News · 26 Dec 2011 · MTW Editorial Team
Time for me to share with you my 2012 Windows Phone predictions and wishes now that you are all probably enjoying your new Mango handsets (or 1st Gen phones running Mango..). Keep in mind that what I’m going to post bellow is nothing more than speculations on my part so don’t quote me on that (well unless it turns out to be true later down the road…). So let’s start with what I wish Microsoft fixes, adds in the coming months in Tango:
– Universal search (this one is most probably coming..)
– Fix the frame dropping video playback issue that I seem to be the only person on earth who has noticed it (was present on my HTC Titan sample and both my Lumia 800 which makes me believe that’s it’s a OS issue with the MSM8255)
– Release Skype and Photosynth for Windows Phone: The silence surrounding both apps is intriguing. I wouldn’t be surprised if both where directly integrated into the OS instead of released as third-party apps (wishful thinking..I know).
– Ability to delete more than one picture or video at a time in the pictures hub
– Basic photo editing (crop, rotate, re-size)
– Basic video editing functionality (this one will have to wait for Windows Phone 8 I guess)
– SMS / MMS Backup (looks like this one is in the works: “Come join the Windows Phone Backup, Migrate, and Restore team. Our goal is to ensure that no matter if someone loses their phone, drops their phone in a lake, buys a new windows phone, or just has their toddler wipe their phone by entering the wrong PIN over and over, a user can quickly and seamlessly get their phone back to a good state. The features we are producing will be new for the next version of Windows Phone and will help ensure Microsoft stays ahead of the competition when it comes to disaster recovery.” )
– MMS videos!
– Ability to assign different ring tones to groups or individual contacts Totally forgot that this was already made available in Mango. sorry for that.
Now let’s talk about Windows Phone 8. It will be announced in 2012 but I’m not really confident that MWC is going to be the venue used by Microsoft to unveil it. As you have probably already heard Microsoft is no longer going to keynote at CES after 2012 and will instead have it’s own events to unveiled announce new products similar to what Apple has been doing lately after it dropped from the MacWorld Expo. This is why I’m thinking that Microsoft may only announce Tango during MWC this February and simple tease WP8 for a further announcement closer to the middle of the year. Here’s what I’m hoping for Windows Phone 8 aka Apollo:
– Based on the same (or modified) Kernel as Windows 8
– At least compatible with most of the 2nd generation devices (MSM8255 SoC)
– Support for a new higher resolution (1280×720) while maintaining WVGA (800×480) as the based resolution for the low-end products
– Mutli-core CPU support: This is obviously coming..
– NFC support
– FM transmitter support
– File transfer support via Bluetooth (this is already possible in WP7 as seen with the Nokia Contacts app but MS should open it to 3rd party devs)
– HLSL support for game developers
– WinRT APIs support and compatibility
– Native code access for 3rd party developers only for specific cases
– More stuff that I can’t really think off right now
– New updated Tellme speech recognition service
I’ll let you add what I’ve missed in the comments section below and I will add more features to the wishlist later on.
Buyer action
Where to buy or check next
Use this as the final check before ordering a phone, changing network or trusting a headline monthly price.
