Mango update officially unveiled, coming to devices this fall!

Mango has been officially unveiled at a VIP event today held today. Tons of features were revealed, most of them have been covered here.

More from the Windows Phone Blog :

Hundreds of new features

Mango, which will be available this fall, includes hundreds of new features and improvements organized around three key themes: easier communications, smarter apps, and the Internet. Andy will cover these in greater detail, but here are the highlights:

Easier communications

The next version of Windows Phone keeps pace with the many different ways people connect and share—whether its calls, texts, emails, IMs, tweets, check-ins, or posting tagged photos or status updates. Some of the new features include:

• Threads. Switch between text, Facebook chat, and Windows Live Messenger within the same conversation.
• Groups. Group contacts into personalized Live Tiles to see the latest status updates and quickly send a text, email or IM to the whole group, right from the Start screen.

• Deeper social network integration. Twitter and Linked In feeds are now integrated into contact cards. There’s also built-in Facebook check-ins, and new face detection software that makes it easy to quickly tag photos and post to the web.
• Linked Inbox. See multiple email accounts in one linked inbox. Conversations are organized to make it easy to stay on top of the latest mail.
• Hands-free messaging. Built-in speech-to-text and text-to-speech support enables hands-free texting or chatting.

Smarter approach to apps

Windows Phone will challenge the way people think about apps. Mango brings improved app notifications and updates on the Start screen. Apps are also more integrated in search results and hubs. Highlights include:

• App Connect. See apps in search results and hubs such as Music + Videos and Pictures. App Connect works with Marketplace, so results include both apps already on your phone and new apps to download.
• Improved Live Tiles. Live Tiles are more dynamic and can hold more information—making it easier to get real-time info from apps without having to open them.
• Multitasking. Apps can now run in the background while preserving battery life and performance. You can also quickly switch between open apps.

Go beyond the browser

Mango packs a mobile version of Internet Explorer 9 and leverages built-in phone capabilities like location awareness and the camera to supply more relevant search results and local info and suggestions. Highlights:

• Internet Explorer 9. The power of a PC-browser plus support for HTML5 and hardware-accelerated graphics.
• Bing. Bing on Windows Phone offers more ways to search the web with voice and music search and Bing Vision, which uses your phone’s camera to look up product info.

• Local Scout. Provides hyper-local search results and recommends nearby restaurants, shopping and activities in an easy to use guide powered by Bing.
• Cards. Handy summaries of relevant info from Bing (including related apps) for products, movies, events or place you search for.

New languages, phones, and app stores

Finally, there will also be more phones to choose from. Many of you probably already know about our exciting alliance with Nokia. Today we’re also announcing new partnerships with Acer, Fujitsu Limited, and ZTE Corporation to deliver new Windows Phones handsets.

The official PR here . 

I hope you are just as excited as we are, for more on the Mango update - read here.

By Rahul Mathur