It's been just over a year since Nokia announced plans to make Windows Phone its primary smartphone OS. The Finnish company, once so determined to carved itself a piece of the smartphone pie with a proprietary OS, did an about face and adopted the Microsoft-owned OS last February. So far, we've seen a fistful of Nokia-brand Windows Phone 7 devices hit the market under the Lumia brand. Now it seems Nokia might be among the first to market with Windows Phone 8 phones.
Bloomberg cites a person with knowledge of the matter who says we may see Windows Phone 8 devices from Nokia in September. According to this source, Nokia plans to announce Windows Phone 8-based devices as early as next month at its Nokia World event. These phones would be scheduled for release in time for the holiday shopping season.
Nokia officials wouldn't confirm or deny the rumor when Bloomberg asked, preferring not to comment. However, if Nokia does decide to announce its new handets in September, it would be facing some pretty stiff competition. Apple is also rumored to be announcing a new phone next month. Nokia World is set to take place the first week of September, while the latest scuttlebutt has Apple's iPhone event pegged for September 12.
Microsoft gave us a sneak peek at Windows Phone 8, AKA Apollo, back in June. Windows Phone 8 will share a kernel, file system, media foundation, device drivers, and parts of the security model of Windows 8, and is due out in the fall. Packing support for multi-core processors, displays up to 1280x768, and external SD storage, Windows Phone 8 will bring Internet Explorer 10 to Windows Phone devices as well as in-app purchases, Nokia Maps, and improved enterprise features (including device management for administrators, Office apps, support for BitLocker encryption, and secure boot mode).
We'll keep you posted on Nokia's Windows Phone 8 plans, so stay tuned!
