Rumors have been going around for a while that Microsoft might drop the hardware buttons requirement for their mobile operating system. This first leak by the infamous Evleaks seems to reaffirm this.
There’s not much to go on here other than a partial screenshot that displays the back, windows and search buttons. While we’re not huge fans of onscreen controls, it does bring with it a lot of benefits for manufacturers. Not only will it reduce the entry cost for low end phones, it will also allow Android phone manufacturers to use identical hardware thereby reducing their R&D costs. To the end consumer, you can expect lesser bezel space which is otherwise eaten up by the capacitive buttons. Like Android, we expect the onscreen controls to fade away when using full screen applications like a movie player.
Partial Windows Phone “Blue” screenshot. pic.twitter.com/LnV9h0MMKL
— @evleaks (@evleaks) December 14, 2013
It is very early to expect concrete details around the next major Windows Phone release. In all likelihood, Microsoft will be revealing the operating system at its annual BUILD 2014 conference which has been scheduled to be held in April. Alongside onscreen controls, the update is also believed to include a personal assistant dubbed Cortana and finally a notification hub.