Windows Phone 7 "Mango" To Bring 3rd Party Multitasking, Fast App Switching, Better Hardware Access

Mango. To some, it’s just a delicious fruit; to others, it’s the once-secret codename for an update Microsoft plans on pushing to Windows Phone 7 later this year.

We’ve known for a while now that Mango would bring multitasking for third-party applications and Internet Explorer 9, but Microsoft has just used their MIX 2011 Keynote to shed a bit more light on the other new stuff.

All-in-all, Microsoft claims that around 1500 new APIs have been squeezed in for developers to build on.

Amongst them:

• Application multitasking for background processing, audio and file transfer, and fast application switching
• Deeper phone integration so apps can, for example, take better advantage of the versatility of Live Tiles
• Access to the camera and Motion Sensor library so developers can build apps that incorporate device hardware and build augmented reality experiences

That last one — the prior lack of direct camera/motion sensor access — is something that I’ve heard developers complaining about on multiple occasions.