Windows Mobile Crossbow Video: Early Look at What Became Windows Mobile 6

In January 2007, a short Mobility Today post embedded a video and called it “Windows Mobile Crossbow.” Crossbow was Microsoft's internal codename for what shipped a few weeks later as Windows Mobile 6 - not Windows Mobile 6.5, and not the far more ambitious touch-focused project, later reported under the name Photon, that Mobility Today covered separately the following year. This piece revisits what the original Mobility Today post actually said, what it didn't say, and how the Crossbow name maps onto the Windows Mobile releases that came before and after it.

What Was Windows Mobile Crossbow?

Crossbow was Microsoft's development codename for the release that followed Windows Mobile 5.0 and was ultimately marketed as Windows Mobile 6.0. It's confirmed across contemporary reporting from 2006 and early 2007, including Engadget's coverage of the naming and Mobile-Review's hands-on look at pre-release builds, and it lines up with how Microsoft itself referred to the release once it went public. Windows Mobile 6.0 was officially announced on February 12, 2007, at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, with the software having gone out to device manufacturers in late 2006 and phones running it reaching shelves through the following months.

Like most Microsoft codenames of that era, Crossbow wasn't a secret exactly - it circulated openly in tech press well before the official announcement - but it also wasn't the name Microsoft ultimately sold the product under. That gap between codename and shipping name is exactly why old headlines using “Crossbow” can look confusing today, more than a decade and a half later.

The 2006 Context: Between Windows Mobile 5 and Photon

Reporting from around April 2006 - including an early Engadget piece on the Crossbow name - described the release as Microsoft's next mobile update, positioned as a nearer-term step between the then-current Windows Mobile 5.0 and a longer-term, more ambitious project that press coverage of the period associated with the codename Photon. That framing held up: Crossbow shipped as Windows Mobile 6.0 in February 2007, while the touch- and gesture-focused Photon-era work took years longer, went through its own well-documented leak in January 2008, and was ultimately scrapped and rebuilt from scratch as Windows Phone 7, which didn't arrive until 2010. Crossbow, in other words, was always understood at the time as the shorter-term, incremental update - not Microsoft's big swing at reinventing its mobile interface.

Recovering Mobility Today's Original Post

The original Mobility Today article survives in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, with a full snapshot captured in April 2008. According to that capture, the post was titled simply “Video: Windows Mobile Crossbow,” written by David Ciccone, and dated Saturday, January 6, 2007 - about five weeks before Microsoft's official Windows Mobile 6 announcement.

The post itself is short. Its full body text, as preserved by the archive, credits the video to another outlet: “The guys over at Mobile-Review give a nice overview of what Crossbow has to offer.” Ciccone went on to explain the codename for readers who might not recognize it - “Crossbow is the next upgrade after Windows Mobile 5.0 and is scheduled to be released in the first half of 2007” - and added a personal note, saying his own experience with Crossbow while working for DualCor (a mobile-device maker of the period) “hasn't been too impressive,” and that “there aren't many big changes at all which you will see during this video.” The video itself was embedded through a Google Video player widget rather than hosted natively on Mobility Today, consistent with it being a reposted third-party video rather than Mobility Today's own hands-on footage.

That's the entirety of Mobility Today's own written commentary preserved in the archive. The post does not state a build or version number, does not specify whether the video showed the Pocket PC edition or the Smartphone edition, does not describe it as “leaked,” and does not walk through specific Today-screen, Start-menu, messaging, or Office/Exchange changes. Those details simply aren't in the recovered text, and this article isn't going to invent them.

What the Video Actually Showed - and What It Didn't

Because the original post's own commentary is thin, the most useful additional signal comes from the four reader comments preserved on the same archived page, plus a separate contemporary write-up of what appears to be the same clip. One commenter, posting the same day the article went up, wrote that the interface “looks very similar” to what came before, though “the menus definately seem snappier,” while adding they weren't sure if that was really the new OS or just “a device with no software on it.” Two later commenters focused specifically on audio, with one asking bluntly: “So, the entire video is of the sounds that the OS can play? Is there anything on the rest of the device?” A fourth reader speculated, without confirmation from Mobility Today itself, that Crossbow would “affect the smartphone OS more than the PPC phone edition” - a guess, not a stated fact from the article.

