"As for why none of the Windows Phone models have either dual-core processors or support for faster LTE networks, Lees said that both are coming. On the dual-core front, he said that the current crop of Windows Phones should hold up well even against dual-core Android models.

“'They’re all single core, but I suspect that they will be faster in usage than any dual-core phone that you put against it, and that’s the point,' Lees told AllThingsD in an interview last week. But, he insisted, Microsoft isn’t opposed to dual-core chips, but wanted to wait until the software was more ready to take advantage of multiple cores."

Microsoft is getting smarter and smarter, and not feeling the need to get partners to compete immediately on hardware specifications is just part of that.

"Microsoft’s huge presence at the event indicates a significant announcement. Nokia is expected to unveil its first Windows Phone device at Nokia World and Microsoft appears to be waiting in the wings with its best personnel to ensure Nokia’s audience is well informed of the Windows Phone benefits."<br />
<br />
That's going to make it a very different atmosphere from last year's Nokia World, where the company had just ejected its chief executive and was busy seeing members of the board hit ejector seats. <br />
<br />
Oh, and who mentioned that the first Windows Phones wouldn't appear from Nokia until October? We did.

"Justin Angel, a former Microsoft employee who worked on Silverlight, has posted his analysis of the 24,505 apps he found in the Windows Phone 7 marketplace, exploiting a loophole that lets you get the download links. A few highlights:<br />
"• 97% of the apps are not obfuscated, meaning that it is trivial (with easily available tools) to decompile the source.<br />
"• 90% are Silverlight vs 10% XNA. This is not so much an indicator of the popularity of the two frameworks, but more an indicator of how many apps are graphic-rich games rather than some other kind of utility. Of course if you are making a very simple app, Silverlight is easier than XNA, so that may be a factor too.<br />
<br />
"• 99% are C# vs 1% Visual Basic and a smattering of F#. A fascinating stat that makes me wonder what is the future of Visual Basic."<br />
<br />
Far better than the Silverlight-addled post, which forces its own UI on your browser. Jings.

"Microsoft has gone out of its way to build an awesome experience for the phone with Windows Phone 7. But the one experience they can't control is what happens when you walk into a retail store to buy one. And it's too bad, because the retail experience, as handle by carriers and their affiliates, is an abomination. It's pretty hard to try out a new device experience when the device is either broken, dead, or a plastic shell with a sticker for a home screen. Or when the response to 'Can I see a Windows Phone?' is met with 'Have you seen the AMOLED screen on the Samsung Charge?'"<br />
<br />
Interesting experiment.

Sara Yin: "I did some mystery shopping of my own at retail stores around Manhattan, inquiring about various WP7 devices."<br />
<br />
It didn't go well. The retailers/carriers seem a lot less keen on it than she was.

Before you sneer, read it.

"With most Windows Phone 7 sales in USA a total of 674,000 is certainly possible, and would represent around a multiple of 3 of the around 200,000 Facebook App users at the end of last year. If that same multiple still applies then there are around 1.5 to 2 million Windows Phone 7 users at the moment. This would represent a launch spike followed by around 10,000 activations per day."

Paul Thurrott is unimpressed: "So it’s May 1 today, or about five months after Microsoft completed development of NoDo. And yet we’re still seeing issues getting this very simple and non-essential update out to particular phone models. (Remember: Microsoft told reviewers in early October 2010 that it would be “shipping a compelling update very, very soon.”) This suggests to me that while Microsoft’s plan to require handset makers to closely follow a single hardware spec (originally two hardware specs; the second was quietly dropped with nary a public comment) was a good one, it hasn’t actually panned out yet in the real world. And that’s a shame, because the point of this tightly controlled spec was to prevent exactly this kind of problem.<br />
"The fault, of course, lies entirely with Microsoft."

Windows Phone's licence sales are simply not mentioned. At all. And the answers to analysts are vague in the extreme. Interesting fact: the consumer PC market declined 8%, including a 40% decline in netbooks - Microsoft's calculation.

"It's another item on our wish-list for that Mango Windows Phone 7 update, the ability to connect to hidden WiFi networks, has been solved by phone-maker HTC, who have released a custom app exclusively for HTC phone users.<br />
"They'll then be able to enter the names of up to 3 hidden WiFi networks, and connect to them. Hidden WiFi networks do not appear on devices when you search for nearby networks, and is generally thought of as being more secure, as you need to know both the password and network name.<br />
"The lack of hidden WiFi is an eye-rolling blunder from the burgeoning smartphone brand- most businesses 'cloak' their wireless network."<br />
<br />
Eye-rolling blunder? Harsh. Though possibly fair.

The next version, codenamed Mango, is going to add multitasking for third-party apps. And apparently fast HTML5: in a demo, it outpaced a Google Nexus S and an iPhone 4 by a handy margin.<br />
<br />
And at some point it will also release a Windows SDK for the Kinect.<br />
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No dates on either. Guess on October for Mango and some time in June for Kinect SDK.

Remember Apple's "wall of apps" at its developer conference in 2009, where each app lit up when it was bought?<br />
<br />
This is like that, but underwhelming. Smaller; doesn't light up; just looks like a poor imitation. Though "Danny" who pointed this out in the comments wasn't very popular.