Microsoft has allowed app developers to upgrade their retail Windows Phones to the new Mango version of the operating system, ahead of a wider release to the public.
The Mango upgrade was announced on Tuesday on the MSDN App Hub page, where registered developers in 23 countries, including the UK, were told they could have the beta version of Mango.
Those wishing to develop apps for the Mango build 7661 will first have to update their software development kit (SDK) to Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2.
Mango allows contacts to be grouped, making targeted group messaging possible, and also groups email threads. Other new features include a visual search tool called Bing Vision, an enhanced voice-to-text app and the ability to easily switch between multitasking apps.
Crucially for developers, Mango brings up app suggestions when the user searches for something in Bing, but only if the developer has enabled the App Connect feature.
The upgrade to the Windows Phone platform will be installed on new handsets from this autumn, but there is no word yet on when the upgrade will be made available to existing customers.
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I do wonder sometimes if the same person that renamed Mars Marathon to 'Snickers' (I still have trouble with this) now has a job with Microsoft and came up with the concept of 'Bing'
I've never 'Binged' anything, its just not a word that translates well for the British from American English (I'm assuming Americans do like to Bing things). My brother (stateside former MS Employee) uses the term 'ping me' or 'ping me sometime' - I cringe when he says it to me, as well as thinking a preverbal phrase. (I do actually get on with him)
I'm nauseated watching any movie (Source Code as an Example), where they pull out a phone and up pops the Bing Search Engine (who in the height of mayhem reverts to Microsoft Bing to solve their crucial time-stricken problems). If it was me in that moment of panic I'd be cursing, and wondering how the hell I get this to revert to Google. You don't promote a product by pretending in real life/parallel universe that everyone uses Bing - they don't.
There are methods for getting under the skin of the Brits and getting them to back a product enthusiastically but Microsoft is well wide of the mark with Windows 7 System 'Tiles' - its not a bathroom! (aka Zune) and its search engine Bing.
The 'Borg'ing (the sci-fi term that works well with the Brits. again not sure why) a fine phone maker Nokia, is like Tesco taking over the lovable old shoe shop in your street to turn it into a Tesco Express, maybe we see Tesco as like the Borg.
Brits loved Marvin in Hitch Hikers Guide to Galaxy, so maybe that's why Android (in marketing terms) seems to have been taken up affectionately by us Brits, with little resistance, forgiving its clunky system settings/menus, because fundamentally it was good.
Windows 7 Phone System 'Tiles' (aka Zune) isn't bad and Bing has surprised me more recently with better, more accurate search results, but will it become the dominate player for both? With those names, not in the UK, thats for sure.
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Marathon was renamed because it was known as Snickers outside the UK, and it was cheaper to re-brand Marathon.
'Ping' is a common term in I.T. even in the U.K.
Bing may or may not be a crap name, but it's no more silly than Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, DuckDuckGo etc!
"Microsoft is well wide of the mark with Windows 7 System 'Tiles' - its not a bathroom!" But neither is Windows 7 a collection of, er, windows. And a computer mouse is not ... a mouse.
Maybe we accept all these terms because it's American companies who are making most of this stuff!