Features

In summary, according to Mary Jo Foley, “Tango” is “all about Nokia” and “focused on hitting the lower-price point for Windows Phones that Microsoft and Nokia execs have been promising.” According to MJF, two Tango updates are reportedly coming:

• Tango1 aims to “further broaden the markets addressed by Windows Phone by adding additional language support”. We’ve previously heard reports that “Tango” will bring support for 120+ languages, and this is consistent with what “Tango1” is all about. With Nokia continuing plans for world domination (now already in 31 markets worldwide), “Tango” continue this momentum and take Windows Phone to the untapped markets such as China.
• Tango2 will be “targeted at low-cost devices and include fixes and new features, as well as services and language support for markets that still won’t have been addressed after the Tango1 release.”

In relation to Tango2, many are wondering exactly how will Microsoft bring Windows Phone to low-cost devices? Paul Thurrott gives us an insight on how this might be achieved, and how it impacts the Windows Phone ecosystem:

[Tango] is aimed at broadening the Windows Phone user base. It will do so by undercutting the requirements of the current Windows Phone platform to support lower-end devices that can be sold more cheaply in emerging markets. Microsoft is thought to be working closely with its special partner, Nokia, on this Windows Phone version.

The biggest change to Tango, which will likely be called Windows Phone 7.5.1 when released, is that it will lower the platform’s memory requirements. It will do so by ushering in a new generation of low-end Windows Phone handsets that utilize just 256MB of RAM, down by half from the 512MB of RAM that’s more common today.

But it’s not just that these handsets will include less RAM, according to my sources. The underlying OS is also being optimized for the lower RAM allotment, with apps certified for this release being required to use less RAM and other resources, and certain resource-intensive background tasks being disabled.

Developers will be able to target Tango or Windows Phone 7.5 going forward, or both, and users of the new low-end systems will basically be able to access a subset of the existing Windows Phone Marketplace apps selection.

It is currently not known what percentage of apps in the current 60,000 apps-strong marketplace will be compatible with these lower-end devices, but Paul Thurrott heard that some high-end games such as "Plants vs. Zombies" will not work, while others like “Angry Birds” will be compatible.

Of course, we’d also expect some new features and services from “Tango”, such as the rumored universal “Spotlight”-like searching capability or folders-support. However, don’t expect too much for the “Tango” update, given that it is meant to be a minor update like “NoDo” and is really aimed at getting Windows Phone into additional markets. You’ll probably have to wait until Windows Phone 8 for those big changes to come.

Timing

As far as timing is concerned, below is a rough timeline of when “Tango” is expected to be announced and released:

• Late February 2012 – it is widely expected that Microsoft will announce Windows Phone “Tango” and give a few details about what’s coming in the update during Mobile World Congress
• April 2012 is when Microsoft is expected to make the new version of Windows Phone developer SDK available. According to Paul Thurrott, developers will be able to test apps on both 256MB “Tango” devices and mainstream 512MB+ devices in emulation. It is said that developers will be given the option to opt out of making their apps compatible with “Tango” if they like, although it might not be desirable if “Tango” proves to be a hit in the markets
• Q2 2012 is what we last heard in relation to the timing of release for “Tango”, according to a leaked roadmap for Windows Phone (shown above)

With two weeks to go until Mobile World Congress, we can’t wait to hear more about what Microsoft has up its sleeves in the mobile space.

Reports around the internet seems to suggest that the Zune client isn’t dead yet, given the existence of the “Zune Music” and “Zune Video” apps, as shown above. However, we tend to think that these two apps merely provide access to the Zune marketplace, much like their counterpart apps in the new Xbox 360 dashboard. As far as the Zune client is concerned, we think it is dead, and media playback will be handled by the Metro-styled “Music” and “Video” apps – potentially a replacement of Windows Media Player:

If this seems to be the case, it ties in nicely with previous reports about Windows Phone 8 having a separate sync client other than Zune, further suggesting that the Zune client is gone:

Windows Phone 8 will reportedly scrap integration with the desktop Zune client in favor of a syncing relationship with a dedicated companion application.

