Microsoft Continues to Cater to Devs By Releasing Mango Soon?
How soon? Try about 4 weeks soon.
Speaking informally at a Windows Phone Mango VIP event in London on Tuesday, Achim Berg, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows Phone marketing told WinRumors that the company would release the bits in around four weeks time. Microsoft’s Brandon Watson previously revealed, at MIX 2011, that Microsoft was working to allow developers to use Mango on Windows Phone hardware.
Joe Belfiore confirmed via Twitter that a plan was in place to get the developers access to Mango well ahead of release to the public.
So if you are thinking about being a dev and trying your hand on the platform does this make your decision any easier. You will need to be a registered developer though. Personally, it would be more than worth it for me to have Mango as I’m itching to try my hand at app development and Mango looks like the perfect time to get in on the action before the marketplace takes off this Fall.
In any case if the Mango code is complete in a month’s time that has to be a great sign for an early fall release to the public especially considering a recent rumor that OEMs won’t be launching the second wave of Windows Phones at one time but whenever their devices are ready. This basically means that it won’t be an iPhone launch but more of a traditional roll out of phones over a stretch of time.
In any case, I’m excited and hopefully so are you!
Source: PocketNow
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Woohoo!!!!
Sadly, with the last update debacle, I’d have to agree that paying $99 for on-time/early access to Mango might be worthwhile. Better than waiting for 3 months and counting now for some devices and the 1-2 months that AT&T put on their devices. Also has the benefit of encouraging carriers to keep OS updates and Device or Carrier-specific updates separate.
@Peter: I agree with you. After seeing all the new features with Mango, it’s almost like getting a new phone. I would think about paying $99.
I will have to jump on the developer train too. 99 bucks is a small price to pay for getting the software early.
Four weeks huh. Okay not bad.
Guess it’s time for me to start assembling blurbs, announcements of what’s going to happen in the near future made by Microsoft suits, funny stuff.
Don’t forget AT&T. Turns out they may have a say in this. Frankly I’m surprised they care but hey..
The sooner Mango gets in the hands of people the sooner the adoption rates hits an uptick. I’ll gladly pay the $99 bucks.
They are listening to the complaints/feedback and attacking them head on. A major complaint that I know developers have is the ranking system in the marketplace.
Where do I go to sign up?
Mango is a good reason to part with my $99.
VinnyH, what about it makes you willing to spend a hundred bucks to get it earlier?
@Doug Simmons: That one made me laugh a little. You’ve been on AT&T before. I can see this one going into a very, very long “testing” pattern while AT&T pushes the new devices like crazy. I wouldn’t be quite so opposed to that except that I’d either have to buy it out of contract or pay some odd “early upgrade” fee and then pay to get the new device. AT&T has a horrible track record on releasing upgrades. I stay with them because the service has been good for me and the calls have been reliable, but their upgrade process has been really frustrating.
I’d consider the $99 to get developer unlocking officially and an opportunity to use Mango features at least 3 months early, though more likely 5-6. I’d actually like to try writing a couple of apps if I can find the spare time. I hear there’s a need for still more “Real Estate” and “My MP” apps (whatever the latter is).
Well I can see that too, that’s why I have $70 in open positions about this taking forever. But now I’m wondering what makes any of you, particularly those who acknowledge that it isn’t as easy for Microsoft as they insisted it would be to get through AT&T’s linebackers to update their stuff for whatever reasons, think that Mango’s path to developers through this hot $99 deal, which by the way is a lot cheaper than an even $100 but whatever, is insulated from AT&T?
The only thing I can come up with, as to why this would be in AT&T’s interests (and therefore possible), is that if people start developing this and that for Mango it will make everyone else want Mango a lot more with the developers both making stuff and telling everyone how great it is, then AT&T jams up Mango’s path to everyone else until they all do whatever it is AT&T wants them to do, like either wait for AT&T to stuff it full of crapware or make everyone wait long enough that they end up just buying a new WP with it already on there etc?
I can tell by your browser choice, Chrome dev and Firefox, that you’ve got some sense. But a month and a half plus 5-6 months (which we’ll just call December) is your eta for Mango to everyone with a WP? At least a third of the active handsets?
I guess my first thought would be that MS knows what it takes to get through the mess of carriers and can identify official developer handsets. We know that unbranding the phone from the carrier works to get updates (confirmed for NoDo and the SSL patch). I’d imagine MS has a way to do this for Dev handsets as well. Of course, I’d wait until that was confirmed before wanting to drop any money on this.
And yeah, it would be in AT&T’s general interests to get people to buy new phones and re-up their contracts than to let an update roll out to older phones. Their money isn’t made by testing updates, but by people buying phones – same as most carriers. I understand that MS had to make that deal to get their foot in the door, but it’s a pretty bad situation for the people who actually bought the phones.
I doubt that everyone will have Mango by December, but the hint in this article is that Mango (or a RC of Mango) could potentially start hitting Dev devices in ~ a month. If that works well, it could legitimately start rolling to Carriers around the same time. That could give the carriers a significant amount of time to load their own stuff, introduce their own updates, and so on before September(ish) when MS wants to start pushing this out. (once again, based on everything I’ve seen to date. This is obviously subject to change.) With the carriers getting in the way and the Samsung track record to date, getting this officially out to everyone by December is still somewhat optimistic, but if they’re really talking about having some real devices with Mango by end of June, there’s a much better chance of it being widely distributed by December.
I don’t plan on laying down any money on timeframes. The way MS talked at launch, the first update was due by end of 2010. We all know how well that worked out. Add in the device issues, whatever the carriers were doing, MS releasing, then holding, then releasing, then holding, … updates didn’t do much for confidence either. That was actually why I wanted to see NoDo released more than the new features. I wanted to see MS get those things worked out so future updates could roll more smoothly.