And so it’s finally here. Call it late, call it timely, call it your mother-in-law, it’s here. Well, not quite here yet, but we figure it’s going to be out soon enough. What we do know for one is that MS wasn’t shitting our faces with mock primers all this while. And indeed there’s been some thought (serious or otherwise) into this new coming  …

Needless to say, they’ve come up with a humdinger of a UI to start with. The real snatch is that impressive & snazzy yet simple looking tile structure home screen concept built around a headier set of groups which they’ve “ingeniously” called Hub(s). Impressive at first glance, and am sure will keep eyeballs rolling on streets, metros, wherever TF! whenever TF it comes out.

(be warned, unless you’re in the mood for some really shitty noise (as shitty as this font color), you might want to turn your speaker off before you hit play)

And so, coming to the point where the market makes its say on where it’ll place this new release, and how this new bitch will do on its own, from one blah to the other. What will it take to make this release a top gunner aiming to floor the smart-ass-phone market? The incredibly suave, new media design? The cloud sync googagagoo? Seamless social networking (oh is that something new, my grandma asks me on facebook!!)? The shine on Steve Ballmer’s head err face (almost OLED like)?

Well for one, Engadget seems to have gone all gaga over it (not Ballmer’s ahmm); well, good for them. GigaOm seems to have taken a measured approach; I guess that works for them. We’ll stick out our fanny’s and bring these thoughts to your head before we sign-off:

1. Is Windows Phone 7 Series future proof? Considering that the damn thing is 9-10 months off the first real devices hitting the market, have MS mistimed it with their time-to-market strategy OR is it really a part of their shenanigan masterplan?
2. Is the OS really what consumers need? Think about it, its not really a Yes or No. Well, eventually it will be one of the two, but think about it anyways.
3. Is Windows Phone 7 Series a good brand name? Really guys, the damn thing is too long and thats the nicest thing I’ve said about it today. I can get out of bed, brush up, toss an omelet, eat it, take a crap, shower and I’ll still be on the left side of ‘e’ (Phone)
4. GigaOM (Colin)’s word on the all important App Store and how crucial it is for MS to work with the developers to bring out apps to the Windows Marketplace. Well on second thoughts, App Store Shwapp Store, they’re not the future of Mobility. This is my thought. I’ll probably put up a separate piece on this in a new post somewhere sometime.
5. What really happens to XDA developers, ROM cookers (me), Home screen UI developers, the somewhat ill-placed hanging avid fans of the aging OS (which quite frankly has had quite a share of new coming by itself)? Will MS choose to forget what this part of the community has done to keep things going for them all this while, while the rest of their market share went to pieces with the so called smartphones (read: iPhone)?

I’ll leave you with those thoughts and also the keynote video link (you’ll need Silverlight, but are you really interested in the waxy shine on Ballmer?)