Windows Phone a fit foe for Apple's iOS

The Life: In the smartphone world the Windows Phone OS could be the first true "iPhone killer" on the market.

Samsung has signed up to make devices that use Windows Phone. Emmanuel Dunand / AFP

Getting excited about a computer's operating system certainly highlights the more tragic aspects of the human condition.

Q&A:Prospects for the Mango system.

Microsoft has a new operating system (OS) out for mobile phones. Is it any better than previous versions? Yes. The tech giant scrapped Windows Mobile, its rather clunky OS, last year. In its place comes the somewhat snazzier Windows Phone, the latest version of which is called Mango..

Is that Mango as in 'sweet' or as in 'easily squashed'? Depends on whom you ask. Microsoft hopes that the Windows Phone will be the number one operating system on handsets in the Middle East and Africa by 2015. Most analysts, however, say that handsets running Google's Android will continue to rule the market.

Android versus Windows Phone's Mango. No contest, surely?Possibly. But Microsoft has a not-so-secret weapon. In February, the company announced that Nokia would start using Windows Phone as its primary smartphone operating system. Stephen Elop, the chief executive of Nokia, called this a "win-win partnership": Nokia will use Windows Phone to help boost flagging phone sales, while Microsoft stands to benefit from Nokia's scale.

How can I get one?Microsoft started rolling out Mango updates to existing Windows Phone users last month and says more than 30 per cent of users have downloaded it. Acer's Allegro handset will be the first handset available in the Middle East with Mango pre-installed.

Imagine that guy who, in the early 1980s, started blabbering about MS-DOS. No one wanted to talk to him. Would you care if I told you I had version 10.5.8 of Mac OS X? Hopefully not.

But in the world of smartphones, the hitherto geeky "operating system" has become something to talk about, or openly boast about.

And if you buy a smartphone that runs on the Windows Phone operating system, you'll want to shout about it despite some glaring downsides. Manufacturers including Nokia, Samsung, LG and HTC have signed up to make devices operating Windows Phone, the latest version of which is called Mango.

It looks fantastic on the Samsung Omnia 7, even though that particular device costs US$369. The Windows Phone home screen features a series of square tiles. You press tiles marked with icons to access features such as phone, messaging and email.

The "people" tile, animated with tiny images from your Facebook account, is the most interesting. You just have to glance at your phone for a few moments before it flashes a picture of an ex-girlfriend or of that guy you met at a trade show in Frankfurt and have not seen since. It is a little unsettling but still a cool feature.

Windows Phone does a decent job of combining Facebook, Twitter and Windows Live feeds. But it also pulls in your contacts from these accounts, which can lead to a jumbled, yet comprehensive, address book.

On Samsung's Omnia 7, the Windows system was fast, with a stunningly crisp display and 5-megapixel camera. However, it frequently lost wireless internet connection. The system also sometimes feels like an extended advertisement for Microsoft products. When trying to access Twitter, for example, the software insists on a Windows Live subscription, for which there is no good reason.

Top 5: Smartphone operating systems.

1 Android, Google 43.8%.

2 Windows Phone, Microsoft, 20.3%.

3 Apple iOS,16.9%.

4 BlackBerry OS, Research In Motion,13.4%.

5 Others, 5.6%.

Source: Source: IDC’s market share forecast for 2015

Yet the sleek design, cool features and slick operating system make up for this. Windows Phone has been dubbed a potential "iPhone killer" in the smartphone market. And if the updated Mango system is anything to go by, there could be a digital bloodbath.

The Quote: "That's an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?" Rutherford B Hayes, the 19th US president, about the telephone