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Unlike the rest of the internet, I was able to hold off on the urge to grab a leaked rom of Windows Mobile 6.5. This put me at a big disadvantage though, it puts me behind the curve. Nice guys finish last right? Well, I don’t mind finishing last as long as it’s done in a respectful manner. Enough of that though, I did have an opportunity to spend a little time with our new friends, WinMo 6.5 prior to today’s launch.

My 1st thought… Too little, too late. Seriously. I am very disappointed with the slow roll out from Microsoft. When the iPhone hit the scene like a hurricane, it shook up the mobile OS industry in a big way. I was very apologetic and made excuses for Microsoft’s slow roll outs. I really do understand why it takes so long, but that needs to be fixed. The space is growing and evolving faster than the current system allows for. There has been just too much time wasted. I said once that Windows Mobile isn’t broken, it’s just that the expectations of a mobile OS have had the bar raised. I still stand by that, but I don’t think Microsoft has hit the bar with this release. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Windows Mobile, but the nap Microsoft has been taking has me lusting over the new, fancy mobile operating systems that have emerged. Android and Apple are doing well now. Let’s hope for some fireworks from the future releases from Microsoft. How about some regular dot release updates to enhance the OS without waiting another year for a new release. Stream the new features like the Zune Software that Ballmer mentioned into dot releases. Keep people moving forward little by little rather than big old chunks fed to us too far apart.

Ok, enough of the ranting. Even though I am a little disappointed with 6.5, I am excited the day is upon us as well. Windows Mobile 6.5 does kill the need for a stylus, adds some new features like an MyPhone update and the new Marketplace. Even though I haven’t success with the Marketplace yet, I seriously thing that this will be awesome for those of us that prefer Windows Mobile.

Read on for a couple of our staff members opinions thus far…

Breley has been poking around with Windows Mobile 6.5 for a little bit as well, here’s what he has to say about his experiences thus far…

I’ve been quite pleased with it, and while it took a wee bit of time getting used to the new Start Menu layout, I’m finding I much prefer it to Windows Mobile 6.x .  The biggest plus for me is that  it’s much more finger-friendly.  This is probably close to where Microsoft ought to have started in the first place with touch-screen devices.  Gone is the visible hex-square grid, looking to me for all the world like a strategy board game, like the old Avalon Hill games or ye olde Panzer General.  I kept expecting the old WM 6.5 beta’s Start Menu to have Messenger and ActiveSync attack Office Mobile for control of the board.  That aside, the later versions removed the hexagonal highlights and removed what could be a visual distraction.  The new menu is easily navigable, and on my Fuze’s VGA screen, I can easily select the icons, which have a nice glow highlight when selected.  Holding down an icon allows for a “Move to top or Move down” context menu to appear, but I do wish the icon were more easily drag-and-droppable.

I admit I’m a sucker for eye-candy, especially for the new implementation of the Lock screen from the Start menu.  Now I can just move the slider just like my iPod Touch.  And while the default home screen is still visually quite utilitarian (“Honey…my phone now looks like your Zune!”), my experience with TouchFlo 3D running on WM 6.5 has been very good.  From my perspective with my Fuze, WM 6.5 is faster than 6.1 was.  While I’m partial to Opera, Internet Explorer 6 does very well, now better supporting Flash, html ,  plus the zoom and pan features and much more finger friendly, making browsing much simpler and convenient…but where is tabbed browsing (Bless you SPB for your plugin!).  Improvements to Contacts/Messaging are another big plus, with larger header info making the apps very finger-friendly.  The whole thing feels much more polished than prior versions.

Perhaps it’s not a revolutionary OS given the portents of Windows Phone  7 next year, but it’s a good step in the right direction IMHO.

One of Mobilitysite’s newest additions, Tariq Bamadhaj, share his thoughts as well. His assessment actually deserves a post of it’s own, but he put it up for this collaboration…

So today marks the day that Windows Mobile 6.5 is launched but is it all that we’ve been waiting for? That depends on which version of Windows Mobile 6.5 you are talking about. You see, in the last month or so since my Touch Pro 2 could load custom ROMs, I’ve been toying around with them and found them to be a mixed bag of experience.

But first, let’s take a quick look at Windows Mobile in the last couple of years…

I have never understood how Microsoft names their version of Windows Mobile or, as they’re now called, Windows Phones. Windows Mobile 5, 6 and 6.1 were so similar in looks and functionality that unless you looked at the change log, you could not really tell the difference between the 3. But come 6.5, and I have seen a number of differences that it’s hard to believe that they all share the same version number, separated only by their build number.

What’s New

cHome. Think of this as another Today plug-in like TouchFlo 3D. It reminds me a lot of the interface that you see on the Zune but what’s different is that each Panel not only slides up and down but side to side as well. So say you’re on the appointment panel and it shows you your current/next appointment. Swiping left shows you the one after and another swipe brings up the option to create a new appointment. All from the same screen!

But that’s not all I like about cHome. There’s actually active development such as those found on XDA-Developers, where developers are trying to bring extra functions to cHome. From Facebook status to Twitter updates, it’s starting to look like cHome is going to be a lot more functional than you first try it out.

Finger-Friendliness. Now before you say that you can’t see the difference in this area, let me clarify. There are several builds of Windows 6.5 and each revision adds more to this department than the previous version. The menus may be larger and more spaced out in one while another would have that and larger fields.

In fact, the last version that was leaked about 2-3 weeks back had quite a bit of change with the Start Menu and OK button being moved to the bottom and the top bar losing quite a bit of weight. So which version of 6.5 would you be getting? Unfortunately, that depends entirely on your carrier/OEM.

SkyMarket. What is not depended on them is the SkyMarket, Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s AppStore, Blackberry’s App World and Android’s Market. Finally Windows Phone users can now have a one-stop place to get all their applications without hunting the World Wide Web for it. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to all the other sites that sell Windows Phone software but what I do know is that the success of the Windows Phone will depend hugely on the success of SkyMarket.

When we look at it, the iPhone would not be great if it weren’t for all those thousands of applications and an easy place to get them. I’m sure the limitation to only run one application at a time and their weird app approval process does not contribute to that greatness. So as great as we’re hearing about the future of Windows Phones, nothing’s going to make it more mainstream than SkyMarket.

Conclusion

So is Windows 6.5 enough to hold consumers excited until the much-anticipated Windows 7 comes along? For one, I’m hoping that carriers and OEM can push out the latest builds as quickly as possible. They’ll make the device a lot more finger-friendly which is what many consumers are looking for. Then, we’ll need developers to be able to support those new builds quickly too because from my earlier experience with build 23049, the weight loss of the top bar made some applications unusable.

On top of all that, I think the success of Windows Phone from here on out would depend a lot on the success of SkyMarket. If Microsoft can get a substantial number of quality applications from early on, they’ll definitely cement their place in the mobile world.

That, and the release of Windows 7 for the Windows Phone.

Thanks for reading.