Internet Explorer 9 mobile on Windows Phone 7

At a recent developers day seminar at Mobile World Congress, Microsoft's Joe Marini, Principal Program Manager of Windows Phone demonstrated a mobile version of Internet Explorer 9 for Windows Phones.

We're already aware that Microsoft plans to release two major updates for Windows Phone 7 handsets in 2011; "copy and paste" functionality is coming in March and IE9 will form part of the latter update towards the end of the year. You may have heard it nicknamed "Mango".

Microsoft says Internet Explorer 9 will offer "a dramatically enhanced mobile Web browser experience". Read more about the updates from Mobile World Congress here.

What can we expect from IE9 on Windows Phone 7?

Internet Explorer 9 mobile is expected to be somewhat identical to its desktop equivalent. Handily this will enable Windows Phone 7 handsets to take advantage of all of the latest web technologies (including HTML5 and Silverlight).

At the time of writing Silverlight support is still unconfirmed but you can take a look at a full list of what has been promised:

Clean design

Minimal browser chrome - No not a reference to a competitor's product... This instead means that both the design and layout will be light, placing focus on the site, not the browser.

HTML 5

Hardware-accelerated HTML5 - This will provide your browsing experience with smooth-scrolling video and other nifty tricks like Text Rendering and Canvas Drawing. Ooh.

Speed

Orders of magnitude better performance - We think this refers to the new "Chakra" JavaScript execution engine which should make browsing a lot faster.

Compatibility

Interoperability through same markup. Internet Explorer 9 for mobile will include out-of-the-box support for all established internet standards which means you'll be able to see websites exactly as they were intended.

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Gallery: Latest Windows Phone 7 handsets