HTC, who yesterday announced three new Android handsets, hasn’t exactly shown Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system a lot of love. Now yes, the Radar 4G is a great little smartphone, and the upcoming Titan II looks to be a hell of a beast, but for every Windows Phone these guys pump out there seems to be four or five other models running Google’s OS. For those of you who were expecting to see a new Windows Phone last night … sorry, but don’t fret. According to Kouji Kodera, HTC’s Chief Product Officer, the little Taiwanese phone vendor that could is going to be shipping “a range” of Windows Phones when Microsoft ships the next version of the OS, which is commonly known as “Apollo”, but will likely end up being called Windows Phone 8. That’s all Kodera has to say right now, so we have no idea about branding, pricing, release dates, etc.
What we do know is that Apollo will come out at roughly the same time that Windows 8, the desktop version of Windows, comes out. So best case scenario you’re looking at an early Q4 (October) release date. Paul Thurrott from the SuperSite for Windows posted a Windows Phone Apollo preview earlier this month, and he says it’ll include features such as: dual core support, high screen resolution support, NFC support, app-to-app communication, Internet Explorer 10, and a totally revamped camera app.
The big question is of course how will HTC’s Windows Phones compare to Nokia’s Windows Phone. That’s something we can’t quite yet comment on, but Stephen Elop, Nokia’s CEO, certainly made a splash when he declared the Lumia 800 the “first real Windows Phone”, despite the fact that it shipped over a year after HTC’s first Windows Phones.
So are you looking forward to Windows Phone 8? We are, since we’re frankly a bit let down by what Mango, the current version of the OS, brings to the table. It’s clean and all that, but it’s woefully incomplete. And as for the apps, let’s not go there.