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If imitation is the sincerest for of flattery, then Microsoft plans do a lot of it as it gearing up to give Apple, who's iPhone has quickly jumped to number two in the U.S. smartphone market, a run for its money with the next generation of Windows Mobile. At least that's what a supposed internal Microsoft, leaked to InsideMicrosoft, reveals.

The document, if real, is chock full of details and screen shots, giving us the best view of what's now being called Windows Mobile 7 (formally codenamed Photon) yet—particularly in the area of the user interface, which, surprise surprise, heavily emphasizes more advanced touch input (a la the iPhone) than included with previous versions of Microsoft's smartphone and handheld operating system.

So in addition to accepting standard stylus input, Windows Mobile 7 accepts multi-touch (more than one finger at a time) and gesture (swipes and flicks of the finger to quickly move through lists, for example) inputs; both concepts introduced to the smartphone world by Apple with the iPhone.

In addition to touch, Microsoft has plans to allow users to control and manage their Windows Mobile device through shakes and rotation.

The strength, direction and number of shakes determine how a smartphone responds.

What happen as a result would depend on the context in which these jiggles take place. For example, shaking a device left to right while a song is playing would jump you to the next track. Or, perhaps, you may be able to 'toss' a file from your device to another by performing a simple tossing motion while holding your device.


Shake to Wake Up Your Smartphone

In the rotation department, turning a device in a particular direction and at a certain speed could unlock it, for instance. With the iPhone, photos and the Safari Web browser switch to landscape mode when the smartphone itself is rotated in that direction.

Rather than implementing an accelerometer, which the iPhone uses, the Microsoft document cites the concept of using a smartphone's camera as a motion sensor to manage these control functions. This would make implementing these technologies cheaper, as you won’t need the extra hardware, and allow for current Windows Mobile devices to be upgraded to version 7 of the added functionality.

The interface described jibes with the "improved user interface for mobile devices" concepts outlined in a patent filing from late last year. Like that one, Windows Mobile 7 is apparently very different from what Microsoft offers today for PDAs and smartphones—focusing more on using groups or lists to organize data, including such things as tasks and applications.

Perhaps, with Windows Mobile 7 we may finally see the long-anticipated unification of the Smartphone (now called Standard under Windows Mobile 6) and Pocket PC (now known as Classic for PDAs and Professional for smartphones) versions of Windows Mobile.

It appears Microsoft now intends to release the next major upgrade to Windows Mobile sometime in 2009. Of late, it was thought Windows Mobile 7 might arrive early this year. And, when it does arrive, you never know if it'll include all. Some or none of the features mentioned above.

Today, Microsoft-run smartphones are starting to ship with a far more limited update to Windows Mobile 6, called 6.1, than version 7.

Check out this gallery at Zoomr and this one at Engadget for extensive overviews of the screen shots and images of Windows Mobile 7 and its puported functionaily.