Microsoft has “something coming” for Windows Phone [Retracted]

[Update 6 PM ET: The source of the article wishes to have his info removed and denies that this was a tease for a notification center. In fact, he's not an employee of Nokia but rather a student involved in a Windows Phone program, making this info dubious at best.In fact, we're hearing the opposite now, that there won't be a notification center announced at MWC. Due to this new info we are not standing by the story. Sorry, folks.]

By now it should be no surprise that we’re expecting Microsoft to talk about Windows Phone at Mobile World Congress 2013 scheduled at the end of this month in Barcelona. While the company doesn’t usually have a booth, they do opt instead for renting a whole building where they also host their keynote (last year they had a kicking party too).

The question of course is what they will reveal: modest update or a major one? Rumors of an Apollo+ OS revision, including VPN and a notification center have been circulating for a while now. With the minor Portico update having been finalized and now rolling out, it makes sense that what comes next for Windows Phone 8 is a major update: fixes and main new features.

About a week ago, a member named ‘IWSFOD-D’ over at the popular graphic site DeviantArt posted the above image. The accompanying text simply reads

“Quite a trip at Redmond. There is something I am not allowed to talk but allowed to tease. It is not confirmed in case you make a guess (either right or wrong , I won't answer ). That is what tease meant to be”

That leads us to what exactly is he teasing? To be honest, the image doesn’t reveal too much. The text “Shh…We are not ready yet” (attributed to Windows Phone Manager Joe Belfiore) appears to be reused throughout the image along with Tiles.

The Tiles though are the ones which typically receive Notifications and combined with the evident Twitter stream, we’re leaning on a Notification center. According to the Verge, Microsoft ran out of time for a Notification Center in Windows Phone 8, something which presumably will be addressed in a future update. It's also one of eight features we mentioned that Microsoft needs to fix ASAP in Windows Phone.

But let’s be honest, we’re just totally guessing here. Do you have a theory? Let us know in comments.

Jaxbot from Windows Phone Hacker clued us in to what is to the right in the image. Obviously it's some kind of Twitter feed but it happens to be an exact copy of his screenshot for his Notifications app. So yeah, we can consider that as pretty good clue.

Source: DeviantArt;  Thanks, Jeremiah C, for the tip!