Windows Phone 8 Announcement

[VashHT]

No upgrades for existing phones.

Including the Lumia 900.

Microsoft just gave it to Nokia, hard.

They are getting an upgrade, just not the full one.

 

[ITHURTSWHENIP]

Pretty much all the non-MS sites reporting this are getting blasted with hate in the comments section. I cant imagine this being good for Microsofts image.

"New applications compiled specifically for Windows Phone 8 will not be made available for Windows Phone 7.x devices."

Im interpreting this as any app made for WP8 wont run on WP7. Why would developers make WP7 apps now that the OS is a dead end

 

[ITHURTSWHENIP]

dbl post

 

[Deeko]

Pretty much all the non-MS sites reporting this are getting blasted with hate in the comments section. I cant imagine this being good for Microsofts image.

"New applications compiled specifically for Windows Phone 8 will not be made available for Windows Phone 7.x devices."

Im interpreting this as any app made for WP8 wont run on WP7. Why would developers make WP7 apps now that the OS is a dead end

That's how software development works in every single mobile platform. An app that targets ICS will not run on Gingerbread. An app that targets iOS 4 will not run on iOS 3. An app that targets WP7.5 will not run on WP7.

If a developer wants to take advantages of something that is WP8-only, obviously it will only run on devices with WP8. However, if they don't need that functionality, they can just target Mango and it will work on both. I imagine it will be simple enough to have a version for both, as well.

 

[jalaram]

They are getting an upgrade, just not the full one.

Just the start screen. They seriously need to list other items that will be in 7.8 to placate those users.

They could've done what Apple did with the iPhone 4. State that it will get iOS6, but have caveats such as "no turn by turn navigation." I'm guessing they didn't because of the below item.

"New applications compiled specifically for Windows Phone 8 will not be made available for Windows Phone 7.x devices."

Im interpreting this as any app made for WP8 wont run on WP7. Why would developers make WP7 apps now that the OS is a dead end

This is a bigger deal to me. No (or very few) new apps for WP7 will truly kill it much like WinMo6.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

They are getting an upgrade, just not the full one.

Samsung did that for the Galaxy S instead of giving it ICS and got flamed for it, despite the fact that the Galaxy S had already received two major updates. However given the lower standards everyone seems to have for Windows Phone I expect Microosft will get praised for it.

 

[jalaram]

That's how software development works in every single mobile platform. An app that targets ICS will not run on Gingerbread. An app that targets iOS 4 will not run on iOS 3. An app that targets WP7.5 will not run on WP7.

If a developer wants to take advantages of something that is WP8-only, obviously it will only run on devices with WP8. However, if they don't need that functionality, they can just target Mango and it will work on both. I imagine it will be simple enough to have a version for both, as well.

That's a fair point if it's simply a matter of keeping the same source and just changing the target platform. Not sure if that's the case with WP8.

Maybe I missed it, but was there a mention of timeline for WP8 and/or its dev tools?

 

[Deeko]

That's a fair point if it's simply a matter of keeping the same source and just changing the target platform. Not sure if that's the case with WP8.

That's how it was for WP7->WP7.5...just a switch in your app configuration, no change in code. I would imagine, unless you're using something that's specific to WP8 devices, the same will apply. We'll know more when the tools are released, but hopefully its like Android where you can multi-target and put the switch directly in the code, that way you only have to compile once. We'll see.

 

[ITHURTSWHENIP]

That's how software development works in every single mobile platform. An app that targets ICS will not run on Gingerbread. An app that targets iOS 4 will not run on iOS 3. An app that targets WP7.5 will not run on WP7.

If a developer wants to take advantages of something that is WP8-only, obviously it will only run on devices with WP8. However, if they don't need that functionality, they can just target Mango and it will work on both. I imagine it will be simple enough to have a version for both, as well.

If you want to spin it that way sure. The difference is however that a developer has no reason to target ICS until its become the dominant OS version. A windows phone developer has every reason to NOT target Mango because he cant use native code.

So no its not going to be that simple. There will be a lot of apps available only for WP8 and most WP7 buyers wont understand why that is

 

[Deeko]

If you want to spin it that way sure. The difference is however that a developer has no reason to target ICS until its become the dominant OS version. A windows phone developer has every reason to NOT target Mango because he cant use native code.

So no its not going to be that simple. There will be a lot of apps available only for WP8 and most WP7 buyers wont understand why that is

The vast majority of apps do not need native code. Are there high performance 3D games that will be WP8-only? Yes. However, the most popular games (Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, the Zynga suite, etc) do not.

 

[happysmiles]

for Developers to write a program for win 8 then tweak it a bit for WP8 is a pretty big thing. especially when it comes to business and enterprise.

