Whoa, Nellie! The guys at Pocketnow have just scored a ton of information regarding the future of Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system. Apparently they obtained a video where Joe Belfiore, Vice President of Windows Phone at Microsoft, goes through several of the new features that will be in Windows Phone Apollo, which at this point is all but confirmed as being called Windows Phone 8. This video was meant for Nokia’s partners, but it obviously escaped into the wrong hands. Here’s the condensed version of what’s in there: Apollo will support “multicore processors”, which we’ll take to mean dual core initially and quad core eventually. It’ll also supports four different screen resolutions, though Joe doesn’t go into specifics. We know 800 x 480 is one, 1280 x 720 is likely to be another; anyone want to hazard a guess as to the other two? We’re thinking 480 x 320 and 960 x 540. Support for microSD cards is also added, along with NFC support. The latter will work either via NFC built inside a smartphone or via NFC enabled SIM cards.
Regarding the heart of Windows Phone 8, there will be “heavy overlap” with “the kernel, networking stacks, security, and multimedia” aspects of the desktop version of Windows 8. Developers will be able to “reuse — by far — most of their code” from a Windows application when writing a Windows Phone 8 application. This confirms a report we filed last week.
Zune Desktop will get the axe, it’s going to get replaced by something more lightweight. Apps will also get a new ability to talk to each other, though details weren’t specified. As for Internet Explorer 10, it’s going to get a proxy feature similar to what Opera’s been doing for ages with Opera Mini and what Amazon is doing with Silk. This will help reduce data consumption. Speaking about data consumption, a new application will be bundled with Windows Phone 8 that will track data usage.
So is any of this real? Something tells us that yes, indeed it is, and that this leak is happening now because Microsoft will announce all of this stuff at Mobile World Congress later this month. It’s the only possible explanation. Why else would Joe make this video if he didn’t plan on talking about the operating system soon after he finished filming?
Update: Paul Thurrott from the SuperSite for Windows confirmed the news.