Windows Phone 7 has been receiving a lot of attention recently and the rumors about platform updates seem to keep surfacing. The most recent rumor pings “Mango” as a major update that is slated to land this fall and “Apollo” which is the codename for Windows Phone 8 which is expected to arrive in 2012.
The latest rumors come in conjunction with smaller updates that may be announced at CES in early January. According to Mary Jo Foley, the Mango update is expected to be much larger than the January/February update. It is explained that Mango will act more like WP7.5 which means that it will most likely bring new functionality to the table; Mango is expected to add Silverlight and HTML 5 support to WP7.
Neowin recently confirmed with a Microsoft insider that Verizon and Sprint will be launching WP7 at some point during January, which means most likely at CES. Also expected around this time is an update to the platform that will add copy and paste, and Winrumors is suggesting that there may be a second update to allow for greater developer control of applications.
With all the rumors of updates to the WP7 platform, one thing for sure is that Microsoft is working hard to keep its mobile OS as relevant as possible. At this time, it’s probably safe to bet that Microsoft will not let its OS go stale and relive its own past experiences.