Windows Phone 8 Details Leak: More Choice, Windows 8 Integration, and Better Applications

Windows Phone 8 is on the horizon, slated for a 2012 release under the codename ‘Apollo.’ Today, plenty of Windows Phone 8 features were revealed through a videocast from Senior Vice President, Joe Belfiore. The upcoming operating system release will include more hardware choices for consumers, additional Windows PC integration, native code support for applications, data usage tracking, and enterprise-style encryption. Of course, there will be more changes and additions as we move through 2012. But, this is a pretty ambitious list with lots of great modifications that should help win over unsure smartphone buyers.

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Windows Phone 7 hardware has been pretty limited with all phones relegated to single-core Qualcomm processors. Plus, there’s a screen resolution standard set at 800 x 480. According to the video, Windows Phone 8 Apollo will add support for multi-core processors as well as new, higher screen resolutions.

NFC technology will also play an important role in the Apollo ecosystem, with contactless payments supported by carrier control. We’ll likely see some version of Isis on these devices. Content sharing and more are all on-board as well.

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Microsoft will be ditching the Zune client interface for an upgraded version of ActiveSync to go along with device management in Windows 8. We’ve already seen screenshots indicating calling integration within Windows 8, but now we can confirm that some of these features are coming to the Apollo ecosystem.

Kernel sharing between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 will allow developers to reuse a lot of their code between desktop applications and mobile applications. This could be a huge “win” for Microsoft— getting more desktop developers to come to Windows Phone’s Marketplace would be quite an achievement.

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Windows Phone 8 Apollo will include inter-application communication, an updated Skype video calling application that integrates directly with the telephone experience, and new camera-centered applications based on a singular base from Microsoft.

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DataSmart is a new feature slated for Apollo that copies some of the unique features from Android 4.0′s data management area in the settings. Users will be able to see their data usage, and use power profiles to lessen usage across the operating system.

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The version of IE10 that ships on mobile phones will use a smart-caching proxy server like Opera or Amazon Silk to reduce page load speeds. In addition, more HTML 5 features and better performance are rumored.

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BitLocker encryption appears to also be coming to the mobile platform, allowing enterprise users to encrypt all of their mobile phone data using 128-bit keys.