Mobile World Congress is well on its way in Barcelona where Microsoft announced the features of Windows Phone 7"s update and their vision for it in 2011. A press release from Microsoft has confirmed exactly what the update will bring.
In a statement, the company reassured that their mobile platform will get "a new wave of multitasking applications," this year as well as copy and paste which they cited was coming in the "first major release" of the OS. But that"s not all, Microsoft also confirmed that Windows Phone 7 will be getting Internet Explorer 9 in the second half of 2011, something the company is calling a "dramatically enhanced browser experience." Neowin reported that Internet Explorer 9 for mobile on Windows Phone is expected to become available this holiday season with the "Mango" update.
Alongside IE 9 and multitasking, Windows Phone 7 will finally get Twitter integration into the People Hub which currently only utilizes Facebook and Live as its social network databases. In addition, support for Office documents in the cloud is coming this year which would presumably use SkyDrive from a user"s Live ID.
The company went on to praise itself, saying WP7 is seeing a 93% satisfaction rate and nine out of ten people would recommend it to a friend. On the Nokia partnership, Microsoft said it will "fuel [their] growth as [they] build the global Windows Phone ecosystem" and stated that a "significant" volume of Nokia Windows Phone handsets will be targeted in 2012.
There"s no telling which features will come in which update, either the earlier "NoDo" or the late 2011 "Mango," nor is there a way to tell how many updates the company will release this year. The first update is expected in early March, specifically the 8th.
Update: Something we forgot to mention is that Microsoft also showed off Kinect for the Windows Phone 7 platform. Below is a technology preview that Microsoft displayed during their keynote.