Well its certainly long overdue, but the first Windows Phone 7 update has finally begun rolling out, this is the first major update to the platform. Microsoft have provided a full list of the changes on their Windows Phone blog, there’s actually quite a few more than initially expected.
One you update your WP7 device via the Zune software, your phone will be at OS version: 7.0.7390.0
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Copy & paste. You asked for it—now it’s here. Just tap a word and drag the arrows to copy and paste it on your phone. You can copy text from emails, text messages, web pages, and Office Mobile documents, and paste it anywhere you can type. To learn more, see Copy & paste.
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Faster apps and games. Nobody likes to wait. That’s why we’ve whittled down the time it takes for apps and games to start up and resume. It’s all part of our focus on getting you to the things you love, easier and faster.
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Better Marketplace search. We’ve streamlined Marketplace search to make it easier to find specific apps, games, or music. Press the Search button in the Apps or Games section of Marketplace and you’ll see only apps or games in the results. Press Search in the Music section of Marketplace to search just the music catalog.
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Other Marketplace improvements. We’ve improved the stability of Marketplace while you download apps. We’ve also improved the experience of downloading apps larger than 20 megabytes, upgrading from trial apps to paid apps, using a credit card with an address outside the United States, sharing links to apps via email, sorting Xbox LIVE games by release date, and creating an Xbox LIVE account from within the Games Hub.
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Wi-Fi improvements. We now display your phone’s Media Access Control (MAC) address in Settings. (You might need this info if you try to connect to a Wi-Fi network that uses MAC address filtering. To learn more, see Connect to a Wi-Fi network.) We’ve also removed the limit on the number of Wi-Fi profiles that you can store and reduced the time it takes to start your phone if you’ve stored lots of Wi-Fi profiles.
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Outlook improvements. We’ve improved the experience of viewing iPhone photo attachments you receive from a non-Exchange-based email account (such as a Google Mail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail account), using the Global Address List (GAL) when connecting to Exchange Server 2003 using Exchange ActiveSync, and working with email display names that contain brackets (for example, "David Alexander [Contoso]").
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Messaging improvements. We’ve improved the experience of receiving Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) messages if your phone uses a PIN-locked SIM.
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Facebook integration. We’ve improved the experience of syncing Facebook accounts.
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Camera improvements. We’ve improved the stability of switching between camera and video modes.
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Audio improvements. We’ve improved the experience of using a Bluetooth headset to make calls when you’re playing music or videos.
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Other performance improvements. This month’s update also includes software from several phone manufacturers that improves the performance of specific models. Naturally, if you don’t have one of the affected models, we won’t install this portion of the update on your phone.
While Windows Phone 7 users will take any updates they can get, this update doesn’t ‘fix’ the WP7. Microsoft need to release updates much more frequently than they have been. In the same timeframe that WP7 got 1 update, their biggest competitor – Apple’s iOS has released 5.
Of course there’s the announced ‘big update’ coming in September (maybe), 6 months between updates doesn’t really cut it in todays market. Regular updates based on user-feedback is more important that WP7 than other smart phone operating systems as its essentially a brand new platform. Despite the number 7, WP7 was built from the ground up, brand new and naturally has plenty of bugs.
There’s no shortage of feedback on what needs to be fixed, with many frustrated WP7 users (lovers), resorting to online rants. These fans of the platform have attempted to get Microsoft to ship an update sooner rather than later, apparently Microsoft is working on their schedule regardless of community outrage.
Enjoy your NoDo update for now.. it’ll be quite some time before the next one.
More @ Windows Phone blog
