According to Brandon Watson of Microsoft, multi-tasking support for Windows Phone 7 will be unveiled at MIX in April. There aren’t any details on it yet on how this will affect implementation. From a UI perspective programs will resume much faster than they currently do. There will also be the ability to see recently used programs that are still running by holding down the back button. A positive effect of this capability is that non-Microsoft applications such as music players will continue to work in the background. Currently such programs stop working when users navigate away from the application. This support should be coming to all existing WP7 phones later this year.
Peter Bright of Ars Technica reports that CDMA support is also expected this year, with Sprint and Verizon expected to launch WP7 phones during the first half of the year. It is thought by some that this is being done in conjunction with the “January 2011 Update” which adds copy and paste support as well as performance enhancements. Developers can already
The new copy and paste functionality will interfere with applications that haven’t followed Microsoft’s user interface guidelines. Specifically, those who have placed a TextBox inside of a Panorama or Pivot control. Microsoft has stated that they will be scanning the applications in the marketplace and will contact the developers who need to modify their application.