Two years ago, Microsoft and their OEM partners began to sell phones loaded with the Windows Phone 7 OS. Later this month, Microsoft will essentially be retiring that version of their smartphone OS and launch Windows Phone 8 - what they hope will finally unify desktops, tablets, and smartphones to drive adoption rates. 

By the end of the year, we’ll all see if Microsofts’ efforts are enough to push them back into the smartphone race. 

Get your wallets ready for October 21st. You will likely be able to pre-order devices from Microsoft and AT&T (maybe other carriers too). Devices will likely be shipped and available for purchase in store come early November.

Windows Phones have only been sold by AT&T and T-Mobile. All of that will change soon with the addition of Verizon and Sprint. This is necessary if Microsoft wants their products to be used by many more consumers.

On a related note, it seems that the folks at Nokia are saying their amazing imaging technology, PureView, will be included in future Lumia devices. Although many people clearly don’t care about how large their phones are anymore, it would be nice to have a camera in my pocket that can take incredible photos and is [much] thinner than an inch. 

Basically, anyone with a current and recent Windows Phone will be able to customize their home screen with version 7.8. Not much else. Hopefully developers will be able to develop some apps that work seamlessly for both operating systems and hardware specifications. 

Just look at all those live tiles…

In related news, no existing Windows Phone handsets will be upgradable (officially) to Windows Phone 8. They’ll be stuck with Windows Phone 7.8 instead. 

Skype is out of beta for Windows Phone users. It’s about time considering MSFT bought Skype ages ago. Now if only WP had a decent chat client for other services…

The one and only Windows Phone on Big Red finally gets an important software update that improves the user experience and performance. Most notably, it fixes the issue of the randomly disappearing keyboard. If you’ve got a Trophy, hook it up to your Zune or Windows Phone Connector software to get the update. 

Finally…Rovio is bringing the ever so popular and addicting game to the Windows Phone platform. 

Previously only available in Chinese, UC Browser has updated their app with support for English. Hopefully this starts the trend of alternative browsers to IE for Windows Phone. 

Looks like there’s a bit of a delay when it comes to the release of Nokia’s newest flagship Windows Phone. 

This maybe the first actual premium Windows Phone to hit the market that competes with devices running other operating systems. Did I mention they’re going to sell it for $99 on contract? 

Nokia recently announced their low-end and affordable Windows Phone called the Lumia 610. This phone will only have 256mb of ram. First and current generation WP devices have 512mb of ram. Somehow, and much to their credit, Microsoft managed to get the next WP OS to run [smoothly] on just 256mb of ram. 

However, more and more details are emerging about the limitations of devices running Tango with only 256mb. 

Things missing include: video podcasts, Bing local scout, fast app switching, automatic photo uploading, HD video playback (with certain codecs) and background agents. That’s a pretty long list, but if it means the device will run smoothly, people who want a basic smartphone that works and works well will love it. Not to mention I don’t really care about most of those features on my phone anyways. 

I just want to emphasize that Windows Phone is not for everyone and certainly some of the entry level devices will not make any power use happy.

As exciting as it is to hear that Windows Phone 7.5 Tango is coming soon, I’m not sure what MSFT and the OEMs expect to achieve by selling handsets at unreasonably high prices for a still weak ecosystem and arguably new operating system. 

From Mango to Tango. The next version of WP 7.5 should be coming out this April. Information from The Verge basically tells us that it’s minor improvements with some added functionality to MMS and speed optimizations. Props to MSFT for getting this OS to run (smoothly?) on devices with only 256mb ram. Hopefully this means better multi-tasking and battery life, with maybe even a bump in overall speediness - not that WP 7.5 Mango is slow.

Just about every OEM has been very quiet about Windows Phones at this years Mobile World Congress in Spain. As you might have guessed, Nokia is the only handset manufacturer that is really pushing the OS. I think after MSFT invested time and money into Nokia, other OEMs have not been happy.

Luckily, it seems that HTC will be releasing one or more handsets this year after MSFT releases it’s next major OS update “Apollo”. Though most of us WP owners are still waiting for the Tango update, which is supposed to be released in April of this year.