Verizon Branded WP7 Apps Appear, Suggesting Imminent Launch

When Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform launched earlier this year, it did so without support from Sprint and Verizon Wireless. To-date, Windows Phone 7 smartphones are only available to U.S. customers via AT&T and T-Mobile. Verizon announced that it wouldn't support Windows Phone 7 until some time in 2011. It looks like Windows Phone 7's launch on Verizon Wireless is going to happen in the very near future.

Applications with Verizon's branding have popped up in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. One of them, My Verizon Mobile, is an app that Verizon offers to customers for accessing and interacting with their account settings. Two other apps, Netflix and Slacker Radio, have shown up with support specific to Verizon Wireless.

The timing of these apps' arrival in the Marketplace comes just ahead of the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, during which Verizon Wireless has scheduled a press conference. It is possible that Verizon will use CES as the launch point for its Windows Phone 7 devices.

As for what the device(s) might actually be, it is believed that the HTC Trophy will be the first WP7 handset for Verizon. The Trophy has a 3.8-inch display with a 5 megapixel camera and 16GB of storage. HTC and Verizon haven't confirmed more details yet.

What about Sprint? It, too, will offer a WP7 device in the HTC 7 Pro. The 7 Pro features a side-sliding QWERTY keyboard and a 3.6-inch display. It has a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 576MB of RAM, a 5 megapixel camera (with 720p HD video capture), and 16GB of storage. It will arrive in the first half of 2011.