The Verge even suggests that the Zune branding might not stay for long, and will be removed by the time Windows 8 ships:

We are hearing that [the Zune] branding will be removed shortly before the Windows 8 release, moving to Xbox Live for Windows as the entertainment brand for Windows 8 Music, Video and Games.

What do you think the future holds for Zune? Will it still exist as a branding for music and video services? Or will it be merged into the Xbox LIVE branding? Let us know in the comments below.

Included in the blog post is a video showing off Windows on ARM (which is available only as a downloadable .wmv, but conveniently uploaded to YouTube by Tom Warren of The Verge:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

In the video, we get a quick look at not only the new “Live” Metro style apps like Mail and Calendar:

(nice and clean!)

…but also a peek at how Office 15 will look, also very clean:

We’ve seen some of this before, of course, but it’s nice to get a peek at what’s to come, and it gets us itching to play with the “Consumer Preview” when it launches on February 29th!

A report from the Wall St. Journal

The consumer cloud storage business has been booming lately, with Dropbox recently raising $250 million at a $4 billion valuation, and the business as a whole growing rapidly, as noted by The WSJ:

World-wide, $830 million was spent on such file and back-up storage services in 2011, and that figure is expected to grow by 47% to $1.2 billion this year, according to Gartner Inc.

Long time readers of LiveSide will remember that Google has had an interest in a SkyDrive type service for a long time.  We initially reported on GDrive way back in July of 2006, which was also our first mention of the name “Sky Drive” (we’d already reported on news of a similar project from Microsoft, Live Drive).  A blogger by the name of Corsin Camichel even had a screenshot of “GDrive”, code named Platypus:

The Wall Street Journal has reported on the imminent unveiling of GDrive before, the first time in November of 2007 .  Nothing became of that, because Google reportedly shelved the operation to concentrate on Google Chrome, according to MG Siegler, writing for TechCrunch:

It wasn’t until earlier this year that we found out what happened, thanks to Steven Levy’s book In The Plex. In 2008, GDrive was about to launch under Bradley Horowitz (now a lead on Google+), but Sundar Pichai (now the SVP of Chrome) convinced Google’s top executives not to launch it. The reason? He felt like the concept of a “file” was outdated (sounds more than a bit Jobsian) in the cloud-based universe that Google was trying to build. After some debate, the powers that be at Google agreed and GDrive was shelved, and the team moved over to the Chrome team.

But Siegler reported that GDrive was making a comeback (his post was from August 2011, and spurred by a Hacker News report on a new url, drive.google.com)  We’re not sure why we’re supposed to believe them this time, but Google’s launch of a SkyDrive/Dropbox competitor makes a lot of sense.  That competition is apparently welcome, at least to our old friend Harrison Hoffman, a Product Manager on SkyDrive:

The more the merrier! RT @MattRosoff "Google Is Painting A Big Fat Target On Dropbox $GOOG http://t.co/SuzrgLnk "

February 8, 2012 11:47 PM via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@harrisonhoffman

Harrison Hoffman

In any event, competition is definitely heating up.  Will we see SkyDrive make more moves to remain competitive, and to shed the image that Sebastian Anthony at Extreme Tech calls “poor little No Geek Cred SkyDrive”?

Developers and others were able to preview Windows 8 in a bare bones Developer Preview available at Build last November, and it sounds like some of the more anticipated features of Windows 8 (including a new version of Windows Media Center) still won’t be supplied with this Consumer Preview.

We should get our first look at the pre-bundled Metro style apps that appear to be a replacement for Windows Live Essentials, however.  Tom Warren at the Verge listed a number of apps (with possibly more to come with the CP) thought to be bundled with the Consumer Preview:

• Camera
• Messaging
• Mail
• Calendar
• SkyDrive
• People
• Photos
• Video
• Music

Tom also details some more information about the apps, and adds further fuel to the “Zune is dead” fire:

These applications, and possibly more, will come preinstalled for the Consumer Preview release, and will be updatable from the Windows Store. Mail, Calendar, People, and Messaging are designed to be core Windows communications apps and are not branded with Windows Live. One source has revealed that Microsoft is working to enable SMS support for the Messaging app which operates as a Windows Live Messenger equivalent in its current form. The Music and Video applications are currently branded with Zune, but are built by the Xbox team. We are hearing that this branding will be removed shortly before the Windows 8 release, moving to Xbox Live for Windows as the entertainment brand for Windows 8 Music, Video and Games.

