News has been floating around that Microsoft would release their Mango beta soon for the last week now, with Neowin late last week detailing the update process and pinning the date for this week, we"ve now had our first real public confirmation that something is on the way from Microsoft.
Bill Cox, Senior Director of Communications at Microsoft for the Windows Phone Division tweeted today;
If that"s not a blatant hint at Microsoft"s plans to release Mango to developers tomorrow, we don"t know what else is. If this is about Mango, it lines up with everything we"ve been hearing over the last few days, and we"re hearing that we could see the announcement (or at least Mango appearing on create.msdn.com) within the next 6-12 hours. The build number attached the the release should be 7661.WP7_5_Trial. Our sources are agreeing that Thursday is the day for the beta to hit the App Hub.
There"s a chance this tweet could be about something else, but at this stage we"re puzzled as to what other "juicy" surprises there could be, with sources consistently confirming that Mango is due to be released to developers by the end of the week.
If you don"t have a developer account already, it might be slightly too late, but make sure to create one so you can get a taste before everyone else. Are you excited for your first real taste at Mango? Let us know in the comments, and keep an eye peeled over at create.msdn.com.
Mango is expected to be released in September this year, and brings 500 new features to the Windows Phone 7 platform, including Multitasking, IE9, OS-wide IM integration, deeper social networking and more.