Windows Phone 7.5 Mango hardware is bringing with it front-facing cameras to the platform, and you can't very well have those without needing a video-chat app. Since hearing about HTC's Titan and Radar, we've known that Tango (the multi-platform video chat company, not the most-Mango update) software would be coming to Windows Phone. Now Microsoft has put together a video to show us what we can expect from video calls with Tango.
Microsoft's Aaron Woodman demos the app with the HTC Titan, showing how calls are set up and giving us some early indication of video quality. While the audio's a bit hard to make out, video looks relatively crisp and clear, just like we'd expect it to, but there are some noticeable lag problems.
Tango's currently available for Android and iOS, and is coming soon to PCs and (obviously) Windows Phone.
We've seen the Samsung Illusion for Verizon together with the Pantech Breakout LTE whenrenders of the two phones headed to Big Red surfaced on the internet. It now appears that Samsung itself has published an official press render of the Illusion phone, ahead of any other official announcement.
We're expecting the Illusion to land around the end of month but the specs aren't certain. Still, expect to see entry-level-like specs on the SCH-i110, like an 800MHz or even a 1GHz processor, HVGA resolution screen, and a three, maybe five-megapixel camera. Android 2.3 Gingerbread could be a nice addition and you can see Samsung's own TouchWiz user interface running on top of the Google platform.
Looking at the video below you'll see CyanogenMod 7 boot without a drop of sweat on the Droid Bionic. Work is in progress and there are many bugs plus plenty of things not working yet (like radio, charging, battery, graphics are a bit off, camera, audio and so on). On the bright side, touchscreen, accelerometer and adb are working and with the community hard at work, expect to see a fully working version for the Bionic soon.
Hidden within the Webtop software for the new Motorola Bionic lies a bit of code that contains a list of Motorola hardware with Webtop compatibility. It uses device code names instead of their retail monikers, but it doesn't take much time to figure out that the Olympus, Sunfire, and Targa (in case you've forgotten) are the Atrix, Photon, and Bionic. Beyond those phones though, there are two other entries in the list that could be tipping us off to the existence of additional Webtop-compatible Motorola Androids.
First off in the list, right after the Olympus, is "Common". This is all speculation at this point, but there's talk that Common is just a placeholder or an entry referring to any Webtop-using smartphone. That definitely makes sense, but just makes us all the more aware of how surreal some phone names are getting – even the Motorola Default or Motorola Placeholder might give us a few moment's pause before realizing the intent behind them.
The other new name is one that really sounds like an actual handset: the Motorola Edison. The name itself doesn't evoke that of any Motorola Android we're familiar with (like Sunfire and Photon are sort-of related), so it could any of several Motorolas on the horizon: the Atrix-refresh for AT&T LTE, maybe even the Droid RAZR that just crossed our path?
Watch this week's Windows Phone View as we wrap up all this week's good and bad inside the world of Microsoft's Windows Phone platform. In today's show we go through all the recent rumors of Windows Phone Mango being launched in Taiwan on September 15th, and also of the probable launch of the HTC Radar on October 1st. We talk about the Windows Phone Fall line-up that AT&T just announced, and our thoughts on each Mango device mentioned. We also cover the recent good news about HTC porting their Attentive Phonefeature to their future Mango handsets, Microsoft's recent rumors on free enhancements to Skydrive, and to end the Good section, we cover the recent rumors on how Windows 8 will interact with Windows Phone 7 and beyond.
In the Bad section, we go through all the recent rumors of Samsung dropping Windows Phone 7 if Mango doesn't prove to be a top seller.