Separately, a Gizmodo post covering what looks like the same Crossbow video, also dated January 6, 2007, offered a similarly unimpressed take, describing the clip as going through “every IM sound effect known to man” and concluding flatly that “it doesn't look like much has changed.” Taken together, the archived comments and this independent contemporary account point toward a video that leaned heavily on notification and messaging sound effects, with viewers at the time struggling to identify much in the way of visible interface change - not a detailed feature walkthrough with clear evidence of new Today-screen layouts, Start-menu redesigns, or Office and Exchange integration on screen.

Because neither Mobility Today's own text nor the surviving reader reaction documents a build number, specific visible interface changes, or a confirmed Pocket PC-versus-Smartphone edition, this piece isn't reconstructing those details from later, finished Windows Mobile 6 screenshots and presenting them as if they were shown in that January 2007 clip.

Crossbow to Windows Mobile 6: The Simple Version

Stripped of nuance, the relationship is straightforward: Crossbow was the internal development name, and Windows Mobile 6.0 was the retail name Microsoft gave that same release once it was ready to announce it publicly in February 2007. They are not two different products, and they are not a codename followed by a sequel - it's one release referred to two different ways at two different points in its life, before and after Microsoft's official unveiling. Once Microsoft's own announcement and branding took over in early 2007, “Crossbow” mostly dropped out of everyday use outside of archived tech coverage from the leak-and-rumor period that preceded it.

The Verified Crossbow / Windows Mobile 6 Feature Set

Independent of what any single video did or didn't show clearly, contemporary coverage of Windows Mobile 6 is consistent on what Crossbow actually changed once it shipped. A November 2006 Engadget hands-on look at pre-release builds, along with other reviews from the period, describe a visual refresh with Vista-inspired icons, sounds, and theming; a redesigned Today screen with more direct access to Windows Live services such as Live Search Mobile, Live Mail Mobile, and Live Messenger Mobile; an updated Outlook Mobile; a Smart Dial contact-search feature; and closer integration with the 2007 wave of Microsoft server products, including Exchange Server 2007. HTML email rendering in Outlook Mobile - proper formatting, color, and inline images instead of flattened plain text - is also well documented as a genuine improvement over Windows Mobile 5. VoIP and SIP calling support is likewise documented as part of the general Windows Mobile 6 feature set, though this article can't confirm it was specifically demonstrated in Mobility Today's January 2007 video, since the recovered post and its comments don't mention it.

Crossbow vs. Windows Mobile 6.5 vs. Photon vs. Windows Phone 7

These four names get confused constantly in retrospective searches, and they refer to genuinely different things developed at genuinely different times.

Crossbow / Windows Mobile 6.0 is the subject of this article: the codename for the release Microsoft officially announced in February 2007, an incremental update to the existing Windows Mobile shell rather than a ground-up redesign.

Windows Mobile 6.5 was a separate, later release that shipped in 2009, built on top of the Windows Mobile 6.x foundation, adding a honeycomb-style Start menu and other touch-friendlier adjustments. It is not the same project as Crossbow, and it postdates it by roughly two years.

Photon is the codename tech press has widely associated with a much more ambitious, touch- and gesture-focused Windows Mobile redesign that Microsoft was reportedly developing separately, largely through 2007 and 2008. Mobility Today covered a leaked look at that project in January 2008 under the header “Windows Mobile 7” - a full year after the Crossbow video discussed here, and describing an entirely different, more experimental set of interface concepts that were never released in that form. Crossbow and Photon were sequential, distinct Microsoft mobile efforts, not two names for the same thing.

Windows Phone 7 is different again: a completely separate platform Microsoft announced in February 2010 and launched commercially later that year, built around the Metro design language and Live Tiles, with no application compatibility carried over from classic Windows Mobile. It arrived after Microsoft reset its mobile plans following the Photon-era work, and it shares nothing but a superficially similar name with either Crossbow or the pre-reset Windows Mobile 7 material.

Contemporary Reaction: A “5.5” More Than a “6.0”?

A characterization worth flagging - and flagging clearly as outside commentary, not Mobility Today's own verdict - is that several contemporary reviewers in late 2006 were unimpressed with how much Crossbow actually changed relative to its “6.0” branding. Engadget's November 21, 2006 hands-on review of pre-release Crossbow builds put it bluntly, suggesting the release “could just as well be dubbed Windows Mobile 5.0 Second Edition given the lack of new features.” Coverage of Mobile-Review's own November 2006 look at Crossbow struck a similar note, describing it as an improvement but explicitly not the kind of complete overhaul Windows Mobile 5.0 had represented, and suggesting more substantial change would have to wait for the Photon-era work still to come.

