Windows Phone 7 updates: what's new?

Steve Ballmer gave a date for the long-awaited copy and paste update for Windows Phone 7 in his Mobile World Congress keynote; the 'NoDo' update (it may be a reference to 'not Donut' – the Android 2.0 release) which also makes it faster to switch back to the previous app will be available for all Windows Phones in the first two weeks of March.

(The same update will add support for CDMA networks in the US and Verizon and Sprint will have Windows Phone handsets in the first half of 2011.)

And in the second half of 2011 there will be a more significant update, which Windows Phone VP Joe Belfiore confirmed will also run on existing devices; "all these features will be in the free update for all Windows Phone users later this year".

There will be more feature announcements (perhaps at the MIX conference in April), but the features that are confirmed so far are more than the expected third-party multitasking.

Twitter on Windows Phone 7

Microsoft promised Twitter integration in the People hub long before the launch of Windows Phone 7; tweets from your contacts will finally show up alongside updates from Facebook and Windows Live in the second update.

And like Facebook updates, you'll be able to reply from the People hub and see what other friends have commented.