Microsoft: Windows Phone 7 operating system is done
Microsoft has released to manufacturing (RTM'd) the Windows Phone OS 7.0, company officials announced on September 1.
"While the final integration of Windows Phone 7 with our partners’ hardware, software, and networks is underway, the work of our internal engineering team is largely complete," blogged Terry Myerson, the Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Engineering.
One new feature Microsoft has added in the past couple of months is the option to filter your contacts based on their sources -- "e.g., you don’t have to see all of your Facebook contacts if you don’t want to," as my blogging colleague Matthew Miller noted.
Microsoft is expected to hold some kind of Windows Phone 7 launch event in October. Company officials have said the first wave of Windows Phone 7s will be available to customers in Europe in October and the U.S. in November of this year.
I asked Microsoft officials for comment as to whether they've moved to the Windows Embedded Compact 7 core before RTM'ing the new phone OS. (Last we heard, Microsoft was using the Windows Embedded Compact 6.0 R3 core in the first generation of Windows Phone 7 devices. No word back yet on that. I do know that Embedded Compact 7 still has not RTM'd (it's still on schedule to RTM in the fourth quarter of 2010, officials reconfirmed today).
Related Links:
A Billion to launch Windows Phone 7? I bet Microsoft is paying a lot more than that
Microsoft: Bring on the Windows Phone 7 Developers, Devlopers, Developers