Microsoft quietly sneaks Windows Phone ‘Tango’ update without naming it

In the lead up to the Mobile World Congress, there were rumblings about a minor update for Windows Phone which would enhance support for low end smartphones called ‘Tango’. Yesterday, with the launch of the Nokia Lumia 610, Microsoft did exactly that, however with a small caveat – there was no word on the ‘Tango’ branding. As expected, the unnamed updated lowered the minimum requirements for Windows Phone hardware with Microsoft adding support for 256MB of RAM and Qualcomm’s 7X27’s 800MHz low-cost SoC. Besides this, the update brings enhanced support for MMS as now the OS will handle videos and multiple images. With this update, Microsoft has also added a new voice based note taking app.
With the lowered system requirements, it has been suggested that the apps support on Windows Phone could get fragmented, but Microsoft claims it has done a lot of work to optimize the software experience for the lower spec and 95 percent of the 65,000 apps in the Windows Marketplace will be compatible. Microsoft is saying that for the 5 percent incompatible apps, it will offer developers the option to optimize their apps for the lower hardware spec. There have been rumors suggesting the Tango update is being released in two separate releases, though Microsoft is not revealing anything.

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