With only a few weeks after Microsoft officially unveiled Windows Mobile 6.5 we now see the first mockups of the upcoming Microsoft mobile OS. Windows Mobile 7 is going to be available only later next year but it looks like the first mockups have already been leaked.

Windows 7 is meant to offer the user a better touchscreen experience and from what we see in the pictures here the user interface is totally new. In fact some of those buttons there will remind some people of Apple’s iPhone OS.

The leaked pictures above were rumored to be Windows Mobile 6.5.1 shots but they look a lot more similar to other Windows Mobile 7 leaked shots than to Windows Mobile 6.5. Windows Mobile 6.5.1 will probably be unveiled at some point early next year and it’s supposed to be a transitional phase between Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Mobile 7. There’s no point on getting to excited about Windows Mobile 7 right now anyway. There are so many Windows Mobile 6.5 phones which you should definitely consider taking advantage of before moving to greener pastures.

Alright, folks; it’s that time again. If you’re not a jailbreaker, get to hittin’ that update button in iTunes (if you are a jailbreaker, you probably want to wait to make sure this update is safe.) Apple just pushed version 3.1.2 of the iPhone OS down the pipes. It’s a minor update, but it fixes a couple little bugs that have personally driven us bonkers.

The Fixes:

* Fixes a “sporadic issue” that kept the iPhone from waking up after it’s in sleep mode

* Sometimes, the iPhone loses cell connectivity and won’t reconnect without a restart. Thats been fixed.

* An issue with streaming videos crashing has been fixed.

Microsoft formally announced the coordinated, worldwide release of smartphones running on its new Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. The company said that it expected its partners to deliver more than 30 new phones in more than 20 countries by the end of 2009. The platform has come under increasing pressure from other players in the smartphone space, notably Google’s Android operating system, Apple’s iPhone OS and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry platform. By announcing phones across multiple continents and with multiple carriers, Microsoft appears to be trumpeting the global reach of the platform as much as the new features. Today also marks the formal launch of of its Windows Marketplace for Mobile application storefront, which currently has 246 applications in its catalog. Microsoft said that Windows Mobile 6.5 includes a redesigned Internet Explorer Mobile browser boasting a new engine, and built-in Adobe Flash Lite support for better rendering and completion of tasks. Handsets also will arrive with Windows Live, enabling users to more effectively manage their social media behaviors across services including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, accoring to Microsoft. In North America, Microsoft is partnering with three of the four Tier 1 carriers for Windows Mobile 6.5. AT&T Mobility has already announced it will launch the HTC Pure and HTC Tilt 2, and Verizon Wireless has said it will launch the HTC Imagio. Today, Sprint Nextel said it will launch the Samsung Intrepid. The Intrepid phone will have a 2.5-inch touchscreen, 3.2-megapixel camera, WiFi, a full Qwerty keyboard and a microSD slot capable of holding up to 32 GB of storage. Sprint will launch the Intrepid Oct. 11 for $149.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Adobe took the wraps off its latest and most versatile version of its Flash Player to date earlier today. The newly announcedFlash 10.1 software will be available “for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks, PCs and other Internet-connected devices, allowing content created using the Adobe Flash Platform to reach users wherever they are.” It’s kind of a big deal.

Version 10.1 represents the first Flash iteration that will work on just about any computing device floating around meatspace. More importantly (at least to us) is the freshly announced support for just about every mobile OS platform on the market, except you know whose (more on that below).

According to the official release:

A public developer beta of the browser-based runtime is expected to be available for Windows® Mobile, Palm® webOS and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year. Public betas for Google® Android™ and Symbian® OS are expected to be available in early 2010. In addition, Adobe and RIM announced a joint collaboration to bring Flash Player to Blackberry® smartphones[.]

In other words, by the end of Q1 2010, we should see Flash running on WinMo, webOS, Android, Symbian, and BlackBerry mobile devices. This is pretty huge. Regardless of what anyone thinks about Flash, it has clearly become a major Web standard over the years. Its presence has been noticeably absent from mobile browsers, forcing developers to create workarounds or avoid including particular features from their mobile sites all together.

But with 10.1, these issues should become history. Not to mention, the upcoming Flash Player has purportedly been designed to maximize today’s (and tomorrow’s) cutting-edge mobile hardware.

New mobile-ready features that take advantage of native device capabilities include support for multi-touch, gestures, mobile input models, accelerometer and screen orientation bringing unprecedented creative control and expressiveness to the mobile browsing experience.

However, once all the dust had settled earlier this morning, there was still one mobile platform that had not yet joined the party – iPhone OS. But then again, we already knew that to be the case. Until Apple learns to play nice with others (er, at least Adobe), it should no longer claim to offer access to the “full Internet” via its iDevices.

In any case, like any new hardware or software claims made these days, the jury is definitely still out until we see some solid evidence to support Adobe’s puffery. The promise of mobile access to “virtually all Flash technology based Web content and applications wherever they are” sounds fantastic. Now we’ll just have to wait and see.

For more, check out Adobe’s demo vids or take a spin through their new FAQ.

Apple has been getting reports on their discussion boards about poor battery life from users following the iPhone 3.1 software update. These users are being contacted with plenty of questions trying to get to the bottom of the issues. Of course there are plenty of possible culprits that Apple points out – such as push e-mail, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and App Store apps. There’s one question they ask users that’s more eye opening – “When you notice a power drop, does it seem to be a legitimate power drop, or rather an issue with the battery icon indicator?” The note that Apple’s help desk has been sending out to users also comes with an attachment that aims to install an unsigned profile that enables Battery Life Logging on the phone. After installing it, the iPhone will sync power logs through iTunes which will in turn be sent to Apple for further troubleshooting. In addition to poor battery life, some users report freezing issues and random shutdowns. We’ll see if there’s a legitimate reason to all the issues possibly stemming from the update.