Recently there have been some rumours about Windows Phone Tango and how it will be a new version of Windows Phone for lower phones with 256mb ram (see http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/as-more-windows-phone-tango-info-leaks-questions-resurface/11907 ). This reminded me of a MIX11 session back in April 2011 by Jeff Wilcox where he said that

90mb is the magic number

for application memory usage. It would seem that Microsoft has been trying to prep the Windows Phone eco system to use less RAM in their apps presumably to allow them to run on Tango devices. Obviously this is to help avoid the issue of not being able to run them as shown in some of these leaked screen shots Tango OS.

Image Source http://wp7forum.ru/utechka-chto-novenkogo-v-windows-phone-7-tango/

Jump to 19m 25sec on the video where he talks about memory requirements.

Note: Jeff Wilcox is the author of the very popular 4th & Mayor app has just moved from the Windows Phone to the Windows Azure team at Microsoft

Source http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/MIX/MIX11/DVC01

A tweet from the Microsoft Australia twitter account @msau has just confirmed that Lync client will be out on all major mobile phone platforms within the next 4 weeks.

Source https://twitter.com/#!/MSAU/status/139169075128573952

The people at WPCentral have posted an article Force Mango update early through Zune software and avoid frostbite . This process seems to work as advertised thus enabling the 90% of people still with out Mango to upgrade at their leisure.

Below are the steps from WPCentral to force the update:

AGAIN… AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

1. Click on Phone > Settings > Update. Allow the software to tell you whether an update is available. If so, skip this guide. If not continue to the next step.
2. Click another button (any of the options above or below the word Update). Then click the Update button again, and this time disconnect your computer from the internet after 1-2 seconds. Do this by pulling out the Ethernet cable, disabling Wi-Fi, etc. If it says your phone is already up to date, you didn’t disconnect quickly enough and need to try this step again. This happend the first time for me.
3. Wait 30 seconds or so and Zune should display a notification that an update is available. This is 7392, the first Mango pre-update.
4. Now reconnect to the internet and continue with the update process through the Zune software.

All things going well the update process should now automatically do the rest…

The Microsoft Where’s my phone update? page for International Markets has now been updated to state that the Windows Phone 7.5 (a.k.a. Mango) update is now being delivered to Telstra customers.

This is despite the fact that the update is still not available for both the HTC HD7 and the HDC Mozart phones. Hopefully as a premium launch carrier of Windows Phone Telstra will be getting the update sooner than most carriers… time will tell.

Update: You can force the update for you phone by following these instructions. WPCentral: Force Mango update early through Zune software and avoid frostbite

At last Windows Phone Mango has been released to the public as last night Australia time Joe Belfiore tweeted:

However in the blog post that he links to Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” update begins says.

Today we’re starting the roll out of Windows Phone 7.5 to more than 98 percent of existing Windows Phone customers.

but also says…

make the update available to most existing customers within 4 weeks.

So Windows Phone Mango is here… however not everyone will get it for another 4 weeks. Here is hoping that Telstra as a premium launch carrier gets the phone update sooner rather than later.

Microsoft has jumped the gun an published Windows Phone Mango How-To support page clearly stating that Windows Phone Mango update “It’s Here!”…

However as of 8:40pm AEST in Australia the HTC HD7 still does not have the option to update to the latest firmware…

This is still a very clear sign that Microsoft is very close at releasing the Mango update to Windows Phone’s all around the world.

The web based version of the Windows Phone has now gone live at http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/marketplace . This is a web based version of the app store that allows anyone with or without Zune software installed to peruse the app store to see the now 20,000+ apps available to Windows Phone users.

In what will probably be a quick succession of key milestones before Windows Phone mango is pushed out to users Microsoft have updated the International Release Schedule.

As you can see below both Telstra and Optus updates are now said to be “Scheduling” which means we will probably see the update happening REALLY SOON (I hope).

In case you have not already heard here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here or here there is good news on the status of the Mango update for Windows Phone. Microsoft has just blogged that they can expect that Windows Phone device will have mango delivered to them “in the next week or two”. This come soon after Telstra announced they had finished testing the operating system at which stage it handed responsibility back to Microsoft to deploy.

Source Where’s Mango? An update on timing

This Windows Phone YouTube Channel has just published a full 15 minute walk thought of Windows Phone Mango. This is a very consumer orientated video and does not show any features that have already been announced.