This is interesting.  Everyone knows that Windows Mobile has been looking a little long in the tooth as phone manufacturers race to compete with the iPhone's touch interface.  I'm happy to say that with 6.5 Windows Mobile will also enter the manual touch market.  The new homescreen does a horizontal scroll to move through the user's day (whether you're navigating through emails, appointments, text messages, or photos) - it sort of reminds me of the Xbox 360's interface in ways.  It's a unique way of navigating though, and from what I've seen it's my favorite part of the OS.

From there you can go to the new start menu which houses your applications.  The applications are now arranged in honeycomb-shaped bubbles making each a little more accessible with your finger.  That's cool because anyone who has used an older WinMo phone can attest that they're difficult to navigate without a stylus most of the time.

The only thing I'm a little concerned about is that the scrolling seemed a little chunky at times.  It didn't flow as well as the iPhone's scrolling.  They've also worked in the classic "snap-back" for menus, so that when you reach the top or bottom of a menu the content will snap up or down.  I think Palm is in some hot water for incorporating that feature because Apple has a patent on it, so I wonder if Apple will go after Microsoft now too.  Here's the video:


Windows Mobile 6.5 Running on HTC from Jesus Diaz on Vimeo.