COM interop for applications on Windows Phone 7?

So recently an image for the phantom phone “HTC Mondrian” was leaked and spattered across the internet. Catching a chunk  of the spatter, I dug in to see what was inside.

I noticed something rather interesting, while digging through the “HTC Test Tool” package. There is apparently a “normal app” called BatteryTool:

    <App xmlns=""
        ProductID="{ae2781c8-7afb-4e16-a643-c9c0ff33fc15}"
        Title="BatteryTool" RuntimeType="SilverLight" Version="1.0.0.0"
        Genre="NormalApp"  Author="" Description="" Publisher="">
...

But yet when we take a look inside the Silverlight .xap file, there is a dll called “COMInterface.dll”. The guess is that HTC’s using COM interop from within the Silverlight application to get access to lower level OS resources.

So even though apps should be running inside its own tightly sealed container in Windows Phone 7, I think it’s quite possible to break out of it via COM. Unfortunately this (ARM?) dll won’t quite work in the x86 WP7 Emulator…