No longer need to take the rumors with a grain of salt, HTC will be releasing its HTC One M8 as a Windows Phone. While the physical assurance of such device couldn’t be confirmed until today, it was almost guaranteed to be announced at HTC’s August 19th event.
Now, a photo from Verizon’s own servers shows us what the One M8 for Windows might look like. The physical look of device is Android version, but will feature a Windows Phone 8.1 UI and new on-screen buttons to match the Windows Phone UI. Microsoft recently made changes to Windows Phone’s framework to support virtual navigation buttons on higher-resolution devices so Android manufacturers could port their existing products over to Windows Phone without making changes to the chassis.
Looking closely at the image, a few things seems strange for a Windows Phone t: BlinkFeed will make an appearance on Windows Phone as a separate app, while HTC Camera will likely handle the backend work for the M8′s Duo Camera, which allows users to change focus after the photo has been taken. HTC TV, HTC’s home theatre control app, also seems a sure bet to make the port over to Windows Phone.
And that small arrow next to the back button? It’s to hide the on-screen buttons themselves to give apps more space to roam. Very cool.
We’re not sure whether the One M8 for Windows Phone will be a Verizon exclusive, but hopefully a AT&T/Roger variant will make an appearance to compete with the plethora of Nokia devices in the market.
