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What Will Mango Do For Our WP7 Devices

I am sure most of you have already been hearing some of the rumors about out beloved Windows Phones being updated to the Mango update in the fall. Other than IE9 on WP7 getting HTML5, Silverlight support, and of course better multi-tasking/app switching, I have yet to hear much about any details. So I decided to just compile a little list of what I would like to see with the Mango update for my Samsung Focus.

Multitasking Improvement On WP7

Whether you like to call it multitasking or not I don't really care. It essentially is smart multitasking. They limit it for very good reason but I feel like they could limit it a bit less and it would be much better. On top of giving developers a little bit of a longer leash for the multi-tasking they also need to provide a nice app switching interface. Heaven forbid the follow iPhone because quite frankly that alone made me want to replace my iPhone 3gs. No company yet has topped Palm's epic card interface and it makes me sad that WebOS is not more popular than it is but what can you do. Regardless, WP7 please get an app switcher that is as user friendly as WebOS's card view.

Remote Desktop (RDP) Built In On WP7

This would be a great feature to add and every Windows full OS has had the capability there for a long time so why not us mobile users? I know there are apps out there that do it but I personally want to see Windows have it's own implementation for a couple of reasons. One if it is built into an update then it is (or at least should be) free. And secondly if Microsoft is taking care of it themselves then I am pretty sure they can come up with a better implementation than most developers. I am thinking instead of like most RDP's you see your desktop actually having a WP7 specific implementation of your desktop.

WP7 Needs New Ringtones

I don't actually even use custom ringtones all that much, but I am struggling with the fact that you can't add them to your current WP7 devices. This ability has been on a lot of phones for quite a while now. One thing I did like on my iPhone 3gs was going into iTunes and cropping out 30 seconds of one of my favorite songs and putting that as a ringtone.

SSH Terminal

I use putty on a daily basis for work and it would be nice to have the capability on my phone. SSH capability is pretty much all it needs and there might be apps for it I am not sure but I feel it is something that should be built in on every device. Doing web development there are many times where I might quickly need to ssh into the servers for a small change and if my WP7 Samsung Focus had a well polished built in app that would be awesome. On my iPhone I had an app, I can't recall what it was called but it was not well polished or very user friendly.

Free Developer (Homebrewer) Unlock Version

Actually, I would like to see this come long before Mango rolls out on my Focus but at the latest I want to see it on Mango. Having good terms with your homebrew community will set them far ahead of Apple and make the user experience awesome. I mean if you are limited to only your device (not getting apps in the app store) then you can't do much harm. Obviously there is the possiblity of being like the iPhone hacker community and pirating everything but if you are on good terms with your homebrew community this is much less likely to happen.

WP7 Mango Update Expectations Conclusion

In short I am very excited about this update and hope that at least some of what I am wanting is part of the Mango update. I know I wont get it all but hey, wishful thinking. Microsoft is doing a great job with Windows Phone 7 and I have confidence that they will keep it up. I mean they kind of have to to compete.