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What's new in Windows Mobile 6.5.3

A few blogs noted on February 2 that Sony Ericsson has a new Windows Mobile phone out that's running the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 operating system. What's new in 6.5.3? Here's the feature list from Microsoft.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

A few blogs noted on February 2 that Sony Ericsson has a new Windows Mobile phone out that's running the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 operating system.

What's new in 6.5.3? This looks like the long-rumored update to Windows Mobile that provides support for capacitive-screen phones. It also provides some browser-speed tweaks.

I asked Microsoft for a feature list for 6.5.3 and was provided with the following:

Ease of Use features

* Capacitive touchscreen support * Platform to enable multitouch * Touch controls throughout system (no need for stylus) * Consistent Navigation * Horizontal scroll bar replaces tabs (think settings>system>about screen) * Magnifier brings touch support to legacy applications * Simplified out-of-box experience with fewer steps * Drag and drop icons on Start Screen

IE Browser Performance

* Page load time decreased * Memory management improved * Pan & flick gestures smoothed * Zoom & rotation speed increased

Quality and Customer Satisfaction features

* Updated runtime tools (.NET CF 3.5, SQL CE 3.1) * Arabic read/write document support * Watson (error reporting) improvements and bug fixes

Does this mean there isn't a Windows Mobile 6.6 or 6.7 waiting in the wings for a Barcelona Mobile World Congress unveiling? (In other words, is 6.5.3 what tipsters meant when they were talking 6.6/6.7?) Guess we'll see in two more weeks....

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