Software, Windows Phone 7 | featured news

As AT&T gets ready to launch a new wave of Windows Phones to the pubic, independent analysis of Microsoft's app store reveals more than 80,000 applications have been submitted.

The Windows Phone Marketplace continues to grow at a steady rate. In little over a year, the Marketplace now has over 40,000 published apps according to an estimate from All About Windows Phone. This number is not the total available to consumers, but the total number that has been submitted to the online store. An estimated 5,500 apps are no longer available to consumers because they were removed by Microsoft or the developer.

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth thinks Ubuntu Linux has a shot to be a contending operating system for future phones and tablets. It'll be a tough go -- Apple iOS and Google Android dominate the field now, with new Windows Phone 7 also making a play.

"Mango," the next major update to the Windows Phone mobile operating system, will include several notable enhancements for consumers, including turn-by-turn navigation, built-in barcode scanning, voice-to-text speech input, on-device podcast support and a music identification service similar to the popular mobile application Shazam, but available within Bing. Mango, also known as Windows Phone 7.5, is due out this fall.

AT&T demonstrated its support of Windows Phone 7 (WP7) at the software’s official launch on Oct. 11. The carrier will introduce four different WP7 phones before the end of the year, making it Microsoft’s chief launch partner in the U.S.

MS insists WP7 to have thousands of apps on launch on October 21, despite only having 80 ready now.

Microsoft on Monday unveiled the final version of its long-awaited Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system, which it hoped would give it a greater presence in the rapidly expanding market for smartphones.

Windows Phone 7 is inching closer to market. Microsoft has sent the operating system for its brand of mobile phones to the labs of carriers for testing, as well as to developers of applications for the phones, which are expected to reach the market in ...