Microsoft screws its entire Windows Phone user base with no-update-for-you plan

[neiltc13]

I was waiting for a homepage post about this, but I guess it isn't coming.

Microsoft: no upgrades to Windows Phone 8, but some features will come in Windows Phone 7.8

It’s official, Microsoft is not offering Windows Phone 8 to existing handsets. Describing some of the latest hardware changes in Windows Phone 8, that we outline here, Sullivan explained that "the nature of the investment [in Windows Phone 8] is primarily in areas that are not exploitable by existing hardware." Windows Phone 8 introduces support for multi-core processors, amongst other things, so the "Lumia 900 getting support for using dual-core or NFC doesn't mean a lot," says Sullivan, "because it doesn't have the hardware to take advantage of that." Microsoft decided to focus its efforts on Windows Phone 8 to make it as good as it possibly could. "To do the work to bring all of those elements to a platform that can't exploit them wasn't necessarily the most efficient use of resource," explains Sullivan.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/20/3...8-upgrade-no-windows-phone-8-existing-devices

Microsoft has changed the kernel in Windows Phone 8 to be based on Windows NT, instead of the Windows CE version in Windows Phone 7. This means that Windows Phone 7 apps will work on (currently unreleased) Windows Phone 8 devices, but the opposite will not be true.

I have to say this has made me very angry. I've had my Nokia Lumia 800 for just over 5 weeks, and to find out that Microsoft is effectively making my device redundant, not to mention openly describing it as a "legacy" device is hugely frustrating. These handsets are still on sale!

Not only that, but Nokia has decided that this is all fine and dandy because they don't think most customers care about updates:

"I think that ultimately your typical customer probably isn't all that aware of this upgrade thing"

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/21/3105359/nokia-kevin-shields-lumia-interview-windows-phone-upgrades

Do Nokia think people are stupid? I bet EVERYONE will care in a year's time when apps are starting to appear on the Marketplace that require Windows Phone 8, but they can't install or run them. Even worse, Microsoft haven't detailed what will happen if an existing app is updated to be WP8 only - will WP7 handsets continue to be able to download an older version, or will they just be screwed again?

On the plus side though, this update isn't going to be out for a few months and Microsoft has promised that the Windows Phone 7.8 update my phone will be getting will definitely include the awesome home screen rework, that lets you resize all tiles.

They also said that most of the features for Windows Phone 8 (and hopefully 7.8) haven't yet been announced as they have only given a developer preview so far.

 

[Feed Me]

Well to be honest, iOS devices are the only ones in the world that get frequent software updates over a long period. Leaving people high and dry with the operating system the phone originally shipped with is a tried and tested method used in the phone industry.

 

[basesloaded190]

There's multiple threads already:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1391130/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1391428/

 

[MacDawg]

This thread is already addressing this