Of course for Windows Live fans, there are still lots of unanswered questions.  What happens to Live Mesh and Writer?  What about continued Windows Live Essentials development for Windows 7?  How will Windows Live Messenger and Skype evolve?  At least, barring the usual snafus, we won’t have to wait much longer to find out.

According to Pocketnow, the device is said to have the following specifications and features:

• Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango”
• 4" WVGA NOVA display
• 1 GHz processor
• 8GB storage space
• 5 megapixel main camera, with VGA front-facing camera
• 14.4Mbps HSPA, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 3.0
• NFC support

Of particular note is the built-in NFC support, making the LG Miracle the first Windows Phone device to support NFC. However, it was rumored that OS-level NFC support is supposed to be coming in Windows Phone 8, codenamed “Apollo”, as such the support for NFC on the LG Miracle might resort to separate apps built by LG or other third parties.

The LG Miracle previously surfaced on the XDA-Developer forums, alleged to have been sold to a Romanian LG tester. The device was previously speculated as the LG Fantasy – which is another rumored Windows Phone device first appeared in a leaked roadmap for LG in 2011, however no news of the device had surfaced since then.

The LG Miracle is said to be announced during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month, with a release date sometime in Spring 2012.

The app brings the note taking abilities of OneNote, along with the cloud storage features of SkyDrive, to allow you to take, edit, and or store notes on your Android device.  The OneNote blog has more, including an annotated screenshot:

… and a feature summary:

OneNote Mobile for Android includes the following features:

• Text formatting, images, and bulleted lists
• To-do lists with clickable checkboxes
• Quick photo capture with your phone’s camera
• Quick access to recent notes
• Store and access multiple OneNote notebooks
• Sync to your free SkyDrive account for access anywhere
• Offline access to your notes
• Option to sync notebooks only over a Wi-Fi connection
• Built-in spelling checker
• Support for external hyperlinks
• Table editing

Along with the official announcement on the OneNote blog, the team at SkyDrive also posted on accessing SkyDrive through Android, either via this new OneNote app (for OneNote files), or via a number of 3rd party apps that utilize the SkyDrive APIs:

If you have an Android device, we also encourage you to try other apps from partners built using SkyDrive APIs. For example with Browser for SkyDrive or Cloud Explorer for SkyDrive, you can view, access and upload documents or photos on your Android phone. Portfolio for SkyDrive lets you organize and upload photos from your Android phone in batches to SkyDrive. If you want to add SkyDrive support to your app, site or device, please visit our developer center.

Gannes quizzed Weitz on the status and the impacts of social search on Bing, and why Bing hasn’t capitalized more on Google’s issues (All Things D does note that there are some new Bing ads coming, so we’ll see if the gloves come off).  Weitz summed up Google’s approach:

But they are learning just like we are. They did what we didn’t want to do, which was make the user experience peppered with this stuff, with +1s everywhere, the Google+ content in the top corner. I think [Google] realized we were ahead and they overextended. But I know a ton of guys there and they’re smart and they’re reacting to what has been said.

But it’s in the last question that Weitz reveals what may be coming soon for Bing:

When are you going to press your social advantage in Bing, seeing as you have both Facebook and Twitter deals and Google doesn’t?

You’re going to see the culmination of a lot of our learnings in the not too distant future. All those lessons will be applied into something that I think is pretty interesting. How we think about social is always evolving, and the next turn of the crank is more differentiated than we’ve seen in the past.

Of course, for those of us who have grown tired of the always-in-beta on again off again approach by Bing to improvements such as HTML5 transitions in the results pages (we’ve had them come, and go, again recently, and we get regular sightings from readers, but as far as we know, HTML5 Bing STILL hasn’t fully shipped), we’ll believe it when we see it, but are you ready for “the next turn of the crank” with Bing and social search?

ps. anyone spot any new Bing ads?

