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OK, it’s not. I don’t want to deceive you guys, but I just had to see how the new WinMo (supposedly) design will look like on my Touch Pro…

I just saw that more 6.5 images continue to roll and here’s the latest stuff I found at the XDA-Developers:

Are they real?

I’m not sure. I can definitely imagine some lonely photoshop designer having a great laugh on all of us right now…

Is WinMo 6.5 going to look like that, eventually?

I bet not. From my experience as a UI developer I can say that there’s always the last minute “fine tune” work which involves fonts, icons, and other cosmetic work. In addition, as this is a localized beta version migrated to an older device – it cannot be an indication of the real thing, just a direction.

Let’s see what we can learn from it:

Lock Screen:

Nice.

I’m not a huge fan of the iPhone lock screen, it’s annoying and I wish I could remove it. Here, it seems like the time is located in an unusual position (too low), not sure I like it…

Honeycomb screen:

Cool stuff, I think it’s nice, even though it’s not as amazing as the stuff we’ve seen from Palm Pre.

Notice there’s a cut cell in the bottom, indicating that this screen can include a lot of items and probably a way to scroll them using a finger gesture.

I think it’s a refreshing addition to the basic ‘Today’ screen.

Today Screen:

Not sure I know how to react to that.

On one hand – the expandable gradient/transparent panels look nice (I sure like it in the standard edition). On the other hand, it currently cannot match SPB Mobile Shell or the TouchFlo 3D.

I can only assume that the final user interface will look more like the standard edition, which means much better…

Internet Explorer

Naturally there’s not much to say in regards to the actual browsing experience, but we can spot a zoom bar, and the bottom area that includes couple of icons a-la-iPhone. Nice.

Oh, one more thing: notice the transparency of the top bar which looks like Vista (which I actually don’t like so much…)

Those 2 screenshots are yet another example that the UI is not finalized yet: I assume the actual release will have better icons and better looking ‘X’ button…

Overall, I’m not too impressed, but I’m optimistic. I believe the official 6.5 user interface will have a lot of cool improvements.

Gil Bouhnick (59 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Gil Bouhnick is a guest writer at MobilitySite and the owner of The Mobile Spoon. He is a Director of Mobile Solutions at ClickSoftware, running ClickSoftware's MobileFever, and constantly trying to examine new mobile trends and technologies.