14 DAY TRIAL // As Windows Phone 7 is nearing that fourth quarter market launch, more info on what it should be able to offer users emerges around the Internet. Along with a series of new details that were brought to light in the developer side of business, some info on the users side also made it into the wild, including the fact that the Mobile Internet Explorer browser that will be present on the upcoming devices will be upgradeable independently from the operating system itself.
The info on this feature of the mobile browser comes from the IE for Windows Phone Team Weblog (via WMExperts), where a user's comment (Tom Stack) which inquired about this possibility, “Will the browser in Windows [Phone] 7 get more updates more frequently than only with full firmware updates?,” received the following answer from the developers team: “Yes, we are building in the ability to update the browser independently of firmware.”
One thing that is certain is that this comes as great news for end users. The IE on Windows Phone 7 is reportedly based on IE7 and a little on IE8, and, although it is set to bring a nice range of novelties into the mix, it might seem to be a little behind competition. Desktop Windows users can already enjoy IE9, which is far more advanced than previous versions of the browser, and similar features might arrive on Windows Phone 7 devices too, in case the Mobile IE team remains committed to upgrade it independently of the OS.
On the other hand, Microsoft did say at a certain moment that it planned on changing the way in which software updates were delivered to the new Windows Phone 7 platform. Hopefully, these would offer the company far more flexibility when it comes to bringing new features into the equation, and users will have the opportunity to enjoy OS updates more often than those owning handsets powered by Windows Mobile did. As for Mobile IE, it has all the chances to become a competitive browser in case its development team decides to push more updates than before in its direction.