Microsoft has announced Windows Mobile 6.5 and a variety of other services and partnerships at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The 6.5 release doesn’t bring anything to the table that we didn’t already know. It’ll feature a resistive touch-enabled interface, customizable widgets, Internet Explorer 6.1, and support for a few newly announced services.
Among them, Microsoft My Phone, previously known as Skybox, which is a syncing service for text messages, photos, contacts, videos and other phone information–all backed up to the web. Microsoft didn’t actually announced a public release for My Phone–it’s currently in invitation-only beta–but ZDNet has heard version 1.0 will arrive in the fall, with version 2.0 coming in 2010.
Microsoft, as expected, will be launching its mobile application store, dubbed Marketplace, this fall. It’ll enable users to download apps from their Windows phones–yep, no longer Windows Mobile phones–or PC’s with nothing more than a Windows Live ID. Unfortunately it’ll only work on Windows Mobile 6.5 handsets and above.
The last announcement of the day is Recite, a voice-recording app for Windows phones that allows users to record voice notes which can then be searched at a later time. It’s still being tested.
There was no mention Skyline, its push notification service, mobile Zune integration, Windows Mobile 7.0, or a Microsoft-branded phone.
Unfortunately, more for Microsoft than consumers, none of these service nor any Window Mobile 6.5 handsets will be rolling out until the second half of 2009. Will it be too late?
via zdnet
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