Windows Mobile 6.5 debuts with new phones, app store...and bad reviews

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 07 October 2009 07:07

IT Industry - Strategy

Microsoft has unveiled Windows Mobile 6.5, a new app store, backup and photo sharing application along with new smartphones from various vendors supporting the new OS.

Microsoft has also introduced a new branding for Windows Mobile based smartphones: simply 'Windows Phones'.

New phones have been introduced by HTC, Samsung, ZTE, Toshiba, Acer and others in various parts of the world. In Australia Telstra has already released the HTC Touch Diamond2 http://www.itwire.com/content/view/28301/127/. Microsoft says it expects more than 30 Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphone to be on sale in 20 countries by year end.

Curiously Microsoft, in its press release ,  has focussed on the new phones and their features, without giving any indication that it has actually launched a new version of its mobile OS. This might be explained by the fact that 6.5 is being seen as a stop-gap prior to the release of Windows Mobile 7.0. And 6.5 has been greeted with damning reviews on a number of high profile US sites.

Gizmodo's reviewer wrote: "Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't just a letdown - it barely seems done...It's a superficial update, and not a very thorough one. It's an interim product, and a vain attempt to hold onto the thinning ranks people who still choose Windows Mobile -despite not being somehow tethered to it - until the tardy Windows Mobile 7 comes out, whenever that may be. And it won't work."

TechCrunch wrote: "We went into this review with the full hopes of emerging with a generally positive outlook. Sorry, Windows Mobile 6.5 – it's just not going to happen... 6.5 brings along a handbag of wonderful new features, and proceeds to strap it on top of the same hot mess we've known for years. The most shining example of this is in the overall design: a very small chunk of the operating system (namely, the home screen and the start screen) has been overhauled for finger-friendliness. If you actually want to do anything, however, you're straight back to using the stylus."

Microsoft lists features of the new phones (and therefore, presumably of 6.5) as being:

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