Windows Mobile 6.5 Getting Update

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For the few of you who still enjoy your Windows Mobile smartphones, it’s your lucky day as a leaked graphical update for Windows Mobile has hit the internet, from XDA developers forums (the same community who enabled Google Maps Navigation use for international countries), and it appears that it will make your phone easier to use with touch-screen phones.

The update, which has been Windows Mobile 6.5.1 (not official, more on that later), appears to be simply a GUI update to the WinMobile OS. Some changes include moving buttons around, to make them more easy to use with a ‘Capacitive’ touch screen. As blog Mopocket reports, most Windows Mobile touchscreen phones used ‘resistive’ touch screens, which is more for use with a stylus. The ‘capacitive’ touch screens, which are use in iPhones, is more responsive to touch from a human finger.

So, the underlying reason for this update seems to be to make the OS more easy to use on those big touchscreen phones, by rearranging the buttons and making them bigger. Mopocket reports that the new update is actually HARDER to use on some older touchscreen phones (ones with smaller screens – hey, its Microsoft, they can’t get everything right).

In some brilliant journalism, Mopocket actually chatted with an inside ‘Microsoft representative’ off-the-record about Windows Mobile 6.5.1. The source reported that isn’t actually the name of the update, and it might not be named anything at all.

The source confirmed that this is merely just a way to hold over the customer base until the full release of Windows Mobile 7, which more easily support ‘capacitive’ touch screens. No release date on Windows Mobile ’6.5.1′, but the full-fledged Windows Mobile 7 is set to release in Q3 of 2010.