By Stephen Schenck

We all know that Windows Phone 7.8 will bring existing Windows Phone devices a taste of WP8, getting the newly-widened and redesigned home screen. There’s a lot more than that to WP8, though, and while we know that older phones won’t see much of that delivered, we’ve been curious just to what extent we might see other features show up in WP7.8. In the absence of official word, we look to a new rumor suggesting just where the differences between WP7.8 and WP8 will lie.

This info comes from the Russian site WP7Forum, and after translating, we’re left with this list:

Function	Windows Phone 7.8	Windows Phone 8.0
Browser	IE9	IE10
Skype	A separate application	Integrated
Voice commands	Yes	Yes, an extended set
DataSmart	A separate application	Yes
Bing Аudio	Yes	Yes, improved recognition TV
RCS-e	A separate application	Integrated
Cloud	OneNote, Office 365	Synchronization of all content
Updated startup screen	Yes	Yes
OTA	No, only the notification	Yes
Visual Voicemail	Only for some countries	Yes

Obviously, these aren’t all of Windows Phone 8′s features, as we don’t even touch on those that deal with any new hardware. Still, it’s a bit of a reassuring look at how WP7.8 will mirror a good deal of WP8 functionality, if only on a limited scale.

RCS-e, if you’re not familiar with it, is a cross platform feature set designed to act as a standard for calls, text messages, media messages, and chat; with the addition of instant messaging, it’s not all that different from the many disparate standards we have in place for SMS, MMS, and everything now, except that it’s designed to operate over IP networks.

We’re also curious about this note of TV recognition for Bing Audio. It might just be a quirk of the translation, or it could be some sort of SoundHound-like system for quickly identifying programs based on audio snippets.

Source: WP7Forum.ru (Google Translate)
Via: WMPoweruser