Mango is due to ripen and start hitting Windows Phone 7 devices over the coming months. And it looks like we can count video calling amoung the hundreds of neat features that the update will bring.
Unveiled at Tech Ed in New Zealand by Microsoft and announced via a tweet from Windows Phone NZ, Mango phones with front-facing cameras will be able to make video calls, with hinted support for Skype in the pipeline.
Rumours of videocalling coming to WP7 were initially fuelled by the appearance of the Samsung
SGH-i937; a phone which looks like a Windowsed-up Galaxy S2 with a front-facing camera appearing to sit up on the top left.
In the video below, Microsoft say that the feature will be dependent on hardware, obviousl, so if your WP7 phone doesn’t have a front camera in it, then no dice. These early leaked shots of the Sea Ray don’t appear to show a front-facer, but the Nokia N9, widely thought to be a MeeGo version of the Sea Ray, does – curiously positioned on the bottom right of the phone.
So far this year we’ve seen Skype update its Android app, allowing more Android phones with front-facers to take part in videocalling fun. Earlier we also tried out Skype videocalling on an iPad 2 and an iPhone 4 and have trialled Skype videocalls between a Nexus S and an iPhone 4.
We’ve contacted both Microsoft and Skype for further info on this and are waiting to hear back.
Source: WPCentral, Neowin (video)
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