Before we begin, we should clarify the terminologies “syncing” and “sharing” used in the context of this post:

• Syncing refers to the use of a cloud service, such as SkyDrive or Xbox LIVE, to synchronise data between devices
• Sharing refers to the direct transfer of data between two or more devices using wireless mediums such as NFC, Bluetooth, or WiFi

Syncing data between the 3-screens

The latest information about Windows Phone 8 seems to indicate that there will be greater support for syncing data across your PC, phone, and the Xbox. Below is an excerpt from Pocketnow:

SkyDrive support promises seamless sharing of data between devices; Belfiore gives the example of instantly having one’s music collection available on a newly-purchased Windows Phone, without the need for a PC sync.

This is also confirmed by Paul Thurrott, who said the following:

A set of common cloud services that will work across [the phone (Windows Phone 8), PC (Windows 8), and TV (Xbox vNext)]. This includes the ability to sync content (photos, music, movies) between the three screens …. and Xbox LIVE games, entertainment, and more. Microsoft will make your content available on all of its platforms via SkyDrive.

Currently, Windows Phone 7.5 already supports the syncing of contacts, calendar, email, photos, and Office documents between the phone and Windows Live, which in turn can be accessed and synced to PCs (particularly with Windows 8). However, other file types, such as music, videos and movies, are not yet supported (we’re not talking about Zune Pass here, since it doesn’t allow you to sync your personal collection between your PC and phone). The information above seems to indicate that Microsoft will support the synchronisation of all your content (including music, movies, and perhaps even cloud game saves) between the the phone, PC, and Xbox via SkyDrive. Could this perhaps be what the original Live Mesh envisioned coming to fruition?

Sharing data between the 3-screens

While syncing data between devices through the cloud seems to be the direction the tech industry is going, sometimes it is still easier to transfer data directly between two devices wirelessly. Imagine the situation: when you have two devices (say your Windows 8 tablet and Windows Phone) right next to each other, why should the data travel all the way through the cloud to get to the other device? It seems like Microsoft had also considered this, and based on what Pocketnow reported, a new “tap-to-share” wireless-sharing capability will be coming to Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8:

In addition, tap-to-share capabilities will reportedly work across multiple platforms, allowing desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones to all share content.

We’ve previously reported a wild rumour indicating that Microsoft will be bringing a feature called “beaming” to its future devices. According to the rumour, users will be able to transfer files directly across their phone, PC/tablet, and their Xbox/TV using technologies such as Bluetooth, NFC, and Wi-Fi Direct. The latest information about Windows Phone 8’s “tap-to-share” feature seems to tie in nicely with this rumour.

If you take a look at the current Microsoft offerings out there, the ability to sync and share data between devices seems very cluttered and filled with limitations, and there really isn’t a simple way to seamlessly sync and share data across devices. If the latest reports about Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 holds true, then Microsoft really “re-imagined” the way we could sync and share data across devices. Let’s hope this would become reality by the end of the year when both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 launches.

There are 4 hotspots on the video on the special homepage, sadly most of the links in the hotspots don’t yet work. The hotspots are:

• Meet your new browser
  See what’s new and improved with Internet Explorer
• Connect to the Cloud
  Take your apps files and settings wherever you go
• Frequently asked questions
  Get answers to your questions about the Windows 8 Consumer Preview
• Building Windows 8 Blog
  Get an inside look from the Windows engineering team

At the bottom of the page are three sections; these are:

• See what’s new
  Windows 8 Consumer Preview
• Windows Store
  Discover great apps
• Windows Dev Center
  All the tools you need to start coding your own apps

As you will notice the name “Windows 8 Consumer Preview” is mentioned twice on this page and is the most obvious, public and official use of the name so far. The name “Consumer Preview” has been rumoured about for the past month since it was first mentioned at CES and looks set to replace the term “beta” Microsoft have traditionally used.

Microsoft has announced that it will be releasing a new version of Windows 8 towards the end of February. It is looking increasingly likely that this version of Windows 8 will be a Consumer Preview and not a beta version. Don’t expect the release of Windows 8 to be about sending feedback to Microsoft but instead it will be purely about previewing what the consumer experience will be like using the new OS.

Check out the special Bing homepage: http://www.bing.com/?win8start=1