Microsoft is apologizing today for yet another delay of updates. But wait! Updates are coming for real this time… You just have to be extra patient for the end of the year…Actually more like late fall 2011 but the updates do look really nice. Microsoft said during a developer conference today in Las Vegas that a round of updates had been circling Windows Phone 7 users earlier this year but had been abruptly stopped due to errors and malfunctions that they were causing to most devices. I refer to that  partially here in an article I wrote back in early March. In the article, I mention a couple of things that Microsoft needs to do this year in order to stay in the game and compete with other OS such as iOS and Android. It seems that Microsoft has heard all of our prayers.

At the same developer conference today, Microsoft unveiled a new version of the wp7 software codenamed: Mango. Mango will be more like the best tool ever for developers and will make it easier for developers to create apps for Microsoft’s Marketplace which now holds a whopping 13,000 apps. Microsoft said that earlier this year their Marketplace was the fastest to get 10,000 apps in the amount of time that it did- that’s faster than Apple’s App Store and Android’s Market. That is actually quite impressive.

A few more things that Microsoft hopes to bring in an ultimate update this fall are:

• MULTITASKING- YUM! This will make for applications that are able to run in the background and faster application switching.
• NEW CAMERA TOOLS FOR DEVELOPERS- This will make it easy for developers to implement the camera in creating apps.
• COPY & PASTE- Obviously, if you don’t already have it with NoDo.
• INTERNET EXPLORER 9- Sounds sexy.
• A PLETHORA OF APPS- including the highly anticipated Angry Birds, Skype (I predict a front facing camera in the near future!), Spotify, Amazon Shopping, to name a few.
• AN UPCOMING DEVELOPER KIT FOR KINECT- Imagine the possibilities!

So I eagerly await all Microsoft has to offer this year. And this developer conference sure has made me a happy panda.