Windows Phone Mango Now RTM

The availability of a new waves of mobile phones running under Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system is nearing fast, and the fact that the next version of the operating system, Mango, has just been released to manufacturing is a proof of that.

Handsets powered by the new Windows Phone Mango operating system should arrive on the market sometime this fall, from manufacturers like Acer, HTC, LG, Samsung, and Nokia, among others.

“Earlier this morning, the Windows Phone development team officially signed off on the release to manufacturing (RTM) build of “Mango” – the latest version of the Windows Phone operating system,” Microsoft's Terry Myerson notes in a blog post.

“This marks the point in the development process where we hand code to our handset and mobile operator partners to optimize Mango for their specific phone and network configurations.”

The RTM build of Mango, Microsoft will be gearing up for the release of this update to existing Windows Phone devices, something that should happen this fall as well.

The new update should provide users of Windows Phone devices with hundreds of new features, aimed at offering them a new approach to communications and apps, as well as a great web experience.

Some of the main features that the new OS flavor comes with would include:

- a new email Conversation View which helps users to efficiently participate in long email discussions with friends and co-workers.

- threads that bring together text, IM, and Facebook chat all into one conversation.

- App Multitasking, enabling users to efficiently work on their email, listen to music, and play games simultaneously on their devices. Mango also connects apps to search results and deepens integration within the Hubs like Music and Video and Pictures.

- Internet Explorer 9 for fast web browsing and support for new HTML 5 web sites.

All of these, and many other more features will soon become available for both existing Windows Phone devices, as well as for new handsets, which will come this fall with Mango right from the start.