The Next Best Thing to a Zune Phone: The Microsoft Experience UI

While Microsoft has repeatedly denied that there will be a Zune phone in the works despite repeated rumors, we're hearing word that the company may in fact be creating its own concept UI, spurring a theory that third-party user interfaces, like HTC's TouchFLO 3D and Sense UI, SPB Mobile Shell, and Samsung's TouchWiz UI to name a few, may be barred from Windows Mobile 7, an OS that has been acknowledged, but delayed so that the software giant can get it right out the door to remain competitive against the rise of the iPhone and the popularity of Android.

One theory being speculated is that Microsoft may create its own user interface and create a Windows Mobile Experience Phone akin to the stock, un-customized Android called the "Google experience phone" on the other side of the spectrum. The Windows Phone Experience will come with features and customizations that OEMs, carriers, and manufacturers may not easily be able to change or alter. This leads to the other side of the equation--a second version of Windows Mobile that can get some third-party UI customizations. This first theory of having possibly a Windows phone experience model seems to jive well, as some OEMs, like HTC, have been planning on porting their own UI to Windows Mobile 7. This matches a report on WMExperts that states that a developer over at XDA-Developers have found coding lines for Sense UI for Windows Mobile 7:

if HomeMachineStatus.WM7Device.Value then
IsWindowsMobile7Device = true
PredefineItem = 1
HomeItemCollection = HomeManager:GetHomeCollection(1)
else
IsWindowsMobile7Device = false
PredefineItem = 0
HomeItemCollection = HomeManager:GetHomeCollection()
end

Another report posted on WMPowerUser from site Teltarif.de brings up another theory--that third-party UIs may come to an end, which we hope would not be true. With signs that Sense UI Windows Mobile 7 coding found, and the fact that Microsoft may not want to alienate any developers--SPB has been a long-time Windows Mobile partner--to a platform that will be the underdog in a highly competitive and increasingly crowding smartphone market.

However, with Windows Mobile 7 all but finalized, anything can happen between now and when the OS is released to manufacturers (RTM) for testing and further development. If in fact that there may be a version of Windows Mobile 7 sans native third-party add-ons, like TouchWiz, TouchFLO, S-Class (a la LG), and Sense UI, it could mean that we may be ushering an era of over the air (OTA) updates, a feature that was supposed to have arrived with Windows Mobile 6.5 via the Windows Update icon, but so far has not been implemented. Without third-party codes to alter in case of a major OS upgrade, Microsoft could be pushing these updates out freely to end-users without too much risk to bricking devices or having plug-ins not work. The Windows Phone Experience concept with OTA firmware updates for Windows Mobile 7 would jive well with predictions by Mary J. Foley on ZDNet:

Microsoft officials have said they’re committed to reducing this gap and enabling Window Mobile to be pushed to phone customers over the air (OTA), but it sounds like that capability won’t debut until Windows Mobile 7.0, at the earliest.

A Microsoft Windows Phone Experience concept seems to jive well with Microsoft trying to integrate the best practices from its other divisions, including the Zune team and the Xbox team. It'd be interesting in the coming year to see what developments and synergies can be leveraged between disparate divisions at Microsoft to create a compelling user experience that can negate the need for skinning and third-party add-ons. The Zune HD has received a very warm welcome from consumers and the press, and if Windows Mobile can take a lesson or two from the Zune playbook, we may have a winner lurking in 2010.