It’s official – Microsoft has now begun the roll out of its update to the Windows Phone OS, known as Mango, or Windows Phone 7.5.
The roll out officially kicked off early yesterday evening our time, but WP7 phone owners shouldn’t get too excited just yet, as it’s going to be a staggered release over an extended period of time.
Only a small amount of folks will get it this week (around 10%), with more being upgraded next week, and almost everyone eventually receiving Mango inside the next four weeks. Almost everyone being 98% of WP7 handsets.
Microsoft notes that this paced delivery is for several reasons, the major one being that the company is rolling out Mango to all phone models, networks and countries across the globe in this period.
Which is obviously something of a task, and in contrast to Android’s typical roll outs, with some operators not keeping up with the latest version of the OS for months and months after its release.
The theory is that the measured pace ensures the situation can be closely monitored and if anything goes awry with the software, it can be pin-pointed and dealt with swiftly, which all seems fair enough.
Hopefully you’ll be one of the lucky ones who has the OS this week or next, but even so, there won’t be too long to wait. Everyone should have it before the close of October – assuming some huge problem isn’t encountered in the initial stages, fingers crossed.
The Mango update brings a raft of new features, some 500 of them, in fact. We’re talking custom ringtones, deeper social network integration, a central inbox to link up multiple email accounts, grouping for contacts, voice commands and so forth.
The world is keenly watching what Nokia will produce in the way of Windows Phone 7.5 handsets next month as hardware to go with the refined OS. HTC and Samsung also have Mango phones on the boil.
Could they help reverse Microsoft’s mobile fortunes? Perhaps, but there’s a mountain to climb yet. Certainly if Mango and Nokia can’t at least perk up Microsoft’s mobile market share, then WP7 is looking pretty sunk…
Early reactions from users, however, seem favourable enough, which is promising.
