Microsoft announces Windows Mobile 6.5, My Phone, Recite and a Marketplace
No surprises at Microsoft’s MWC press conference today as it announced Windows Mobile 6.5 and a handful of services we’ve already detailed fairly extensively. Kicking things off with the the big news, 6.5 features a variety of enhancements from the new lock screen that provides dynamic notification to the honeycomb start menu, a finger-friendly Today screen and a new version of Internet Explorer Mobile that offers Adobe Flash lite support. Phones running the latest version of Windows Mobile will be re-branded as “Windows phones” to reflect Microsoft’s desire to bring the full Windows experience to your handset. Windows Mobile 6.5 will be available later this year with no specific date given. Early adopters of the platform include HTC with its Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2 as well as LG with its GM7300. While end-users will have to wait a while to begin playing with 6.5, LG must have been fairly impressed as it just announced a partnership with Microsoft to launch 50 Windows Mobile-powered handsets between now and the end of 2012. So much for that whole “fewer devices, more focused” thing. Hit the jump for the rest of Microsoft’s press conference round up and some Windows Mobile 6.5 screenshots.
Microsoft also announced the new “My Phone” service, its cloud backup solution for Windows phones, and Microsoft Recite which is a voice memo organization tool. The My Phone service will sync your contacts, appointments, text messages, documents, music, photos and videos to a password protected online account on Microsoft’s servers. My Phone is currently available as an invitation-only beta. Microsoft Recite, on the other hand, is available now as a free technology preview (early beta) for phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 or higher. Recite allows you to record, search and retrieve voice memos using only your voice.
Last but not least, Microsoft announced its online marketplace, Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Available on phones running Windows Mobile 6.5, the new Windows Marketplace will allow users to search, browse and purchase applications over the air from a compatible mobile phone or PC using a Windows Live ID. With over 20,000 applications available for Windows phones, the new marketplace certainly has a jump start on content.
Hot is all I can say!
This looks great. I love the menus looking so touch friendly.
Awesome!!! I personal am quite fond of Microsoft having used it for so long and though i see many a flaws within thier software, this definitely looks like a step in the right direction. To bad it took so much/long for them to get to this point. Oh well, better late than never, right? Good job MS. ^_^
Looks great , the ui totally needed a facelift .
Can’t wait to check it out .
I just can’t understand why didn’t they just skip this junk and move straight to WM7, my opinion is Microsoft just hammered the last nail in the WM coffin. No way in hell this thing can’t stand against any of the new Mobile OSs out there. I mean has anyone seen the Video Demo???
it’s can’t be worse that what it is here’s the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAq5lFQFyMI
^dude!
your totally killin our high!
wait to it comes out instead of looking at roms!
This OS really needs to be revamped to compete with everything else. That puzzle menu (whatever it’s called) is not appealing to me nor functional. It is a great UI update from the source, not third party, but I have to agree, Microsoft should have skipped this an bring out version7. There is no time to sit around for another year while the Palm Pre and updated iPhone come out this year.
^^
Have you looked at what all the HTC Touch PRO 2 can do…..that’s what I call functionality!
@Jon, Agreed, most people might think that i have something against microsoft cause i bash them so much, but i do it cause i love them and i want them to be better, honestly this thing can’t even be compare to the Apple’s iPhone OS that came out 2+ years ago. Ballmer should stop Dicking around and buy out Palm at what ever cost and get Windows Mobile back on it’s feet again
The iPhone is still better and MS has had a year to try to come up with something that can compete
If MS has further developed the UI’s hex boxes to flow so that when an icon was pressed it became surrounded by icons of related controls, options and apps, they might have had something there. Instead, the damned thing just scrolls like a pinwheel.
What is wrong with Redmond? They need to reallocate resources to get WM7 fully-charged up or WM is marginalizing themselves into more of a minority platform.
Changing the front end UI is nice (and needed) but until they overhaul the UI for the rest of the device (I’m looking at you calendar) its just Windows dressing (pun intended)
iphone is better than anything in the whole wide world, the best invention man has ever seen.
It’s soon to cure cancer, fix the world economy, create millions of jobs, fix global warming, create peace in the Middle East.
Oh wait, it’s hooked up to ATT where I can’t even get a 3G signal in the middle of LA.
Never mind.
stfu you iphone troll
This is not a facelift for Windows Mobile. It is just a touch friendly home screen and a new browser. All of your apps will still look just as ugly after 6.5 as they did before it. Touch friendly home screen with everything else still being the same will lead to an inconsistent experience.
@mr.fingers
I think he was talking about the Interface not the entire iPhone as a whole. Most people will agree that iPhone still has the best interface out of any mobile platform. Companies are still trying to mimic it unsuccessfully. This 6.5 is just a pretty new start screen and new browser bolted on the same ugly OS. HTC has done this with their replacement home screen and including Opera. This does not make WM better.
i think it looks better than the iphone, and the home screen is more informative and usable
This is butt ugly. Microsoft UI sucks. All their stuff looks like it was designed by monkeys.
can someone explain how an iphone is better than wm 6.1 running touch flo 3d… i mean all you bashers are making valid points but i havent seen the phone os thats better yet…
Hey anyone know where i can find that wallpaper of the dock with the boat ? It looks pretty sweet.
Thanks in advance
@celz
Your kidding, right? Windows mobile is so buggy. I have seen the demo of 6.5 and im still not buying it. the transitions graphics are still choppy. And the UI looks flat. And plus it runs a mobile version of Windows :X thanks, but no thanks.
any way 6.5 is gd but its unecessary like the iphone 3g.. lmao the first iphone shoulda had 3g just like 6.1 shoulda had these improvements
so the you want a phone thats pretty and not flat.. the iphone was buggy as hell when it was released and this is a beta.. my touch pro doesnt run buggy at all.. and touch flo 3d looks alot better than an icon grid.. so again why is an iphone so much better than anything else.. i think its a good phone it just missing alot of basic and advanced features..
excuse the typos im typing on a samsung m520…
Can anyone else picture this or an update further and WinMo 7 on a revised Dange product?
This is a great step in the right direction by Microsoft. Now to the fools calling for Windows Mobile 7, you would be the same fools complaining at how unfinished it was and how rushed MS brought it to the market…if you want something done right then, shit, just wait…you people make no sense sometimes. And to the iphone issue…aside from it not bein able to make calls and its lack of features, the main reason the iphone feels so well put together and unbuggy (for lack of a better term) is because it does one thing at a time…ONE…and Apple knows this that’s why it doesn’t allow any running background processes…if it did, just like Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices, it would become just as slow and sluggish…that’s why even now that they’re comtemplating letting this happen they might limit it to like 2 or 3 at a time…the Jesus phone is not as cracked up as it is people…yes it has the best UI out there but underneath it all if it was allowed to do what a smartphone is supposed to do it would just like how all the smartphones react lol.
I am trying to watch the “windows-mobile-65-on-htc-touch-hd-video-tour” video but on youtube it is stated that this video is removed due to a copyright claim by MICROSOFT.Can someone tell my how can i watch or download this video.