Windows Mobile 6.5 Unleashed

 

Microsoft has released Windows mobile 6.5 Developer Toolkit yesterday. It is available for download here.

Let’s see first what Microsoft has released in the Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Toolkit from developer prospective. It contains:

Emulator Images

WM 6.5 Developer Toolkit comes with the following emulator images

• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Square Emulator
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional QVGA Emulator
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional WQVGA Emulator
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional VGA Emulator 
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional WVGA Emulator

Gesture APIs

A new set of APIs is being introduced that will enable application developers to take advantage of the new Windows Mobile 6.5 touch gesture framework. The gesture APIs allow an application to handle touch gesture input and provide a visually consistent experience with the rest of the device UI.

Widget Development

With Windows Mobile 6.5 emulator images in place, developers can start writing widgets for WM 6.5 devices. The new IE Mobile 6 is completely revamped and supports basic Ajax.

This is what is released in the Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Toolkit for developers. I will add more to this section with future releases.

Now let’s explore what features Microsoft has updated in 6.5 and what you might expect from future WM6.5-powered handsets. It features significant changes over WM6.0 and 6.1 with greater emphasis on touch control, Cloud-based service integration and general UI attractiveness

• The WM6.5 Lock screen features new iPhone like sliders to unlock the phone. This screen also provides instant access to new voicemail, text messages and other important information.
• Windows Mobile 6.5 features significant updates to the Today or Home

  

Screen. The general look of the Today Screen has also been refreshed, with a focus on wallpaper and theme as you can see, the toolbars are now transparent, which allows the wallpaper to show through. Like most of the updates to Windows Mobile 6.5, the new Today Screen has a finger-friendly design with large active-touch areas which make finger selections easier and more natural. As you will see, this focus on touch navigation largely defines WM6.5.

• The Programs menu has the long honeycomb interface as you can see in the right screen. This allows easy app selection with your finger. You can also change the order in which programs appear in this layout.
• The new Windows Mobile Marketplace works much like the iPhone's App Store. It will provide users the option to browse, purchase and download Windows Mobile software without the need to connect to a PC.
• The media player has been updated in Windows Mobile 6.5, as has the bundled photo software. It has been revamped with touch-friendly controls.
• IE Mobile 6 is a completely revamped version of mobile Internet Explorer with swipe and zoom control and a more desktop-like experience (Screen below). Flash and Basic Ajax support is also included.

• Microsoft My Phone Cloud-syncing service with 200GB of storage for syncing photos, calendar entries, music, videos, documents, text messages, email. All data backed-up to My Phone can be restored to a new Windows Phone. This feature is free for WM 6.5 users.
• Voice-capable IM via Windows Live Messenger allows you to chat with voice clips.

 

But do know that Windows Mobile 6.5 is just a stopgap measure.  Microsoft claims to unleash a big change with Windows Mobile 7, but since that operating system isn't due until sometime well into 2010; WM6.5 is designed to lessen the technical divide between Windows Mobile and newer mobile OS competitors from Apple, Google and Palm.