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Windows Phone 7 reaches major RTM milestone

Microsoft just announced that Windows Phone 7 has now reached the RTM milestone and is moving quickly towards retail availability this holiday season.
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer

As you know I had the chance to spend a couple of weeks with Windows Phone 7 and already have my cash set aside to buy a T-Mobile Windows Phone 7 device as soon as one is available. That may be coming soon now that we hear that Windows Phone 7 has been released to manufacturing (RTM). The RTM is a big step for Microsoft and now the OS is in the final steps with their partners' hardware, software, and networks. Their holiday 2010 availability goal looks to be on target with some rumors stating we could see devices in late September or October.

As Terry states in the blog post, Windows Phone 7 is their most tested mobile platform and as I can confirm it was rock solid in the Technical Preview stage. A couple new features we now see added are:

  • 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).
  • The ability to "like" Facebook posts from the People Hub and the ability to quickly post a message to a Facebook wall.

It is great to see that Microsoft listened to feedback about Facebook contacts littering the device and pretty amazing that they were able to take action to improve this experience so quickly. My enthusiasm and hope for the platform increases when I see responses like this and I look forward to getting my hands on a release device.

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