunch & DigiTimes