Mango Preview Event Recap

Our fingers are sore and somehow we just cracked the bones in our palms, but we really survived today's onslaught of news. Mango is shaping up to be an entirely new breed of Windows Phone. From MIX '11 we heard a lot about the developer-side of things and how apps are getting more tightly integrated, but today was all about the consumer features and Microsoft didn't hold back. So in case you missed any news from today's Mango Preview Event here's the full list of every post we've done today.

Rumor Bingo Results Are In!
If you were playing our Mango Rumor Bingo while the action was going down today then good news...DOUBLE BINGO! Let's take a look at what popped up green on our bingo sheet, and what didn't make the cut.

Watch the Preview Event Presentation Now!
Microsoft has uploaded the footage of the Mango Preview Event from earlier this morning. If you want to see Voice to Text, Groups, Threads, and more in action for yourself than start watching!

New People Hub Confirmed with Chat, Integrated Photos, Groups, Twitter, and more
There are a ton of new features being added to the People Hub. How do we know that? Because that part of the presentation this morning took about a third of the total time, that's why!

Games Hub, Music + Videos Hub, and Office Hub Completely Revamped
The Music + Videos Hub, the Office Hub, and the Games Hub have all seen pretty significant facelifts, but the demo only presented the latter two so the changes to the Music + Videos Hub remains to be seen in-depth. Are you excited by these new Hub-centric features?

New Bing Features Confirmed
It looks like those Bing rumors were true and the presentation confirmed that this Fall we'll be seeing "Visual Search" and "Music Search". However, there was another new Bing feature that caught us by surprise: "Local Scout". This feature basically recognizes 'neighborhoods' in cities and will show you a ton of information about them.

Fall Launch for Mango Confirmed
Mango is going to be launching by this Fall for existing users. We're also just going to assume that Fall will be bringing along the next wave of Windows Phones as well.

Acer, Fujitsu, and ZTE Are New Partners, 4G Windows Phones Coming
The rumors are true and we are seeing new hardware partners enlisting in the Windows Phone cause. Some existing manufacturers that are preparing devices for the Mango launch, which includes Samsung, LG and HTC. Then there's the new soldiers in their army: Acer, Fujitsu, and ZTE. Plus Microsoft said they already have Nokia-built Windows Phones running Mango test builds and that 4G Windows Phones are on their way with Mango.

New Advertisement Shows Off Threads, Local Scout, Groups, and More
This new advertisement was shown at the end of today's presentation and for now, so if you want to see Threads, Local Scout, Groups, Bing, and more in action feel free to check out the cool video.

Joe Belfiore Demos New Mango Features
Sadly our go-to Windows Phone representative Joe Belfiore was absent from today's Mango Preview Event, but he was there in spirit. And in a new YouTube video.

Qualcomm Says to Expect Snapdragon in Mango Launch Devices
A statement from Qualcomm's executive VP says that the next-generation of Windows Phone handsets are going to be Snapdragon-fueled. It seems like they were stating the obvious, but recent news about ST-Ericsson making a move into the Windows Phone chip race required a little bit of clarification from Qualcomm.

Microsoft Launches Revamped "What's Next" Page on Official Site, One-Stop Mango Shop
Microsoft's official Windows Phone website has seen the 'What's Next' completely revamped. For now theres not much to it, but the info it features is in a nice, easy to use fashion.

Voice to Text Confirmed, Completely Hands-Free
During this morning's presentation, one extremely impressive demo was the snazzy new Voice-to-Text feature to be included in Mango later this Fall. We had heard rumors about it earlier, but today we got a quick look at how it works.

Windows Phone Marketplace Expanded to New Countries, Web-Friendly Version in the Works
The Windows Phone Developer Blog went into big Marketplace changes that we can see in action soon. First of all, the Mango Marketplace will be expanding from 16 countries to a strong 35, and each new country will include local support for app submissions and app purchases. Next up is big news that a web browser version of the Marketplace will launch alongside Mango later this year. One thing the post did confirm is that users can "buy/download apps and games from any PC and send them directly to their phones."

New Screenshots of Threads, Groups, Bing, IE9 and more
We just wanted to share with you a few new direct-feed screenshots Microsoft just debuted in the Windows Phone Newsroom. The screenshots show a ton of Mango highlights from today, including Threads, Local Scout, Groups, the revamped Contacts, Internet Explorer 9 and a Start Screen featuring the new People Hub tile and Linked Inbox.

Dell Not Ready for Mango
We were wondering why Dell was oddly absent during Microsoft's roll call of Windows Phone hardware partners at this morning's keynote, and now we may know why.

Mango Development Tools Now Available!
So do you remember those Mango Development SDK that was announced during MIX '11 earlier this year? Well they're coming out...today!



Videos Featuring Local Scout, Multitasking, Groups, and More Now Available
Do you want more videos of Mango in action? You've got em! Microsoft has uploaded a ton of videos in their Windows Phone Newsroom Video Gallery and we've done the courteous thing and uploaded all of them to our YouTube channel.

Video of Turn-By-Turn Navigation Leaked
Just when we thought the day was done, up comes this. A new video showing a beta build of Mango in an emulator includes Bing Maps-powered turn-by-turn navigation!

Redesigned Zune Player Spotted in Facebook Live Demo
Remember that Facebook live demo of Mango we mentioned earlier? It just finished a few minutes ago and it wasn't much more than a rehash of today's press event. But we did manage to spot one thing that should fill up a spot in our Rumor Bingo sheet: the redesigned Zune player!

Tons of New Features Discovered in Mango SDK
XDA-Developers has appropriately torn into the new Mango Development SDK like a present on Christmas morning, and they've found quite a few juicy morsels we didn't know about yet. We're planning to go more in-depth with the emulator ourselves soon, but in the meantime just look at all of this stuff!