20 Essential Tips and Tricks for Windows Phone 7.5 Mango

Posted 10/20/2011 at 11:38am | by Tim Ferrill

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Windows Phone 7 is one of our favorite mobile platforms, and the Mango update brings some core functionality that was missing in the original release. With all of the new features and tools, there is a minor learning curve, but this list of tips will get you using Mango like a pro in no time. We’ll go through many of the individual apps and utilities that you are familiar with in Windows Phone 7, and show you the new enhancements that can make your life easier.

Bing

Local Scout

Bing really comes into its own as a key part of the Windows Phone platform in Mango, and Local Scout takes center stage. Local Scout makes it easy to discover restaurants, events, and attractions based on your phone’s location data. Using Bing's resources, Local Scout can provide you with contact information, reviews, directions, or a link to associated websites.

Music

Most of us have experienced the situation where you hear something on the radio and want to know more about the song or artist. Windows Phone Mango now offers Music search within the Bing app. Simply press the Music button, and your phone starts listening to the song, and attempts to find a match. When a match is found, Bing provides album art, song title, and a link to the Zune Marketplace.

Vision

You know those scanning phone apps that capture a barcode or QR codes and give you link results? Barcodes only scratch the surface of what Bing Vision provides. Vision allows you to capture an image using the phone’s camera, attempts to recognize any text in the image, and then gives you the ability to search or translate the text. Vision will also search based on the image itself. For example, capturing the cover of a book launches a search for that book and a price comparison between sellers.

App Links

Bing not only gives you more ways to search using your phone, but also more ways to use those search results. When using any of its search methods, Bing gives you a normal result set, but it also hips you to available apps that can give you even more details, whether those apps are installed on your device or not. As a good example, a classic Bing search for a movie will give you ratings and show times. But with the new App Links, you also get a list of apps such as IMDB, Fandango, and Flixster. The App Link will allow you to navigate directly to the details for your search result within the app itself.

Navigation

Windows Phone already provided turn-by-turn navigation on Windows Phone 7, but it was less than optimal. With Mango, navigation receives a huge upgrade, including directions with voice prompts. Bing provides you with both a Map and step-by-step directions with large fonts and arrows indicating which direction to turn. If you want an update on how far you are from your next turn, just tap the map, and Bing will give you a spoken update.

People

Groups

Many smart phone owners have scores of contacts or, as Windows Phone refers to them, People. Managing your People can sometimes be a hassle, and trying to send an email or text to a specific group of people can outright suck. People Groups in Windows Phone Mango let you combine multiple contacts into a smaller set. Once you have a Group created, you can easily pin it to your start screen, providing quick access to send an email or SMS message to the entire Group.

Contact History

Have you ever started a conversation using SMS and then continued it using Email? The History section of a contact will let you see your communication history with each person. SMS and email messages are listed, as well as a phone call history. You can quickly jump to the details of each message with a single tap.

What’s New Account Filter

In addition to Facebook integration, Mango adds the ability to connect to Twitter and LinkedIn. With the sheer number of contacts we deal with in our social networks, the What’s New area of the People Hub can be a never-ending blur of status updates and wall posts. People Groups can help you narrow your updates to specific lists of people, but What’s New will also allow you to only view updates from specific social networks. Tapping the What’s New text at the top of the screen lets you choose which networks will show updates.

Messaging

Chat

Microsoft has taken Facebook integration to a new level in Mango, starting with integrated support for Facebook Chat. You enable Facebook Chat under Messaging Settings and will have to link your Facebook account with your Windows Live ID. Once configured, you can set your status and view online friends using the Messaging app. Chat also supports Windows Live Messenger accounts.

Speech

Voice support in Windows Phone takes a big step forward with Mango. When in a message thread you have the option to dictate a message using the Speak button instead of typing it. Windows Phone will also read incoming text messages aloud, which is particularly useful while driving. You can change how and when text messages are read aloud in the Speech Settings.

Productivity

SkyDrive Integration with Office Hub

SkyDrive performs so many roles in Mango, but none more useful than the integration with the Office Hub. Previously in Windows Phone you could synchronize your OneNote documents to your SkyDrive account, while other document types (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) could only be saved to a SharePoint Server. Mango provides the ability to save any document type to your SkyDrive account, where you can view, edit, download, or share your document. Our money says any additional integration with Microsoft's existing cloud features is a step in the right direction.

Linked Inboxes

“Unified Inbox” is an antiquated notion. Instead of forcing you to choose between using a single Inbox for all your email or leaving them all separate, Windows Phone Mango allows you to pick and choose which mail boxes should be grouped together. Simply choose “Link Inboxes” from the menu within a mail box, and Mango will ask you to select which boxes to link together. Changed your mind? Mango also allows you to gracefully remove the link.