We'd been holding out hope that T-Mobile's version of the HTC Touch Pro2 would materialize for customers in the month of July, but that's looking less and less likely now that we have some awfully real-looking documentation that claims otherwise. TmoNews has nabbed some sort of slide suggesting that HTC's latest AWS-equipped superphone won't hit retail until August 12 (with upgrades not kicking in until 10AM PT the same day, amusingly), so it seems like we've got over a month to wait yet. Meanwhile, the myTouch 3G will launch -- not to say it's a competitor, really, but it'll certainly be attracting some attention that this phone could be getting otherwise. Being fashionably late to the party isn't fun for anyone, is it?

Details are scarce, but it seems that this blurry, partial photo of an unknown QWERTY Samsung might be the "Link," a smartphone destined for Bell -- allegedly as soon as July 15. Seeing that it's being described as a smartphone, that virtually guarantees that it'll be running Windows Mobile, and from the look of it, we'd probably have to expect WinMo 6.1 Standard. Technically, S60 is a remote possibility -- Samsung is an S60 licensee, after all -- but the company has yet to release S60 gear on North American soil, so why start now?

[Via Unwired View]

HTC's a bit of a sieve when it comes to leaking new builds of really awesome things, and the trend continues with TouchFLO 3D 2.5 seemingly out in the wild and running on some Touch HDs. Rumor has it this is the build that'll premiere on the company's upcoming Firestone superphone, bringing some of its Sense concepts to the WinMo platform -- most notably including widget support. You've got new assignable shortcuts on the home screen, a revamped messaging experience (presumably to better fit in with HTC's contact-centric mantra), and a new Footprints screen. That's all well and good that Firestone buyers will likely see this, but here's the million-dollar question: what current devices will get official upgrades, if any?

[VIa wmpoweruser.com]

Well, well, there it is. The world's first and only Snapdragon phone available for retail, Toshiba's TG01, is up and dancing on Orange's UK site with a "coming soon" badge. Soon meaning the July 9th London press event, presumably, where this 9.9-mm slate running WinMo on a 4.1-inch 800x480 pixel display should get a shove out the retail door. Yes, Windows Mobile 6.1, why do you ask?

[Via CoolSmartPhone]

Samsung's already committed to offering Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrades to Omnia IIs released with 6.1, but just how necessary is that commitment going to end up being in practice? Microsoft's Austrian outpost has announced that the Korean company's latest WinMo superphone will be launching in the domestic market in September with 6.5 already installed -- suggesting that at least some of these handsets in other markets around the world could be coming out of the gate in the same configuration. It also raises new questions about the market launch for 6.5 on a broader scale; we've always known it'd be hitting toward the end of 2009, but we've never gotten an exact date out of anyone for retail availability -- presumably because it has as much to do with manufacturer partners' plans as it does Microsoft's. We're not saying the Austrian Omnia II will be the first WinMo 6.5 retail device anywhere, but at this point, it's looking likely that this'll be in the first wave.

[Via WMExperts, TamsPPC, and wmpoweruser, thanks Daniel M.]

A few days after blocking PlayStation 3 users, Hulu has yet to respond to questions concerning the change which has only helped to fuel rumors it is related to the Microsoft ad campaign currently featured on the site, but that seems less likely now that we've confirmed it also began blocking the Flash-enabled Skyfire browser on Windows Mobile devices at the same time. Whatever the cause is, if you prefer a homegrown hack over something like PlayOn or TVersity, Eric over at ypass.net has put together a simple enough walkthrough for creating an "unblockable" workaround by setting up a locally connected PC running Linux or Windows with the freely available Squid proxy server software that will make your PS3 look like appear as a PC running a Firefox (or whatever you prefer) browser to any website that asks. Of course, just like the other solutions your computer will need to stay running to keep you connected, but we figure it's a small price to pay for enjoying relatively low res Flash video running on an HDTV.

Read - Got a PS3? Want Hulu Back? Easy enough...
Read - Squid-setup for Windows NT /2k /X

Right about the time Kindle for iPhone hit the App Store, Amazon's true intentions in the e-book space started to become clear: it wasn't about dominating the market end-to-end with Amazon-branded equipment. It never was; that's Apple's game, of course, but Bezos and Company were taking a starkly different tack. Instead, Amazon almost seemed to shout "please, someone else do this for us" by creating powerful, well-intentioned devices in the original Kindle, the Kindle 2, and the Kindle DX that scream "reference design" more than they scream to would-be customers buying on sex appeal or real-world ergonomics. It's clear now that Kindle is a platform, not a piece of hardware, and Amazon's specialty is the same as it has been since day one of the Washington-based company -- delivering content. If people buy Kindles in the course of discovering the platform, Amazon figures that's all well and good, but the ultimate goal is to bring them into that content ecosystem at any cost, which means building software that can extend Kindle support to as many platforms as humanly possible. After tackling the iPhone, rumors are swirling that Windows Mobile may be next on news that the company is actively hiring WinMo engineers; the timing would certainly be right with the imminent launch of 6.5 and the Windows Marketplace, and if there's one thing that could help keep the WinMo loyal in the fray for another build, it might be a stellar e-reader. Granted, there are already great e-readers out there for the platform, but how many tap into the Kindle universe?

