Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has gone on record to claim the first Nokia phone to run Windows Mango will be available during the last quarter of this year.
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| A sneak peak of Nokia’s Windows 7 phone |
Elop’s visit to China was in part to negotiate the launch of the new device, although he concealed some of the finer details.
Nokia’s fingerprints will be evident on the phone’s software said Elop, with navigation, mapping and entertainment handled by Nokia and not the native versions found on WP7.
Although Windows rival Android is commonly tweaked to accommodate manufacturer individuality, Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS is distinguished by a much more closed environment, resulting in fewer tweaks to the operating system. Ironically, Microsoft program their phone OS in a fashion similar to how Apple work on its iPhone.
The first Nokia phone has been codenamed Sea Ray, and is believed to resemble Nokia’s recently released MeeGo N9. Unlike HTC, who has been adopting Windows since the OS needed a stylus, Nokia have skipped the first Windows 7 version and jumped straight onto its updated successor, Mango.
Australia sits low on the priority list of release dates, crippled by our small population and logistic obstacles. The reality could very well be Australia won’t get to fondle a Nokia-Windows collaboration until the first quarter of 2012.
On the plus side, Australian carriers Telstra, Optus and Vodafone have confirmed the Mango update has passed internal testing and will be distributed as an update when Microsoft gives the okay.
