Microsoft today announced the next Windows Phone update 7.1 named “Mango.” This will be the fourth update after the SSL update (May 2011). As announced by Microsoft this update will be available in autumn and it will be free of cost to all current Windows Phone Handsets. Along with the Microsoft announcement Nokia also confirms that Mango is a great milestone for the first Nokia Windows Phone Devices .

Some of the significant features that “Mango” udpate has:

Multitasking – By pressing and holding the back button, the user will be able to access the Multitasking feature of “Mango” which will enable the user to switch quickly between the applications.

Twitter Integration in the People Hub – Just like Facebook, Twitter integration will allow the user to post update from People Hub.

Improved Live Tiles – They will be more dynamic and will contain more information.

Integrated Messaging – the new update will automatically detect if the person you want to message is online and will allow you to select the best method of communication. If the recipient is signed into Windows Live, Mango will provide the option to send an instant message otherwise it will send a text message.

SkyDrive available in Office Hub – It will have ability to save and share Office documents through Office 365 and Windows Live SkyDrive enabling the user to access the latest documents anywhere.

Smarter Internet

Microsoft says that the IE9 experience on the Phone mirrors the experience on the desktop. It has added hardware-accelerated graphics.

Beta Development Tools should be announced anytime today at http://create.msdn.com .

Sources:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/windowsphone/

 http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2011/may11/05-24WindowsPhone.mspx

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archive/2011/05/16/productivity-takes-a-big-step-forward-in-mango.aspx

Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit Feb 2011 is now available. Components included in this update are:

• AutoCompleteBox
• ContextMenu
• DatePicker
• GestureService/GestureListner
• ListPicker
• LongListSelector
• Page Transitions
• PerformanceProgressBar
• TiltEffect
• TimePicker
• ToggleSwitch
• WrapPanel

This update also includes the samples project for Visual Basic phone developers.

You can download this update from http://silverlight.codeplex.com/releases/view/60291 .

New Windows Phone Developer Tools - January 2011 Update is now available. This update includes the most awaited API access to copy and paste for developers, they can now test their applications with copy paste functionality in the Emulator update.

This update includes:

• Windows Phone Emulator Update.
• Windows Phone Developer Resources Update.
• Windows Phone Capability Detection Tool.
• Windows Phone Connect Tool.
• Updated Bing Maps Silverlight Control.

Prerequisites to install this update includes:

• Supported OS : Windows 7 or Windows Vista.
• Windows Vista (x86 and X64) with Service Pack 2 all editions except Starter Edition.
• Windows 7 (x86 and x64) all editions except Starter Edition.
• Most Importantly You must have windows Phone Developer Tools RTM version Installed.

You can download January 2011 Update from this link. There are two separate installation for the Developer Tools. In the first step download “WindowsPhoneDeveloperResources_[language]_patch1.msp” and in the second step download “VS10-KB2486994-x86.exe” .

I have installed both the updates and the copy and paste feature is working like a charm. As shown in the images below, simply tap on the text to select it, you can expand or collapse the selection, a copy icon appears on the top when you select some text, tap on this icon to select the text. When you are in the target text area, you will see a Paste icon on top of the keyboard, by tapping on this you can paste the text copied in the clipboard.

Happy coding!

Microsoft has released the RTW version of the Visual Basic add-on. This latest release enables Visual Basic Developers to create Silverlight applications for Windows Phone 7 using the final version of the Windows Phone Developer Tools.

You can download the tools from here .

System requirements to use these tools are

• Supported OS: Windows 7 or Windows Vista.
• Visual Studio 2010 Professional, Premium, or Ultimate
• Windows Phone Developer Tools RTW

You can also check out some cool code samples for Windows Phone in Visual Basic.

Happy Developing :)