Surface Phone Speculation Spurred By New Phone APIs In Windows (arstechnica.com)

Microsoft has been rumored to be working on a "Surface Phone" for years now, with little concrete evidence that such a device actually exists. "But the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview has given new fuel for the speculative fire, it has a set of new APIs for cellular phones," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Windows has had integrated support for cell modems since Windows 8, but this has been restricted to supporting data connections. Telephony -- dialing numbers, placing calls -- has always required either Windows Phone or Windows 10 Mobile. This has made the full Windows 10 unsuitable for a phone. That may be changing. Windows 10 build 17650 -- a preview of Redstone 5, the next Windows update after the delayed April update -- includes some telephony APIs. The new APIs cover support for a range of typical phone features: dialing numbers and contacts, blocking withheld numbers, support for Bluetooth headsets and spearphone mode, and so on and so forth. There also looks to be some kind of video-calling support, suggesting support for 3G or LTE video calling.

Comments

Interesting timing

[ArhcAngel]

Normally I would just laugh and make a snarky comment about the 200 or so attempts Microsoft has tried to get into the mobile phone market but given Google's headlong march into Microsoft's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish territory there are a growing number of people looking for alternatives. Of course this is Microsoft so we'll see if they can stay focused long enough to build an ecosystem.