After the Windows Phone 7 launch passed without so much as a mention of Project Pink, Microsoft's other new phone project started to fade into memory. Today, we can confirm: Pink's coming, and Verizon's the carrier. UPDATE: First live shots.
A tipster passed us a load of third-party marketing materials, in which a promotional plan for Pink is laid out in detail. (Campaign specifics and most graphics have to be withheld to protect the innocent, but rest assured, they're legit.) The documents don't talk about specs or software details, or more importantly why the hell Microsoft thinks this weird little pebble is a good idea, but there's plenty we can learn:
The early Pink renders leaked to us back in September? Those are exactly the same ones included in the proposal.
Of the two phones in prior leaks, only one shows up here: The Turtle vertical slider. It's a messaging phone, basically--one part Pre, and two parts Sidekick. (Or maybe three.)
Verizon is a launch partner for the device, and probably an exclusive carrier. The branding and marketing in the documents suggests a joint Microsoft/Verizon launch, but another carrier isn't completely out of the question.
The phones aren't running Windows Phone 7, unless it's hidden behind a different interface. Virtually all rumors around the Pink platform implied as much, and again, this appears to be something fundamentally different.
Social Networking! It's all over the proposal, and presumably, the phone.
It's suggested that the platform has apps of some sort. For a phone like this to share apps with Windows Phone 7 is pretty much impossible--the minimum hardware requirement for a Windows Phone looks out of reach for this little black lump--so this one's a big question mark. Is it another SDK? Or closed app development like we've seen on the Zune HD? Web apps?… Read more
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