Microsoft Unveils Windows 7 Phones

Microsoft unveiled its new Windows Phone 7 operating system today, showing off a whopping nine phones that will feature it (you can see most of them in the photo gallery). The wide launch presents a not-so-subtle counterpoint to Apple’s monolithic iPhone model, CNET observes. “The phones are always delightful, and wonderfully mine,” CEO Steve Ballmer said. “ "Everybody should be able to take a look at a Windows Phone and say, 'I can represent me in this device.”

The new OS bears almost no resemblance to the Windows Mobile of old, instead taking its inspiration from the Zune’s interface, according to the Wall Street Journal. It’ll be highly customizable, but tightly integrated with Microsoft services like Bing, X-Box, and the aforementioned Zune music service. Its app catalog aims, according to CNET, to present a happy medium between Apple’s dictatorial top-down control and the Android’s wild openness. (More Windows Phone 7 stories.)