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Windows Mobile 7
The past few days have seen the alleged leaks of a couple batches of Windows Mobile 7 screenshots, suggesting Microsoft’s already hard at work on the successor to 6.5 — something we’ve heard in the past, and given the state of 6.x, a rumor that isn’t difficult to believe. To say the leaks look sketchy, though, would be an understatement; most prominently, none of them match, with different styling elements applied to every capture. Best case, we figure these are mockups — not functional shots from an actual device or an emulator, but early, off-the-cuff stabs at a design language from a usability expert’s late-night Illustrator session somewhere deep within Redmond. We like some of what we’re seeing — there are definitely at least a few elements here that look thoroughly modern — but if there’s any basis in reality to these, we’re worried about the ill-conceived idea of putting battery strength and volume (or signal strength, depending on the shot) at the bottom of the display. Needless to say, there are very good reasons that kind of information gets consolidated to the top, not the least of which is that your thumbs aren’t transparent. At least ours aren’t, and if yours are, you should probably get that looked at.
Microsoft never cared about transitions before, but it looks like Windows Mobile 7 will be different.
There’s also a part talking about allowing the user to “doodle” on the screen (their word, not mine), letting users draw doodles on the device lock screen, as well as shake the screen to affect the wallpaper (like making water run, or blurring an image). The iPhone’s lock screen is an iconic part of the device, and Microsoft wants to have a cool lock screen without copying Apple, so the plan is to give you fun things to do on the lock screen.
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