Windows Phone 7 Experience to Compete with iPhone

Yesterday, Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona. Phone 7 is Microsoft's new mobile phone operating system that not only succeeds Windows Mobile 6.5, but completely revamps the experience to match their recent iPod touch competitor, the Zune HD.

The new operating system uses a completely new user interface, with vertically scrolling, customizable tiles. In addition to the usual e-mail, calendar, pictures, and music features you'd expect from an iPhone competitor, Phone 7 features integrated social media integration, with Windows Live and Facebook being shown in the company's demos. For example, the picture application not only shows pictures synced from the user's computer, but also any pictures that are added to the user's Facebook account, pulling them over a 3G network. Also supported is Xbox Live, which will serve up games and provide an integrated experience between the phone and Xbox 360.

Unlike Apple, who only offer one model of various capacities of the iPhone on only one network, AT&T, Windows Phone 7 will be available to multiple phone manufacturers, with "Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm" signed on to produce Phone 7 hardware, and "AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone" ready to carry said hardware.

With the beautiful new software comes a few hardware requirements. The screen must support multitouch technology, sport "Start," "Search," and "Back" buttons, and must provide the Zune music player experience, including HD radio playback.

The first of these handsets are due to be released by this year's holiday season, giving plenty of time for hardware manufacturers to provide their own unique spin on the operating system. Apple and Google (providers of Android), take notice!