The New Face of Windows Mobile – Take 6.5

There were a lot of new interesting announcements at Mix09 in Las Vegas a few weeks ago.  One the sessions at the conference showed off the new look and feel of Windows Mobile 6.5.  Thanks to the amazing Mix09 video streaming platform, you can watch all the session at the event in stunning high-resolution quality without having to face constant buffering issues *courtesy of Silverlight 2*.

One of the more interesting design changes involve a brand-new notifications view that makes it far less annoying to deal with prompts like new calls, txts, and emails.  All the notifications are more accessible and are segmented by default where as earlier versions of Windows Mobile had a habit of always nagging you with notifications which ultimately got in the way. Another key design change involves having a much needed application launcher home screen very similar to the legacy Palm devices of old made popular by the iPhone again.  No one will argue that this is a much needed design change from the old WM interface.  As third-party applications on mobile devices become more important relative to the out-of-box ones, it is important to have a quick and easy way to manage them and navigate.  I think I can safely say that those that believe in the “desktop OS on a phone” school of thought have sufficiently been proven wrong. If 6.5 is any indication around the work being done on Mobile 7, the future is looking bright!