Please, for the love of everything that Windows Mobile 6.5 stands for, don’t let these alleged Windows Mobile 6.5 screenshots be real. Following on confirmation that the long-ago leaked WinMo6.5 screenshots were indeed concept designs for Windows Mobile 6.5, an xda-developers member (sun_dream) has released screenshots and video of what he claims is a leaked Windows Mobile 6.5 beta-ROM running on old HTC hardware (HTC Blue Angel).
We were excited by the previously leaked screenshots of what we presumed to be the Windows Mobile 6.5 homescreen and applications launcher (at least one of the concept designs). We were looking for Windows Mobile 6.5 to revitalize Microsoft’s fast-aging Windows Mobile platform with a slick UI that puts the 
focus on usability and a positive user experience. Clunky menu-obsessed UIs are a thing of the past and we thought Microsoft had finally caught up with the likes of Apple and Google with a touch-friendly WinMo6.5 UI. Alas, with this latest leak, we’re seriously hoping that Microsoft has their Windows Mobile 6.5 ROM safely under lock-and-key and that these purported screenshots of Windows Mobile 6.5 in action are fake.
The alleged Windows Mobile 6.5 UI looks like nothing more than Windows Mobile 6.1 with a few touch-friendly additions – not the Windows Mobile overhaul that we were expecting. If this latest leak is indeed the real Windows Mobile 6.5… well, there’s always Windows Mobile 7.0 down the road.
More screenshots over at WMPowerUser.
[Via: xda]