Windows Mobile 6.5 designer themes pictured
I have it on good authority that Windows Mobile 6.5 builds leak faster to XDA-Developers than they trickle down to Microsoft’s own internal testers who are dogfooding it. That seems to have been the case again with the latest build of Windows Mobile 6.5, to be found on the wild west of XDA, and which includes Microsoft’s newly announced measures to improve the popularity of the OS, designer home page themes.
istartedsomething.com has published this picture above of all the themes. I personally feel the DVF one looks the best, but I think in general this is wasted effort, unless Microsoft’s OEM’s suddenly device to stop covering up Windows Mobile themselves.
Read more about the leak at istartedsomething.com here.
Thanks Dawid from PDA.pl for the tip.
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is a “theme” just a wallpaper???
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it’s also a color scheme. nothing that would not have been possible already on WM6.1.
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So MS’s ploy to keep customers interested is.. New background images? Really? Seriously? WM7 can’t come soon enough.
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wreiad Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 1:43 am
Wow check out the reception here. These are themes, not simple backgrounds. Microsoft is also advertising the customizability (I.E: Personalization) of the OS, you know, you make it your’s? Why is this suddenly a problem? They’ve been doing this for prior releases.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/totalaccess/personalize/themes/default.mspx
Combined with 6.5’s homescreen, this will be great.
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Jon Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
All I am saying is that there is nothing revolutionary about a background image and a color scheme. The underlying UI still sucks and is receiving no real improvement until wm7. You have been able to set background images and color themes since wm2003 and probably earlier.
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nuke1 Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Agree wholeheartedly. I have much better hopes for WM7, though this isn’t the final build of 6.5 and COULD still have more additions/surprises.
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Only reason I can see this being advertised so much is because iphone personalisation is so poor.
Makes sense!
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on top of what u guys said, this will make winmo more mainstream.
these “designers” will be talking about their mobile designs, e-hollywood will be talking about it!
plus, i like them so far
so…3 points for MS!
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nuke1 Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Lol, who ever made YOU the ‘awardee?’ An MS fanboy giving points to MS? Not so much.
After thinking about it, it’s probably true that this is the easiest way for MS to offer personalisation/customisation, and hence compete with the iPhone. Nothing skin-deep, sadly enough. And this was in the 21198, 21193 builds as well as 21202.
Offering themes is pathetic.
On the other hand, I love the lock screen. I really hope there are some changes that are going to penetrate the surface.
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wreiad Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Offering themes is pathetic? Are you retarded?
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aleis Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
yeah i think he is.
but only because he dissed me!
other than that he is true, i mean its like the only thing MS offer is the new screen lock the better look of the OS the market place the new apps and tons of app support that basically will beat out the number of iphone apps as soon as its up so…what are they bringing to the table?
yeah, winmo isnt doing anything!
GTFOH!
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nuke1 Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
‘Offering themes is pathetic? Are you retarded?’
Offering themes as a primary update to a new OS is pathetic, yes (even if the OS is 0.4 notches ahead of 6.1- btw WM7 would then be 0.5 ahead). If that is the definition of retardation in your book, then I think you should check t’old dictionary.
@ Aleis,
Me dissing you was meant in jest, hence the ‘tongue smiley.’ Guess you don’t play nice.
We can almost follow through the effort MS has exerted in their new OS. We saw the screenshots last November from smartphonefrance.info. After the honeycomb and Titanium today screen back then, what else is there? Well, there’s the lock screen… and cloud services… and Marketplace… and uhhh…yeah, that’s about it. All those things are additions to the surface, however little they are. Nothing beyond skin-deep as I said. Frankly, I’ve seen better effort by some devs on xda than I have by MS.
And guess what? Palm, not iPhone, while we all thought it was near admin, has managed to conjure up something more innovative than MS. They’ve got all that you’ve listed…and tons more. Too many to list here, in fact. Granted, I think their SDK will be sh1t considering only web-based apps can be written in such an environment. But there’s been a much greater effort, imo, by Palm.
And uhh, who said ‘winmo isnt doing anything’. Not me, but YOU! Was that a Freudian slip? Not something I would agree with btw. You sure wasn’t referencing ME there.
Lastly, like I said I love the lock screen and that I hope they penetrate the surface as well in this OS. If MS had people like you in their work team praising them at every corner, they’d produce first grade crap every time. Constructive criticism on my part, not licking MS’ ass.
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Jon Reply:
April 7th, 2009 at 3:51 am
Sadly the tongue smiley does not always get the point across. It really should though.
It’s not that I don’t like WM. I mean I use it. I love it actually. But there are some things they really could do better on, mostly interface-wise. I would have been so happy if they brought the zune ui for wmp.
wreiad Reply:
April 8th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
“Offering themes as a primary update to a new OS is pathetic, yes (even if the OS is 0.4 notches ahead of 6.1- btw WM7 would then be 0.5 ahead). If that is the definition of retardation in your book, then I think you should check t’old dictionary.”
Oh so suddenly the themes are the “primary” update? Yeah let’s forget about the new browser, the marketplace, the changed chrome, the new gestures, program menu, the scrolling, and of course, the homescreen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H5yT_PSrpY
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090331/windows-marketplace-for-mobile-preview-video-teases/
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090320/mix09-windows-mobile-65-shows-more-polish/
Yeah let’s forget about all those other things and spew crap like the themes are the “primary” update.
very well designed UI i must say.. wallpaper can change the whole feel of the phone.. very customizable then.
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I’ve been using StarRom 1.3 for the CDMA Touch Pro and it comes loaded with all of these themes. I’ve decided to give up TF3D for a while and just use the new 6.5 today screen… and so far I love it. I’ve been using the theme that can only be described as “pink plaid” and it’s gorgeous.
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The themes capability was one of the things that made Pocket PC 2002 so successful. The theme support has been degraded a lot since then, and the original theme generator was never updated (https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=49216F63-20E9-4CDB-8BDA-CE445260C0A9&displaylang=en)
Bringing better theme support back to WM has long been a feature request of mine (http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=5343), and now we’re seeing that with WM 6.5.
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nuke1 Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Sure, it’s good, but MS should offer more, considering the two primary things they’ve implemented (Honeycomb and Titanium) were leaked last November. Beyond that, the changes are few and far between. Offering wallpapers and different colours is all well and good, but come ON MS. Some more if you would already.
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aleis Reply:
April 7th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
my thing is…what more?
could you name SOMETHING?
i could see new hardware mentions…we already know winmo 6.5 (let alone 7) will give us most of what we want.
the speed is there….
the pre has web apps?
wtf!?
thats it?
umm…NOT impressed.
it has a capacitive screen…and if you seem my commments thats my winmo gripe…
but other than that its nothing more i personally need
what about u?
and dont get me wrong…new apps are always cool!
but we have to wait to everything is released to enjoy all the new partnerships
o..lastly, its never personal with me in cyberspace so
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