Rumor: Mango Update for Developers Still On Its Way, Updates through Zune, Includes New Features

We missed this thanks to a screwed up timetable of ours, but yesterday Neowin originally reported that a Windows Phone Mango update for all developers would be available starting the next day (today). However, Microsoft's Brandon Watson shot down that rumor via his Twitter within a few hours claiming that "Press reviews of consumer features are only thing happening this week."

Now Neowin has returned with new information and still claims a developer update to Mango is on its way. A tipster from within Microsoft explains that the original rumor turned out to be false because of a last-minute issue with a "a faulty upgrade script" that would only update from within Microsoft, not any other developers worldwide. The tipster also included some info about how the process is going to happen for you folks at home:

"[The update process is a] Zune software update and an executable that makes some changes to the registry to get the Zune software to look at the right place for the pre-release updates. It's a series of two updates, just like Nodo."

According to the source, "the only guaranteed update path from this pre-Mango to the final Mango will be to revert back to the backup made by the pre-Mango update, since carrier-approved updates will only be made to carrier-stamped versions on the phone." This means that the update should be performed on a PC that you know you'll have access to in a few months time. Risky business.

Finally this informative informant has let loose some very interesting new features that are included in the Mango beta the press was given but was most likely under a non-disclosure agreement in order to stop anyone from spilling the beans. The camera application is said to have received a ton of features, the biggest being a touch-to-focus feature when taking photos so that the hardware camera button is no longer required. The second is a "phone lock delay" which (if you have the option on) will only lock your phone with a PIN once for every certain amount of minutes that you specify. That means that if you set it to 15 minutes, once you unlock your phone you can keep swiping it without entering the PIN each time and it will not relock until 15 minutes later. Plus any audio stuttering issues that were originally found in NoDo and pre-NoDo are a thing of the past with this Beta build, and developers are said to have more under-the-hood tweaks including "list controls now being populated and scroll in a separate thread", and all image loading in list based controls os automatically handled in the background."

So developers are you excited by the possibility of a Mango software update? What do you think about the risky nature of the update path from the Beta to the final build? Tell us in the comments!

Source: Neowin