Windows Phone 7 in 2012: What should we expect?

News · 3 Apr 2011 · MTW Editorial Team

We all know by now that Mango is most probably going to be the only major Windows Phone 7 update coming out this year (and that’s if it isn’t delayed until early 2012) and the changes it brings have for the most part already been announced. But there are still a few surprises that Microsoft hasn’t talked about yet that should be unveiled in a week during the MIX11 opening Keynote. It’s highly probable that there’s going to some talk about the upcoming NFC support and also new APIs for developers but I’m personally not expecting anything major in terms of new features.

February 2012 will mark the second anniversary of Windows Phone 7 ‘s unveiling and if assume that we know most of the features that will come with Mango it is safe to say that Microsoft didn’t really impress anybody since the operating systems official launch in October 2010. Sure, Multi-Tasking and an HTML5 compliant browser are great additions but they are also just helping the platform to play catch-up with the competition that already supports these features. What Microsoft needs to do is to introduce things that are new and not seen anywhere else. One can argue that the Metro UI is already a big differentiator but that’s already something of the past. The UI/UX wow factor is now gone. Microsoft has also yet to fix many of the shortcomings of the current implementation of its services in the platform shipping today.  I’ve already discussed most of them in my Windows Phone 7 review but it should be noted again and again that Bing Maps is light years behind Google Maps and Google Navigation and that even Bing Search on WP7 is way behind its iPhone version in terms of features. The quick integration of Nokia’s Ovi Maps into Bing Maps is going to be one of the most important tasks that Microsoft will have to accomplish if it hopes to compete with Android. Redmond has no time to waste in this department especially when you consider the fact that WP7 users outside of the US have an even worst mapping and search experience.

Another thing that Microsoft will have to talk about in the coming months if future hardware and SoC support. As I said a couple of weeks ago; Windows Phone 7 doesn’t desperately needs more powerful hardware but on the other hand OEMs have to sell devices not only based on their software capabilities but also on their hardware. It is going to be a tough job in the coming months for HTC to market its upcoming Windows Phone 7 handsets (the HTC Prime and HTC Ignite), which are supposedly powered by the relatively low-end MSM7230, next to the HTC Pyramid and EVO 3D powered by the MSM8X60 or even all the other “mid-range” MSM8255 powered devices like the Incredible S and Desire S. Microsoft will have to come up with new chassis that cover a vast array of price points but also improve on what’s currently available, which means more powerful SoCs (besides the improved Adreno 205 GPU the MSM7230 is for the most part identical to the currently used QSD8250). This is arguably going to be the trickiest part of the platform’s evolution; Nokia want’s to ship tons of cheaper Windows Phone devices while the other OEMs would want to improve on the end-user experience by packing more power-full hardware and all this would have to be done without causing too much fragmentation.

There’s also the question of the future Kernel powering Windows Phone 8. Some people are starting to suggest that Microsoft will use the upcoming Windows 8 ARM Kernel as the basis of WP8 but this would be another major task that Microsoft will have to handle in a relatively short time. It would also seem rather illogical to use a totally new and untested Kernel in such a short notice especially after starting Windows Phone from scratch just 2 years ago. We will have to listen closely to what Microsoft is going to say at MIX11 because there will probably be several hints that will either confirm or infirm the move to the Win 8 kernel.

I personally think that it’s safe to say that Windows Phone 7’s future is still for the most part a mystery that will hopefully be unveiled in the coming weeks or months. Microsoft is not in the best position right now and Nokia’s partnership will only be successful if the integration of Nokia’s IP is done as fast as possible and if the Finnish mobile juggernaut also starts shipping Windows Phones in volume in the first half of 2012.

So what do you do you hope to see in Windows Phone 7.5 / 8 ?