Microsoft played their cards well. I liked everything they announced except that they didn't mention settings or the music player. if it's the same as before then I'm very disappointed since they are so restricted and dumbed down.

 

[AstroManLuca]

It's hard for me to feel sorry for Lumia 900 owners. Anyone who actually researches their gadgets should know that the Lumia 900 had outdated hardware at release, and MS was priming to launch WP8. Why anyone would pay $100 + 2 year contract for such an outdated piece of technology is beyond me.

 

[WelshBloke]

No upgrades for existing phones.

Including the Lumia 900.

Microsoft just gave it to Nokia, hard.

Apparently the Lumia 900 is now a legacy device.

 

[trmiv]

Apparently the Lumia 900 is now a legacy device.

It was legacy device the second it was released.

 

[Deeko]

Again - we still don't know what will or will not be included with 7.8. Too early to really judge.

 

[Eug]

Nail in the coffin for Nokia. Well, not quite, but almost.

 

[Dominato3r]

A good thing: Windows Update. The thing we all know and love on Windows is coming to the phone.

Windows Update. Windows Phone 7.8 will be delivered directly to all Windows Phone users, bypassing the carriers. You will be able to download and install Windows Phone 7.8 over Wi-Fi, at home or wherever else, and install this update. This type of updating will be made available in Windows Phone 8, as well, as given my long, loud, and lengthy complaining about the lack of such updating in Windows Phone 7.x, you won’t be surprised, maybe, to discover that Microsoft jokingly calls this “the Paul Thurrott feature” internally.

http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windowsphone75/windows-phone-78-preview-143476

Google needs to do this.

 

[WelshBloke]

Nail in the coffin for Nokia. Well, not quite, but almost.

Well at least the smartphone beta test is over. :|

 

[Deeko]

So we know people aren't happy about the upgrade situation - but what about everything else? The new hardware, the new SDK features / Win8 porting, customizable start screen, etc? Sounds like they've solved a lot of gripes.

 

[finbarqs]

hmm... poor poor MS... they just can't win can they?

 

[WelshBloke]

So we know people aren't happy about the upgrade situation -

Its not so much the upgrade situation.

Its the way it was handled and the atmosphere Nokia was feeding at the time.

Frankly theres no way I'm going to trust MS about whats going to happen with their OS until it happens.

 

[Eug]

Yeah, they're inconsistent.

MS supports ancient hardware on Windows, and they won't even support year old hardware on Windows Phone?

Apple screws people over - eg. No Siri or turn-by-turn on the iPhone 4 - but at least it's consistent. They throw people a bone for a couple of years, and then leave them in the dust. For the people that truly care, they'll have upgraded after those couple of years anyway.

 

[Dominato3r]

Its not so much the upgrade situation.

Its the way it was handled and the atmosphere Nokia was feeding at the time.

Frankly theres no way I'm going to trust MS about whats going to happen with their OS until it happens.

But this time it really does not make any sense for them to move off to a different platform/rt for say WP9. It's built on NT, and if they ditch that, you may aswell say bye to Microsoft as a whole :|

I think the biggest issue here is how the apps will be handled for 7.X from now on.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I don't know who to blame more - MS for putting excessive restrictions on device hardware (causing all Windows phones to be obsolete within a year of the OS's release), or Nokia and other handset makers for going along with them anyway.

Nokia released a pair of phones with 2010 hardware in 2012. What did they really expect? And MS stunted WP7 by restricting it so much. They should have swept it under the rug much more quickly and released WP8 maybe a year ago. WP8 is what WP7 should have been from the very beginning and should have much more staying power since it'll be able to actually grow with the times instead of remaining stagnant.

 

[dagamer34]

Samsung did that for the Galaxy S instead of giving it ICS and got flamed for it, despite the fact that the Galaxy S had already received two major updates. However given the lower standards everyone seems to have for Windows Phone I expect Microosft will get praised for it.

Samsung gets it worse because the Nexus S had the EXACT same hardware and got ICS, the Galaxy S did not. There's no way around that one.

Microsoft isn't letting anyone upgrade to Windows Phone 8 because expecting the Windows NT kernel and apps to run well on a phone with a single core processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 2 year old GPU is ludicrous. You'd end up with a slower phone, and people would howl at Microsoft for an update providing a poor experience.

I'm sorry, but if you bought a Lumia 900 and you read forums like AnandTech, it should have been clear that there was a very good chance you weren't going to get Windows Phone 8. And you were never going to get any of the hardware features like HD displays, dual-core CPUs, significantly better GPUs, and NFC with your current hardware, which is one of the reasons while I liked the Lumia 900, I returned it.