[Via PhoneArena]

Ready for even more rumors about Windows Mobile 7 and Microsoft's mysterious "Pink" smartphone project? Good, cause we've got a few -- and the first is potentially huge. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley says her best understanding of "Pink" is now that it's a Microsoft-branded phone running a custom UI on top of Windows Mobile 7, developed by what's left of the Danger team and targeted at the Sidekick market. Yep, Microsoft-branded -- as in, the exact thing Microsoft has been denying for ages now. What's more, Redmond wouldn't be letting third parties use this new UI -- Pink would be manufactured only by Sharp or Motorola, who've made Sidekicks in the past. It all makes sense, even if it does feel a bit like MS is knifing its partners in the back -- companies like HTC and Samsung have been equally aggressive in layering their own UIs like TouchFLO 3D and TouchWiz on top of WinMo, but it's another thing entirely to compete against Microsoft itself, especially now that AdWeek says Microsoft's selected an agency to develop a Pink ad campaign. Yeah, things are starting to get a little wild -- we haven't even mentioned the open questions of whether the Zune HD is running Tegra because it's based on Windows Mobile 7 Chassis 1, or whether Pink will launch on Verizon, or whether Zune will appear on other phones, or... you get the idea. Hey Microsoft -- you want to clear any of this up by shipping some products?

Read - ZDNet
Read - AdWeek

It's already out in Japan and a few select countries in Europe, now Toshiba's skinny TG01 is hitting London on Thursday, July 9th. Presumably the invite will be met with an official UK launch of Tosh's deftly skinned Snapdragon handset with a Windows Mobile 6.1 core. Then again, it could be a lot of tech reporters eating mini triangular sandwiches slathered with pickle spread discussing the HTC Hero for four hours. We'll let you know next week.

If you want to get HD in your handheld, NVIDIA's Tegra processor is the hot way to do it at the moment, and we've got reasonably concrete sounding rumors from disparate sources that a handset containing one of the chips is currently under development by a "top five" smartphone builder (we're guessing it's not Apple), and that it'll be out sometime before the end of the year, selling at T-Mobile and AT&T for just $199. The details of the device beyond that are scant, with Android being a possibility but Windows Mobile looking more likely, and a continued pledge of battery life of rated for "days and days" of mobile multimedia. We like the sound of that.

Read - NVIDIA Tegra phone due from "big five" firm
Read - Rumor: NVIDIA Tegra phones in Q409?

We still think that the Saga is one of the better portrait QWERTY WinMo phones currently on the market -- the optical mouse is awesome and global roaming is a more-than-welcome capability -- and it's only gotten better with the release of an official update from Samsung. The new build features Microsoft's latest Windows Mobile 6.1 AKU (1.5.1, if you're curious) and adds the capability to send MMS messages when you're roaming on GPRS, but most importantly, it unlocks GPS so that third-party applications can take advantage of it. This is a trend that Verizon's been pursuing full-force this year, and needless to say, it's a welcome one.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

As HTC's already eager to demonstrate with the Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2 and Toshiba with the TG01, Windows Mobile 6.5 should bring with it a pretty wide range of interesting compatible hardware -- and we'll admit that we're a little intrigued by this alleged device from Mio codenamed "Amber." All we've got here is a render, but it's certainly within the realm of plausibility -- it looks quite a bit like the company's G50, after all, and we'd certainly expect them to be releasing new WinMo devices in conjunction with 6.5. Anyhow, we're told that we can expect a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7200 series (we would've preferred Snapdragon-class silicon, of course), a whopping 3.61-inch WVGA display, 256MB of RAM paired with 512MB of ROM, a 5 megapixel AF primary cam, full HSPA, and an integrated FM transmitter. If it's real, it looks like this one has the Touch Diamond2 squarely in its sights.

[Thanks, msav]

So Microsoft France's product manager for Windows Mobile, Audrey Zolghadr, is saying that the company's upcoming Windows Marketplace launch will be accompanied by around 600 apps certified and available on day one. Depending on your perspective, that's either ridiculously anemic -- the iPhone's App Store has a couple orders of magnitude more currently available, for example -- or a veritable cornucopia. Though the Ovi Store has no shortage of "items" to buy, an overwhelming majority of those are currently wallpapers, ringtones, and the like, and Palm's App Catalog launched with so few apps that many folks (we're not naming names) literally had every app installed within a few minutes of buying the phone. At the end of the day, it's all about signal-to-noise ratio; if Microsoft can deliver 600 apps and half of those are terrific, they're on the right track -- though at this point, we're thinking the next battle in Smartphone Platform Wars doesn't really kick off until WinMo 7 swings by anyway.

[Via PhoneArena and WMExperts]

While we twiddle our thumbs and wait for the Dash 3G and the Touch Pro2 to make their fanfare-laden debuts on good ol' Number Four (that's our pet name for T-Mobile USA, of course), literature is starting to show up that should make the wait marginally more bearable by giving us a few pretty pictures to look at and words to read. There's nothing Earth-shattering in here, but we see that the Dash 3G has 256MB of ROM and an impressive rated 8.3 days of standby time -- we'll believe that when we get that kind of performance ourselves -- while the Touch Pro2 moves up to 512MB, keeps the 8.3 days of standby, and touts its unusual full-duplex speakerphone that dominates the rear of the device. If you do a lot of conference calling, you must be beside yourself right about now, eh?