Windows Phone: new Mango SDK, Marketplace submissions, Tango news

Windows Phone developers—including webOS refugees—can now submit applications with Mango-specific enhancements and features for inclusion on Marketplace, the Windows Phone app store. Apps which make use of Mango's limited multitasking, richer device integration, networking and sensor capabilities should start populating the store in the next few weeks.

The Windows Phone SDK has also been updated, and the new version—7.1 Release Candidate—is required for application submissions. The final SDK is due at the end of September.

Those new Mango apps will join the 29,000-odd already published. TechCrunch reported that Marketplace had reached 30,000 apps, claiming to have received a statement from Microsoft that read "all 30,000 Windows Phone apps and game titles will run on Mango." The Microsoft blog post announcing that Marketplace was open for submissions claimed merely "nearly 30,000." Either way, it's a creditable performance for an underdog operating system.

The final version of Zune 4.8—betas of which were used to install the Mango prereleases—has been rolled out, in advance of the release of Mango. It includes faster phone backups, quicker updates, 48-hour movie rentals, and it extends the parental controls to include M-rated (mature) content. Microsoft has also produced a chart showing which Zune services are available where. Mango will make Windows Phone and its Marketplace much more widely available, but there are still plenty of gaps when it comes to the ability to purchase music and videos through Zune.

The exact release date of Mango still isn't known. September 1 is a popular rumor, with HTC planning an event for that date to launch some new handsets, but Microsoft remains tight-lipped. In spite of Mango still not being on the market, talk of a update to Mango, named Tango, is growing a little louder. According to We Love WP.hk, Microsoft described Tango at an MSDN seminar. The release is a minor one, aimed predominantly at emerging markets. Exactly what this entails for Mango is unclear; one possibility is that Tango will expand the operating system's hardware support, perhaps to include different screen resolutions or processors. The next major update had its name confirmed as Apollo.