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The HTC Leo has been out of sight for a while now, but recent leaks into the world of bloggers have it that the HTC Leo will now officially be the HTC Touch HD2. A leaked document has shown that the HTC Touch HD2 will be heading for T-Mobile soon. Of course there’s no release date, but with Windows Mobile 6.5 out and about, how long could it really be? So who’s holding out for the 1GHz pumping, 5 megapixel beast?

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The HTC Leo has been out of sight for a while now, but recent leaks into the world of bloggers have it that the HTC Leo will now officially be the HTC Touch HD2. A leaked document has shown that the HTC Touch HD2 will be heading for T-Mobile soon. Of course there’s no release date, but with Windows Mobile 6.5 out and about, how long could it really be? So who’s holding out for the 1GHz pumping, 5 megapixel beast?

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Ah…Windows Mobile…we shall miss thee. What you see in the image above is the final version of the Windows Mobile platform, as it is readying for public release. Only now it has a new name; Windows Phone. That’s what Microsoft has shared with the good people at The Inquirer, along with the Windows Phone of course. The handset shows off features like the Zune-ish UI, Marketplace for Windows Phone, the free My Phone sync service, Microsoft Tag, etc, etc. Also, let it be known once and for all that the Windows Mobile 6.5 name is history; “We don’t even refer to the operating system because it’s part of the whole long term strategy of releases coming out.” Oooh…I can just feel the authority.

Good news for all you HTC Snap or HTC Ozone owners, you may well be looking at an official upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 in the near future. Sprint hosts the HTC Snap while Verizon is offering the HTC Ozone. The information about the upgrade came from documents that got published on the Bluetooth Special Interest Group’s website, a Windows Mobile 6.5 variant of the HTC Cedar, codename for the CDMA Snap, has received regulatory approval. Apart from the CDEA100 moniker and the WM6.5 designation, there weren’t any further details. The release of Windows Mobile 6.5 is nearing, so it’s a sane hope that HTC, along with Sprint and Verizon, will give early adopter this much deserved break.

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Among the few really tangible many treats coming for Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 users, will be TellMe Voice Command integration. At present WinMo users rely on Microsoft Voice Command, with TellMe available as a third party app for BlackBerry handsets and the Samsung instinct. But the new stock of handset running on Windows Mobile 6.5 will all have TellMe ready to go at boot time, for free from Windows Marketplace as a value added feature, regardless of which manufacturer or carrier you go with. Sweet!

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While the Windows Mobile 6.5 was never deemed to be the OS that will end all OS, we were still pretty psyched about the prospect of seeing it unleashed come May 11th at Tech Ed 2009, at least that’s the message the whole blogosphere got from a very poorly-worded post on the Windows Mobile Blog. Fresh news from Redmond is that the post actually meant the company would be demoing a few Windows Mobile 6.5 features/functionality and discussing its future (it won’t have a future if you don’t give it to us while we want it you know). They won’t be releasing it. Here’s the updated post on the Windows Mobile blog.

It’s finally official, Microsoft has finally made the announcement on their Windows Mobile Blog that the next installment of the Windows Mobile OS will come on May 11^th.  And yes, it will be day one of Tech Ed 2009. According to the blog;

“Stephanie Ferguson, GM of Business Experiences at Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business is going to deliver the kick off launch presentation of Windows Mobile 6.5 on Monday, May 11th at 1:00PM – 2:15PM. This Tech Ed 2009 session focuses on one of the biggest launches in the history of Windows Mobile – Windows Mobile 6.5. It is targeted at both IT Professionals and Developers, with a cool demo and an outline of great stuff to come. Be sure to join us as we are giving away 5 Samsung Blackjack II’s!”

For those of you who don’t know WinMo 6.5 has loads over WinMo 6.1, of course those weary of the OS will not be impressed much by this. On the other hand WinMo loyalists will be first in line to say that the OS is a regular workhorse. In any case, the polished WinMo 6.5 UI will be a good pass time till version 7 drops in.

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Microsoft’s latest mobile OS, Windows Mobile 6.5 hasn’t brought a wide assortment of features for developers, but the honeycomb interface was really nice. It was unusual and out of the ordinary but still an attention grabber. But for some reason, probably because users used to the old interface gave negative feedback, and now the honeycomb interface is gone. This was revealed at the MIX09 conference. The icons have maintained their honeycomb layout, but the size has been increase, probably to ease pressing and selecting. The new outlines have also been freshened up. But it’s still sad seeing the hexagons go, let’s hope Microsoft keeps them up and alive on the option panel. The scrolling has also seen an improvement, now when you use your finger to scroll, the screen not only moves up and down, it also holds to the place where you released it. Of course, if Microsoft could make personalization of the home screen happen, that would just great.

HTC Raphael users who had so been partying on the pre-release version of Windows Mobile 6.5, but now the party’s over. Microsoft has issued takedown notices to the XDA developers and as of present all links to the original post and subsequent post have been removed. No more of Da_G’s Window’s 6.5 ROM. The only good thing is that the forum has neither been locked nor shut down. And for those of you banking on forums mirroring similar ROMs, well that’s gone too. Many websites and forums have reported receiving similar take down notices. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

Now for Microsoft and the announcements that it has made at the MWC, no really big surprise, we knew about a good many of them and this is more of a Microsoft round up.  The notable factor is who picked up the Microsoft goodies first.

One of the major first major announcements was that of Windows Mobile 6.5. The updated OS, 6.5 features a variety of enhancements from the new lock screen that provides dynamic notification to the honeycomb start menu, a finger-friendly Today screen and a new version of Internet Explorer Mobile that offers Adobe Flash lite support. Phones running the latest version of Windows Mobile will be re-branded as “Windows phones” to reflect Microsoft’s desire to bring the full Windows experience to your handset. There isn’t a definite release date for when 6.5 will be out, but expect it sometime towards the end of the year. Among those to pick up on the new shinny OS are HTC with its Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2 as well as LG with its GM7300. LG is so in love with the new OS that it has formally announced a partnership with Microsoft that will result in 50 Windows Mobile handsets by the year 2012.

Microsoft also announced the new “My Phone” service, its cloud backup solution for Windows phones, and Microsoft Recite which is a voice memo organization tool. The My Phone service will sync your contacts, appointments, text messages, documents, music, photos and videos to a password protected online account that will be maintained on Microsoft’s servers. So far My Phone is available as an invitation-only beta. Microsoft Recite, on the other hand, is immediately available as a free technology preview (an early beta) for phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 or higher. With Recite you can record, search and retrieve voice memos using only your voice.

Finally, Microsoft announced its online marketplace, Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Available on phones running Windows Mobile 6.5, the new Windows Marketplace will allow users to search, browse and purchase applications over the air from a compatible mobile phone or PC using a Windows Live ID. There are currently over 20,000 applications available for Windows phones, so if anything, the new marketplace won’t be starved for content.