There has been much debate around Microsoft's locked-down approach to Windows Phone 8 in the press lately. That's why Monday's "Meet Windows Phone 8" event is going to be a big one, as it will finally shed light on all of the operating system's new features — and tonight we have been handed a potential (and juicy) spoiler.
Nokia Innovation received a tip from a reader with the image above, displaying renders of several apps providing live content to the Windows Phone 8 lock screen. The site does not know what to make of it, and sadly did not receive any additional info from their source. They go on to nickname the feature 'live lockscreen' or 'live wallpaper'. In case you need it spelled out, presumably apps like ESPN could push live game scores or USA Today could push images of the top stories to your lockscreen in Windows Phone 8.
There's a lot of ways to interpret this image and decipher whether or not it is legitimate. On the one hand, we already know developers have the ability to push images to the lockscreen in WP8 and this could simply be a first look at that feature in action. One could also argue that the 'live' terminology makes sense, since a Best Buy retail kiosk threw around a similar 'Live Apps' term.
To flip the argument, the image itself should be reviewed under the careful eye of scrutiny. It just doesn't look like the Windows Phone lock screen. The position of the clock has changed, and it definitely does not align with the font styling used previously — the time never uses bold styling and the day/date is never capitalized. We know it sounds silly to complain about those things, but they are small design flourishes that are consistent throughout the entire operating system so whenever they've been altered we have to be suspicious.
Despite all of those nagging inconsistencies, we're going to hedge our bets and say this is real. The image itself could possibly be an early mockup and not reflect what the final feature looks like, but the leaked SDK has already confirmed this feature exists so it's not a stretch to believe in this.
What do you think: real or fake?
Via: TweakTown
Source: Nokia Innovation
