The team at PPCGeeks has disclosed what they claim is insider knowledge on the upcoming Windows Mobile 7. We know for a fact that Microsoft will be partially showing off the new WM7 in one week at the World Mobile Congress in Spain. According to PPCGeeks, the new UI of Windows Mobile 7 will be the showcase at the event.
According to the rumor, the first notable change is that Microsoft is changing the naming scheme for the 7th iteration, and that it will instead be called “Windows Phone 7″. The UI of Windows Phone 7 is being completely overhauled. It is allegedly codenamed “METRO” and supposedly will be very similar to the UI on the Zune HD. The leak who used the mobile OS reported that it is “very clean, soulful and alive”. They’re also reporting that Windows Phone 7.0 will not ship with Flash support.
They’re reporting that Windows Phone 7 will only support application installation via a Marketplace, which means that it will not run any Java mobile app under the sun, like previous versions of Windows Phone. Another notable change from Windows Phone – they’ve taken out multi-tasking. Applications will freeze when ‘pushed to the background’.
The marketplace will feature an open API and will allow users to ‘try before you buy’. The leak is reporting the mobile OS will not support OEM UI wrappers, like MOTOBLUR and HTC’s Sense. This sounds like the most-Microsoft-like thing in the alleged leak.
Other highlights, Windows Phone 7, won’t be backwards compatible with the .NET Compact Framework programming language, commonly called NETCF), which is a common way to running applications on Windows CE devices. I’m not sure how much I believe this one, considering Microsoft’s affinity for keeping support for old support around.
I would take these rumors with a big grain of salt, considering some of them are a bit far fetched. We’ll find out for sure when Microsoft makes their Windows Mobile 7 (or Windows Phone 7, if you believe this) announcement next week at WMC in Spain. Excited by these allegedly Windows Phone 7 features? They report that Microsoft expects Windows Phone 7 phones to start shipping in September 2010.