Windows Phone "Tango" to be renamed to Windows Phone 7.5 “Refresh” and Windows Phone 8 for the future

Microsoft’s announced upcoming Windows Phone OS code named as Windows Phone “Tango” to be renamed to Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh. This is inline with Microsoft’s cloud feature specific Windows Phone OS called as Windows Phone “Apollo” or Windows Phone 8.

Windows Phone 7 “Tango” a.k.a Windows Phone 7.5 REFRESH

The upcoming Windows Phone update will be officially referred to as the Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh. Tango will be a minor update, planned to be released in April 2012/May 2012. It will enable Windows Phone to run on low-cost devices with 256 MB RAM and low clock CPU.

Windows Phone "Apollo" a.k.a Windows Phone 8

Apollo is the codename for the next generation of Windows Phone, as officially confirmed by MS at an MSDN seminar in August 2011. This update is also confirmed by Nokia and HTC.

Windows Phone “Apollo” to be termed as “Windows Phone 8”, which is built upon NT Kernel (prior version of Windows Phone are built on CE Kernel). This makes Windows Phone 8 much closer to Windows 8 with cloud integration, multi-core support, external micros SD support, different resolutions etc.

The expected release date for this update is in Q4 2012. ( as per Wikipedia)

List of features coming in Apollo, not yet confirmed by Microsoft, unless otherwise stated: [taken from Wikipedia]

• Support for multi-cores (confirmed by Nokia)
• Support for different resolutions
• NFC support added, including payment and content sharing with WP8 and Windows 8 machines (confirmed by MS (but NFC is partially supported in Tango update, e.g. ZTE Orbit))
• Carrier control and branding of "wallet" element is possible via SIM or phone hardware
• Transitions to core components from desktop, including kernel, network stack, security components, and media support
• Simplified porting of desktop apps to mobile
• Zune desktop integration scrapped in favor of new, unnamed syncing app
• Deeper Skydrive integration, including ability to sync data such as music collections (confirmed by MS as part of Live wave 5 update)
• Xbox Companion app will get Windows 8 partner client
• Native code support, simplified porting from Android and iOS
• App-to-app communication and integration
• Skype client with deep OS hooks that will make it almost identical to placing standard voice calls (confirmed by MS)
• Camera app now supports "lenses", which allow third parties to skin and add features to camera interface (confirmed by MS)
• DataSmart tracks and reports usage via app and live tile
• Gives preferential treatment to WiFi, can automatically connect to carrier-owned hotspots
• Proxy server will compress websites in Internet Explorer 10 up to 30 percent (IE10 is confirmed by MS)
• Native 128-bit Bitlocker encryption
• Support for proprietary, custom built apps to be deployed behind company firewalls

[This information is collected from Wikipedia, incase of any irregularities/updates with the POST please leave a comment, I will do the needful to update. My intention with this post is to provide you latest information, some of it might be from a non authentic source. Inconvenience regretted. ]