Likely you've already managed to snag your update because we caught these upgrades early as they were posted (early) late last week (Here's your Mogul Update and here's your Touch Update). If you haven't or if you're the sort who rigorously follows the rules, now you can get the official Windows Mobile 6.1 update for the Sprint Mogul and the Sprint Touch. Both will get you EVDO Rev A, A-GPS, and some Sprint TV Action, but strangely the Touch gets an on-board Opera browser while the Mogul is left out in the cold, freezing (literally?) winter of PocketIE.

Anybody applied this yet? We'll hit up the official update ourselves in just a bit, but we're curious to know exactly which version of Opera the Touch is rocking, let us know in the comments!

Update 2: The HTC download site seems to be intermittently displaying and hiding the official 6.1 download info. Don managed to grab a direct link to download when it was last up -- we share it here for you now: direct download. Thanks, Don!

Update: Don writes in to say HTC has taken the download down and, indeed, they have. Guess you'll have to wait until Monday for your legit 6.1 action.

Happy ROM day, Sprint users! Following up on the availability of the 6.1 ROM update for the Sprint Touch, we hear from Lucas that if you head to HTC's support site for the Mogul, here, you'll find the update for the Mogul as well. The update list is a bit shorter than what was available for the Touch:

1. Upgrades the operating system from Windows Mobile® 6.0 Professional to Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
2. Adds Sprint TV
3. Includes all enhancements incorporated in previous software upgrades including:
   • EV-DO Rev. A functionality for faster download and upload speeds when utilizing data services wherever EV-DO Rev. A coverage is available.
   • Advanced GPS functionality including the Sprint Navigation application.
   • Adds a Task Manager to the Today screen for easier access and management of running programs.

Lucas adds that Sprint and HTC probably intended for this release to be officially available come Monday, but you clever WMExperts readers can go grab it right now.

This week Dieter and Malatesta overview the leaked ROMs for various Windows Mobile devices, take a look at Dashwire, and respond to a bunch of listener feedback. Tune in!

• Download it directly with this link
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• Listen to it here with this flash player:

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I've been rocking the Windows Mobile 6.1 Update on my Motorola Q9h for some weeks now and I can tell you in no uncertain terms: you want it. That said, you'll have to wait a bit before it arrives. Perhaps not too long, though. Hot on the heels of the 6.1 update for the Sprint Q9c, Motorola appears to be prepping it for the Q9h. So says Mike, who did a bit of sleuthing:

Looks like Motorola is prepping for the release of the WM 6.1 upgrade for AT&T Q9h. Although you can’t find it from the drop down boxes of their website, you can find it here
Note that the file currently being linked to is a placeholder and is not the actual update as far as I can tell. I did try to install and run it, but the software said “There is no software update currently available for your mobile phone. Please check back for new releases.”

We'll let you know when it's up for really-real so you're not spamming “refresh” on the Motorola Software Update Page. But it does appear like Moto has the infrastructure in place for a release of the 6.1 update. Threaded Text, Sliding Panels, and more await those who ....wait.

[via EverythingQ forums] ...Thanks Mike!

Boom! If you've been following our Twitter feed, you may have read that we attended a Microsoft “Happy Hour” event. And what a happy hour it was - Microsoft saw fit to provide us with a Windows Mobile 6.1 unit to test out. So check it out - Windows Mobile 6.1 on a BlackJack II. No - we can't give it away and no, we still don't have a firm date for when the OS will be available yet (signs point to early summer).

There's a couple rough cuts in the video that we decided to make so we didn't give away our co-reporter CrackBerry Kevin's cell number on the internet. ;)

Well now, the Touch Dual is finally going to make its way to the US, being one of the first Windows Mobile 6.1 devices to hit the market. It'll be a full Quad-Band GSM phone with the 20-key “Suretype-esque” keyboard (we tried out the 10 key, check our You Tube Hands on, above).

