Two of the biggest complaints about Microsoft's mobile OS reboot—no multitasking for third-party apps, and no cutting and pasting—will be fixed before the year is out, with the initial cut-and-paste update slated to arrive next month.
Speaking at Microsoft's Mobile World Congress keynote in Barcelona on Monday, Steve Ballmer promised that the first of two patches for Windows Phone 7—the one that adds cut and paste functionality, as well as tweaks supporting handsets on CDMA networks, such as those run by Sprint and Verizon Wireless—will be coming in early March.
Meanwhile, a second, "major" patch is due in the second half of this year—no word on exactly when—and will add a slew of new features, including multitasking for third-party apps, cloud-based storage for Office documents, Twitter integration into Windows Phone 7's "People" hub (which, for now, only taps into Facebook), and a revamped mobile browser based on Internet Explorer 9.
Interestingly enough, Ballmer didn't unveil any new Windows Phone 7 handsets during Monday's keynote, although Microsoft did promise that handsets for Sprint and Verizon will be "available soon." How soon? Good question.
Current Windows Phone 7 handsets already support multitasking for native Windows Phone apps (like the Zune music player), but the upcoming patch will finally enable multitasking and fast-app switching for third-party applications. Pressing and holding the "back" button will call up a series of tiles showing recently used apps; just tap one to switch, All Things Digital's Ina Fried reports.
The Windows Phone 7 browser will also be getting a much-needed shot in the arm, with the new version to be based on Microsoft's still-in-beta IE 9 desktop browser. That means HTML5 support is at last on the way, along with hardware-accelerated graphics.
Not included in the second Windows Phone update, however: Flash support, with a Microsoft exec telling All Things Digital that the lack of Flash is due to "battery [life] and other reasons," rather than a sign that Microsoft is "allergic to Flash."
The larger of the two Windows Phone 7 updates will also let mobile Office users store and share documents in the cloud, via Microsoft's Windows Live SkyDrive service.
Microsoft also showed off how Windows Phone users might eventually be able to play along with Xbox 360 games—for example, imagine a game of Kinect dodgeball where a Windows Phone user controlled the ball's trajectory by tapping and swiping on the touchscreen. Interesting, but Microsoft execs stressed that the demo was only that—a demo, with no guarantees that the feature would actually ship.
The news comes just days after Nokia announced that it will phase out its Symbian OS in favor of Windows Phone 7, which will become its "primary" smartphone platform.
Related:
Press release [Microsoft]
Microsoft to Add Multitasking, Internet Explorer 9 to Windows Phone Later this Year [All Things Digital]
Windows Phone 7 and Kinect learn to play ball together [VentureBeat]
— Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News.
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