David Flynn24 September 2009, 4:42 PM
Microsoft is set to stamp its name onto a new wave of Windows Mobile smartphones aimed at the social networking set. Here’s a sneak peak at ‘Project Pink’.
Leaked photos unearthed by gadget blog
Gizmodo have revealed the designs and details of Microsoft’s latest assault on the mobile market.
The Turtle shows as a funky handset with playful curves and a lime accent on secondary key functions
(photo courtesy of Gizmodo)
The puck-shaped Turtle and the more conventional Pure both belong to Project Pink, which is an evolution of the Hiptop platform
acquired by Microsoft in 2008.
The Hiptop (known in the US as the Sidekick) shot to success with a narrow but deep market of tweens, teens and twentysomethings addicted to email and instant messaging.
The Pure adopts a more conventional landscape form (photo courtesy of Gizmodo)
Project Pink aims to update the Hitptop model to the modern era – which means expanded social networking offerings and beefier multimedia support.
The entire Hiptop model was in fact quite ahead of its time, with its own app store (long before Apple ‘invented’ the concept) plus a cloud-based model in which data lived on servers.
This dovetails neatly into Microsoft’s own cloudbank, ranging from its Windows Mobile Marketplace (app store) to the wide range of Windows Live offerings and even Zune music services which the ‘PinkPhones’ could easily tap into.
Both the Turtle and Pure use a slider construction to conceal a full QWERTY keyboard. Under their curvy shells will lurk Windows Mobile, which partnered with the expected debut of mid-2010 indicates they may be running Windows Mobile 7 rather than the current version 6.5. (The original Hiptops ran a proprietary Java-based OS.)
Like most of their predecessors, these next-gen Hiptops will be built by Sharp (rather than smartphone powerhouse HTC).
It’s not known if Microsoft will retain the popular Hiptop or Sidekick brands for the devices.