Microsoft Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) Info. Leaked.

Windows Phone 8

Now it's a buzz all about Microsoft's next mobile OS "Windows Phone 8 (Apollo)". The rumors come from a leaked video featuring Joe Belfiore, a Microsoft senior vice president and manager of the Windows Phone project, and include a few obvious features as well as a particularly intriguing new initiative for Microsoft’s mobile phone division.

Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) will have multi-core processors, high screen resolution, removal storage through micro SD support and support for NFC radios. These steps on hardware change is taken to compete Android OS and iOS.

Data consumption seems to be another major component of Apollo. A feature called DataSmart will provide a breakdown of data usage, and will attempt to reduce consumption by giving Wi-Fi connections precedence and routing Internet Explorer web page requests through a proxy server for compression, which Belfiore claims could reduce data usage by 30%.

The most interesting detail from the leaked video is that Microsoft plans to unify Windows Phone 8 and the desktop version of Windows 8, going as far as to share a kernel, networking stacks, and security features such as BitLocker encryption. The goal of this unification is to allow developers to reuse large portions of their code between mobile and desktop versions of their software. Microsoft also intends to create a new, dedicated desktop application for syncing a WP8 device, dropping support for the Zune application and addressing a major complaint from users of the platform.

This move to unify the desktop and mobile versions of Windows could prove to be lucrative for Microsoft—if developers are able to easily port their apps to run on PCs, tablets and smartphones, they may flock to the Windows ecosystem to get the most exposure for their products. Since the Windows Phone ecosystem current trails Android and iOS in app selection by a factor of ten, this unification could boost WP device sales significantly.

Although Microsoft has traditionally lagged behind Apple and Google in the mobile phone sector, Windows Phone 8 may give the platform a much-needed advantage over its competition. We believe WP8 will be released sometime in mid-2012.