Much awaited Mango update has been announced by Microsoft today at their annual Mix event. The update is so overwhelming, it's hard to comprehend if this should be Windows 7.5 or Windows 8. Microsoft has definitely worked really hard on this to provide both users and developers optimal experience. For users, there are so many things to look forward to, we have listed some of them below :
- Jump lists to easily access applications
- Global search : Search either local applications or go to the marketplace search
- Built in support for podcasts in Marketplace search ( pivot filtering )
- Improved hubs ( inclusion of a Games Hub in the marketplace )
- Smoother scrolling i.e it's blazing fast now
- Live agents
- Application multitasking for background processing, audio and file transfer, and fast app switching
- Support for 16 more languages
- Developers in 38 (up from 30) countries can register to publish applications
- Phone users in 35 (up from 16) countries will be able to purchase apps
Now for the developers, there are jawdropping 1500 APIs ! Let's take a look at some other cool new features via Colinizer :
Browser
- Browser uses same IE9 code-base for HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3
- Address bar at the bottom
- Background audio for HTML5 in browser (use phone controls too)
- H.264 video in video tag in full screen with controls
- Phone integration
- Sockets ( IRC clients ! )
- SQL CE Database with ORM and Linq to SQL
- More launchers & choosers (inc. deep link to directions)
- Better access to contacts and calendar ( WhatsApp, finally ? )
- Pin to start of application deep links
- Raw camera access ( Layar and other AR apps )
- Access to compass
- Access to gyro (new optional hardware coming this year)
- Motion Sensor API (for ease of using compass and gyro)
- Ringtone API
- Multi-tasking
- Fast app switching – apps are suspending, and only terminated if necessary
- Background audio from apps (leveraging the standard phone media controls)
- Background downloads
- Setup alarms
- Live tile updating including animations
- “Live agents” occasionally run by a battery friendly scheduler (with user control of which ones can run this way) – gets events and can get location
Dev Experience:
- New emulator features for Accelerometer (with 3D model of position) and location (with Bing maps input)
- Performance improvement (for list)
- Scrolling and input
- Image decode
- Garbage collector (no pausing)
- Memory usage
- Built on Silverlight 4 including RichTextBox
- Local Database using SQL CE with ORM and LINQ to SQL
- Can compose UI with Silverlight and XNA
- Profiler (still free)
Textual information overload ? Check out the video embedded below where Joe Belifore takes you through the new features in the Mango update :
Microsoft has truly stepped up it's game and with the Mango update, it can truly compete with Android and iOS. Update is supposed to release this fall, but I am hoping for an October release. Don't forget to drop in your views.
