I saw the Microsoft ad last night again, the 'family one' with the dancing dad. This time though at the end there was a close up shot of the top right corner of the Nokia 800 Windows phone as pictured above.

Paul, your writing (or Microsoft's history) is in the 'wishful thinking' period. This is particularly evident in your recent piece, "The Windows 8 Paradox, A Mobile Market Reshuffle, And RIMs Nosedive Into Obscurity"

In my view, a strong Microsoft phone OS offering would be the best thing for the industry, and particularly, customers. As much as I'd like to see it, I don't see Microsoft being able to pull this off. There are huge obstacles Microsoft must overcome.

Windows Phone 7 is a stopgap until Microsoft can fit Windows 8 onto a phone.

Migrating developers and sys admins from the desktop to Metro will be no walk in the park.

The criticism you have for RIM could be applied to Microsoft as well.

If Microsoft can pull this off, it will be huge.

Great looking phone, and my contract is almost up. Hope Verizon gets some decent Win Phones right now their selection sucks.

To be honest I thought it looked like an Nokia N9. I haven't really seen all the range of ipods The bright pink one reminded me of the pink N8. I had to do a search to see what an Ipod mini looked like. In a world where geeks faint at the prospect of a white iphone, a pink one would probably finish them off. Though there is a company in London which will customise them.

As a Microsoft fan (yes are a few of us) we do get bludgened by those claim that no matter what they do, they copied Apple, and in the light of the on going Samsung legal battle you can be accustomed to defending those whos products look somewhat similar. Are rectangles copyrighted?

I do agree with you though, Yoshipod, that the new phone OS is so different, its new and its on a Nokia - my favourite phone company. There have been many times over the past couple of years when android and IOS obtained features we have had on symbians for sometime. It can be irritating when they say they come up with something first. Even HTC are pushing the ring silencer when you turn their phones over. I could go on but my dinner is nearly ready.

If these are real screen shots, its strange to see the Metro style that has been customised by Nokia. Perhaps this is another first.

Trying to think of a mobile that is not a rectangle. I think Nokia had a kind of hexagonal one once.

So the first time you saw pictures of these phones, did you think of the iPod mini? Of course there are plenty of differences, but at first glance, that is what it looks like.

If you think the whole "look and feel" of Apple is about a rectangle or grid of icons, then you are simply missing the point, There are plenty of well designed products that have rectangular shapes or grids of icons that don't look almost identical to Apple products. Even Apple copies competitors from time to time, and as Paul and other do, they should be called out on it.

It is possible to design things that don't look like Apple products. Microsoft did a great job of this with Windows Phone 7. They took a different approach and came up with a well designed and competitive product that actually differentiates itself from Apple.