mango

In an unsurprising but still shocking move, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs resigns as CEO but remains with the company as chairman. Tim Cook is promoted from chief operating officer to chief executive officer.

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Back in May, Microsoft teased that the Windows Phone Mango update would bring more than 500 new features to the mobile operating system. We've already seen more of the major changes during our Windows Phone 7.5 preview, but it looks like more goodies are to come, including support for front-facing cameras and Internet sharing.

According to the site Windows Phone NZ, which also tweeted the news, Microsoft confirmed at the Tech Ed conference that Mango will support front-facing cameras and also integrate Skype. It's not clear, however, whether Microsoft will make this a hardware requirement on all … Read more

Windows Phone has officially reached 30,000 apps in its marketplace, according to a Microsoft blog.

Dropping the news yesterday in the Windows Phone developer blog, Todd Brix, senior director of Windows Phone Marketplace, added that the "nearly 30,000 Windows Phone app and game titles available today will also run on Mango."

The first major upgrade to Windows Phone, Mango was provided to device manufacturers about a month ago. An official release is being eyed for this fall.

Since its debut toward the end of last year, the Windows Phone Marketplace has seen steady growth in the … Read more

It's the end of my second week of life with Windows Phone 7 Mango, and it's time to render a verdict. I should say at the outset that two weeks doesn't sound like a lot of time to live with an entirely new platform, and I might have lasted longer but for serious problems with the HTC Trophy I've been using (one-day record for spontaneous reboots: 15, including 3 in 15 minutes). That said, since my smartphone is a device I'm using almost constantly, I feel like I got to know the thing pretty well. … Read more

It's the end of the first full week of my Windows Phone 7 Challenge (catch up with previous installments here), and in simple summary, my feelings on Windows Phone 7 Mango are decidedly mixed--with the exception of the Maps and navigation, which I despise. Read on for that. Oh, and I wish it had a screen capture feature, which would make these blog posts a lot easier.

It's probably easiest to do a simple list of pros and cons. And, for context, this week has just been about setting up the phone, establishing basic use, getting familiar with … Read more

Here's the latest update from the world of Windows Phone 7: upshot? Uh oh...where are the apps?

Also, as a post-script, I should say that although I liked the integrated social networking at first, I'm finding it slightly less useful as the day wears on. It seems slow to update; the list of Twitter mentions only says I was mentioned, but doesn't show me the actual text until I click through to another screen; and it's kind of weird to have one live tile for monitoring Facebook posts, and another for monitoring my own Facebook … Read more

Everything was fine in Android-land until the Gingerbread update. Well, then again, "fine" might be a little strong.

I'd been through an original Motorola Droid, which was a nice little keyboard wrapped in a seriously slow-performing phone with a terrible camera and no end of software update woes.

I went from that to the Samsung Fascinate, wooed by its sleek looks, great camera, and big, beautiful screen. Sadly, the Fascinate was loaded down with carrier crapware, including the staggering inclusion of Bing instead of Google as the default system search. It was so crippled you couldn't … Read more

Microsoft's Windows Phone sales for 2011 are "abysmal," according to a story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published last Friday.

Diving through Microsoft's annual report released late last month, the news site came up with a revenue figure of $613 million for the full fiscal year, which includes Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, Zune, Mediaroom, Surface, and hardware.

Remove the sales kicked in by the Zune and the other non-mobile items, and Microsoft's mobile operating systems actually delivered less than $613 million.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request from CNET for comment on the … Read more

Following Microsoft's release of the Mango update to Windows Phone 7 manufacturers yesterday, the company today put out a much-updated build of its mobile phone software tools for developers to test their apps on ahead of a public release.

On Microsoft's Windows Phone Developer blog, Cliff Simpkins, the senior product manager of Microsoft's Windows Phone group notes that Windows Phone SDK 7.1 "beta 2 refresh" is pretty close to the final version of the software it released yesterday, though it's being considered a release candidate.

Why is it not the same version manufacturers … Read more