This article can't independently verify a specific November 2006 Wired.com piece making that same “5.5-style” argument in those exact terms, so rather than invent one, it's left out here. What is clearly documented is that this “evolutionary, not revolutionary” framing was a real, fairly widespread reaction among tech press covering Crossbow before its official release, genuine improvements like HTML email and refreshed visuals notwithstanding - and that reaction belongs to the outlets that wrote it, not to Mobility Today, whose own January 2007 post was far shorter and largely deferred to Mobile-Review's video.

Could Windows Mobile 5 Phones Upgrade to Windows Mobile 6?

It's a common assumption that every Windows Mobile 5 phone eventually got bumped up to Windows Mobile 6, and it isn't accurate. Historical coverage of this period indicates that official upgrades were the exception rather than the rule: relatively few manufacturers pushed out official Windows Mobile 6 updates for existing Windows Mobile 5 hardware, and availability varied significantly by device model, manufacturer, and carrier, with Microsoft licensing the update to manufacturers rather than pushing it out directly to end users. Plenty of Windows Mobile 5 devices simply never received an official Windows Mobile 6 upgrade at all. Anyone researching a specific older device's upgrade history should check that model and carrier's own official update record directly rather than assuming universal availability either way.

What Happened After Windows Mobile 6?

Windows Mobile 6.0 was followed by 6.1 in 2007, then by Windows Mobile 6.5 in 2009 as a genuinely separate, later interim release. Behind the scenes during that same stretch, Microsoft was working on the far more ambitious Photon-era redesign that Mobility Today covered in its own January 2008 leak - work that was ultimately abandoned in favor of a full platform reset, which became Windows Phone 7 in 2010. None of that later history changes what the January 2007 Crossbow video actually was: a brief, thinly documented preview post, built around someone else's video, published a few weeks before Microsoft's own Windows Mobile 6 announcement made most of the guesswork moot.

FAQ

What was Windows Mobile Crossbow?

Crossbow was Microsoft's internal development codename for the Windows Mobile release that followed Windows Mobile 5.0, publicly announced as Windows Mobile 6.0 in February 2007.

Was Crossbow the same as Windows Mobile 6?

Yes. Crossbow and Windows Mobile 6.0 refer to the same release - Crossbow was the pre-announcement codename, and Windows Mobile 6.0 was the name Microsoft used once it officially unveiled the product.

When did Windows Mobile Crossbow first appear in coverage?

Reports naming Crossbow as Microsoft's next Windows Mobile release circulated by around April 2006, with hands-on coverage of pre-release builds appearing through late 2006, and Mobility Today's own video post appearing on January 6, 2007, ahead of the official February 2007 announcement.

What did Crossbow actually change?

Documented changes in Windows Mobile 6 include a Vista-inspired visual refresh, HTML email rendering in Outlook Mobile, a redesigned Today screen with Windows Live integration, VoIP/SIP calling support, and closer integration with Exchange Server 2007 - though Mobility Today's own recovered video post doesn't itself document these specific changes on screen.

Did Crossbow support HTML email?

Yes - HTML email rendering in Outlook Mobile, including proper formatting, color, and images, is a well-documented feature of Windows Mobile 6 compared to the largely plain-text rendering in Windows Mobile 5.

Did Crossbow support VoIP calling?

VoIP and SIP calling support is documented as part of the general Windows Mobile 6 feature set, though this article can't confirm it was specifically shown in Mobility Today's January 2007 video, since that post and its surviving comments don't mention it.

Could Windows Mobile 5 phones officially upgrade to Windows Mobile 6?

Not universally. Official upgrades were offered for some devices but were far from guaranteed across the board, varying by manufacturer, model, and carrier - many Windows Mobile 5 phones never received an official Windows Mobile 6 update.

Was Crossbow the same project as Photon?

No. Crossbow became Windows Mobile 6.0 in February 2007. Photon refers to a separate, later, more ambitious touch-focused redesign effort that press covered through 2007-2008, including in a January 2008 Mobility Today leak, before it was scrapped and rebuilt as Windows Phone 7 in 2010.

What came after Windows Mobile 6?

Windows Mobile 6.1 followed in 2007, and Windows Mobile 6.5 shipped in 2009 as an interim update to the same underlying platform, before Microsoft moved on to the entirely separate Windows Phone 7 platform in 2010.

Read today, the original Mobility Today Crossbow post is a small, unglamorous artifact: a few sentences, a borrowed video, and four reader comments arguing about notification sounds - published a few weeks before Microsoft made the whole question of what Crossbow actually was a matter of public record.