More exciting, HTC also announced which of their devices will get the 6.1 update, here we go:

Update: Sprint has announced they will release the update on their devices "this summer."

• The Touch by HTC and
• Mogul by HTC from Sprint,
• AT&T Tilt,
• Alltel Wireless’ HTC Touch and PPC6800, and
• the HTC TyTN II

...ETA is totally unknown right now, but they should be “among the first of many.” Hurry hurry!

Engadget Mobile points us to TXCaesar's Rom Kitchen, where Da_G has cobbled together a build of Windows Mobile 6.1 for the original BlackJack. We waited and waited (and waited some more) for Windows Mobile 6 to be officially available for the BlackJack, so it's a safe guess (if a depressing one) that we'll have to do the same for 6.1 on the BlackJack. That's assuming, of course, that it will be made available for the sweet little guy in the first place. He has a newer, cooler brother in the BlackJack II (which will see 6.1 for sure), so it doesn't feel like a safe bet that 6.1 will appear on the original.

The ROM looks to occupy the netherworld between “cooked but nowhere near whatever the official will be” and “Basically the official 6.1 ROM.” It's also still not finalized and development is ongoing, so handle with care. Hopefully it's a little better than the hacked-up Windows Mobile 6 ROM that we excitedly installed and then saw our BlackJack choke on.

If you hadn't noticed, Windows Mobile 6.1 should be officially announced at CTIA on Tuesday and we are exited.

Update: Looks like BGR received yet another one of those mysterious Q9s with WiFi. This one has what appears to be a finalized version of Windows Mobile 6.1 with a few new features. Go check it out.

...That's the prediction from Pocket Lint [via Gizmodo]. Sounds pretty good to us. We would normally be a little gun shy about this sort of prediction, especially since we whiffed our prediction it would be unveiled at MWC2008. However, CTIA just happens to start on April first. And Head-of-The-Division-That-Contains-Windows Mobile Robbie Bach just happens to be giving the keynote. And WMExperts just happens to be planning on heading over to Las Vegas for the show.

So file this one under “Very Likely.”

Speaking of CTIA: expect wall-to-wall coverage. We'll live-blog Bach's keynote, we started up a Twitter feed for WMExperts, and heck, we will even post up direct from the show floor via our trusty Motorola Q9h.

Windows Mobile 6.1, if you'll recall from the many leaks, features a much-improved Today screen experience and (FINALLY) native threaded SMS, among other improvements.

The Presses: Stop them! stroths in the forums alerts us to the fact that if you're into hacking the Mogul, you should take a flyer on the previously leaked ROM and check out this one: Windows Mobile 6.1. It was put together by no2chem at the PPCGeeks forums. You'll get your threaded text on, but it looks like it might not be the full Windows Mobile 6.1.

If you're brave, let us know how it works for ya! If you're not so brave, well, at least take heart that all this Mogul news is surely a sign that the official release is just around the corner.

(Thanks for the tip, stroths, sorry for the typo in the original post!)

no2chem built a beta WM 6.1 ROM that works with the Mogul and I am currently running it on mine. One of the nice features is integrated threaded sms. This is good news for those of you who had issues with the palm threaded sms.
- WM 6.1 Beta ROM Available for Mogul - GPS Enabled - WM Experts

If you were looking for more evidence that Microsoft would be announcing Windows Mobile 6.1 at the Mobile World Conference, here it is. PocketPT (via pocketnow) has published a heapin' helpin' of screenshots and details on WM 6.1. Details:

• Threaded Text
• Faster
• Pocket IE improved, can do zooming
• Microsoft Office now includes One Note
• A new “getting started” app to help with the out-of-box experience
• A much-improved Task Manager

Windows Mobile 6.1 is really looking like a solid update. We've seen it coming for awhile now, we can't wait to see it officially. Hopefully, the wait for it to actually appear on devices wouldn't be as soul-crushingly long as the wait for Windows Mobile 6.0 upgrades was.

After the break - the pics!

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