My Top 5 Windows Phone Mango Features for Consumers

 Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) is a huge upgrade for Windows Phone users. There’s a crazy number of new features and it’s hard to pick just five. But let’s try, shall we?

Twitter Integration This is totally what I wanted from Twitter integration on Mango. I love being able to easily post photos from the camera directly to Twitter, update my status from the “Me” tile, and read tweets from single contacts or groups of contacts right on the front page. That tile flips over and I get to see what someone said. Just like we’ve been able to do with Facebook. I initially had some issues linking Twitter contacts, but I wrote about how to link them up so that should make it easier.

Live Tiles Live tiles prior to Mango were possible, but implementation by developers was weak and inconsistent. With Mango, developers have been given some significant powers to make their tiles awesome and engaging. I really hope that developers take advantage of this feature and drop some cool stuff in there. Not just the primary tile. I want to see secondary tiles with deep links. C’mon!

Voice Text Messaging I experienced this feature the first time while driving in the car and it was a total surprise. I received a text message and suddenly the phone started reading the message to me! Then it asked me if I wanted to reply! I said sure, spoke my message out loud, and there it was on the phone. A little back and forth without having to touch the phone. Totally seamless and natural. Killer. Works while connected to bluetooth.

Camera Touch to Snap Any random with an iPhone knows how to focus the camera by touching anywhere on the screen. But what they can’t do is take the picture at the same time. Mango can. Not only can you focus on a particular part of the screen by touching it, but the camera will take the shot at the same time. Then, uploading to Twitter is just a couple taps away.

Linked Inbox I enabled this feature immediately for my Exchange account and a Gmail account. In general, I’m not a fan of linked inboxes; I tend to keep them separated to keep my sanity. But I’ve actually never turned off the linked inboxes. It’s really easy to add a new one and the single email count on the lock screen is awesome. Sending new messages is just as easy.

So there’s five. Maybe we’ll do another five some other time as there’s just so much to talk about.