Windows Phone 8 Announcement

[dagamer34]

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.

Most games will use native code as it's far more flexible than XNA.

 

[blurredvision]

I don't really see the big deal. You guys are calling for doom and gloom only because it's Microsoft, I think. I'm not really seeing how they've shit on Nokia, either. Nokia will make new phones capable of running WP8, simple as that. Hell, Nokia made the hardware they were demoing, you don't think Nokia was well aware of the software core change a long-ass time ago?

 

[poofyhairguy]

you don't think Nokia was well aware of the software core change a long-ass time ago?

From their marketing plan it is obvious they didn't know. Or they did know and they decided to embrace their doom.

So they want a mulligan.

I don't know why they don't just lock WM8 to x86 Intel SoCs and really get the party started...

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.

I am very interested in the shared kernel bit. I dream of a phone that replaces my computer, and that is a step in the right direction.

The new hardware updated was needed. I am wondering if that means it will still be a single SoC like last time (which means that the platform will get out of date before we know it like last time), or if MS is making it so that more than Qualcomm can provide parts. A Tegra 4 WM8 phone sounds fun.

 

[happysmiles]

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.

WP8 is what it should of been all along you're right, I guess they're trying to do something for WP7 users which makes sense. I just feel for Lumia buyers because only now will they learn that their devices will only have one more upgrade which then all future WP8 will have minimum 18 month.

who knew that to wait 3/4 months would result to this. (I bet all those who held off are now congratulating themselves)

 

[deathBOB]

Who cares? It's a two year contract, you're going to get a new phone at some point anyway. This looks really promising. Has MS ever demonstrated such a coherent strategy?

 

[pantsaregood]

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.

The Lumia 610 actually supports NFC.

Anyway, the outdated hardware argument is poor. Windows Phone 7.x was built on the Windows CE kernel. It runs amazingly well on older hardware and wouldn't gain any real benefit from quad-core CPUs or 2 GB of RAM. The NT kernel is far more scalable and I would honestly guess that one of the reasons Microsoft is pushing multicore CPUs is to appease the mass of people who believe more cores are required for a phone to perform well.

 

[dagamer34]

Who cares? It's a two year contract, you're going to get a new phone at some point anyway. This looks really promising. Has MS ever demonstrated such a coherent strategy?

They were laser focused in moving into new markets in the 90s, but no, not really. And it's the first time they've EVER had a unified UI across their entire line of products. There will be no escaping the Metro design language unless you go learn Linux.

 

[Deeko]

The new hardware updated was needed. I am wondering if that means it will still be a single SoC like last time (which means that the platform will get out of date before we know it like last time), or if MS is making it so that more than Qualcomm can provide parts. A Tegra 4 WM8 phone sounds fun.

I believe Qualcomm has announced support for the S4 platform, and we know the Surface runs on Tegra. Whether that will translate to phones, I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

 

[blurredvision]

From their marketing plan it is obvious they didn't know. Or they did know and they decided to embrace their doom.

I completely disagree. How is this their doom? I'm really not understanding why everybody thinks this spells the end of Nokia. People bought their phone and they can use it. It's not like the phone will quit working as soon as WP8 comes out. Hell, most current phones can't even support the major WP8 features such as Wallet and none can use the better resolution or faster hardware. I'd rather stick with WP7.8 and still have a buttery smooth phone OS than be forced to upgrade to WP8 and have it slow down.

 

[Dominato3r]

The Lumia 610 actually supports NFC.

Anyway, the outdated hardware argument is poor. Windows Phone 7.x was built on the Windows CE kernel. It runs amazingly well on older hardware and wouldn't gain any real benefit from quad-core CPUs or 2 GB of RAM. The NT kernel is far more scalable and I would honestly guess that one of the reasons Microsoft is pushing multicore CPUs is to appease the mass of people who believe more cores are required for a phone to perform well.

Exactly. Every device from now on should support an OS upgrade because of NT. NT is literally everything Microsoft is these days and if they ditched that, there goes about ~15years of R&D.

By the way, one of the slides showed that every device from now on will be supported for at least a minimum of 18months, with updates coming directly from Microsoft, by-passing the carriers.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I believe Qualcomm has announced support for the S4 platform, and we know the Surface runs on Tegra. Whether that will translate to phones, I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

I have been looking through news articles trying to find a decision on this. IMHO this is what makes or breaks the platform- if the update is only for one SoC of 2012 hardware then by the time we see a single device they will be obsolete.

WM7 has been the worst of both worlds, and I hope MS learns from that mistake because I really think there needs to be a third player to keep the big two from being complacent.

 

[WelshBloke]

I completely disagree. How is this their doom? I'm really not understanding why everybody thinks this spells the end of Nokia. People bought their phone and they can use it. It's not like the phone will quit working as soon as WP8 comes out. Hell, most current phones can't even support the major WP8 features such as Wallet and none can use the better resolution or faster hardware. I'd rather stick with WP7.8 and still have a buttery smooth phone OS than be forced to upgrade to WP8 and have it slow down.

Microsoft will be fine and WP8 might end up being popular but Nokia are in real trouble at the moment. They are bleeding cash and its only their reserves and MS bail outs that are keeping them going.

 

[dagamer34]

Let's also be honest here, if people really cared about upgrades, only the Nexus line of phones would sell. The Droid RAZR is 7 months old and STILL hasn't gotten ICS. It was promised in Q1 2012 and in 11 days, it'll be Q3 already.

Normal people buy phones for what they can do now, not what they might do in the future (otherwise, the free 3GS wouldn't sell at all).

 

[poofyhairguy]

I completely disagree. How is this their doom? I'm really not understanding why everybody thinks this spells the end of Nokia.

It spells the end of Nokia's credibility.

They have basically been gone from the US market for years and the new Luminas were their first chance to make a good impression on the American public and return as a major player.

And this was their marketing campaign for that one chance:

Epic fail.

People bought their phone and they can use it. It's not like the phone will quit working as soon as WP8 comes out.

The whole "you bought your phone and that is all you get" is basically unacceptable in 2012, or have you missed the huge flamewar on this very forum about Android's lack of updates?

Honestly I am one that agrees with you- consumers don't care about OS updates. I think a bigger problem is that WM7 never got popular enough for it to continue to be supported by apps going forward. Many new apps will be WM8 only, cutting off old users (because why put in the work for like 1% of the phone market?)

Also just like RIM with their new OS, MS just flushed a large app market down the drain. Unless I missed something like a Rosetta-style translation layer it seems that old app binaries won't run on the new platform. I still can't believe MS would do that when the new hardware has enough power to EASILY virtualize the old WM7 phones for a smoother transition.

Again, if I am missing that layer someone please point that out.

 

[pantsaregood]

Exactly. Every device from now on should support an OS upgrade because of NT. NT is literally everything Microsoft is these days and if they ditched that, there goes about ~15years of R&D.

By the way, one of the slides showed that every device from now on will be supported for at least a minimum of 18months, with updates coming directly from Microsoft, by-passing the carriers.

The NT kernel isn't going anywhere any time soon. NT 5.x dominated mainstream use for over ten years. NT 6.x now has a huge foothold. NT 7.x will probably show up around 2015. NT is stable, efficient, and extremely scalable.

 

[Dominato3r]

Also just like RIM with their new OS, MS just flushed a large app market down the drain. Unless I missed something like a Rosetta-style translation layer it seems that old app binaries won't run on the new platform. I still can't believe MS would do that when the new hardware has enough power to EASILY virtualize the old WM7 phones for a smoother transition.

Again, if I am missing that layer someone please point that out.

Yes you missed that. This is pretty much a pillar of their strategy going forward, all current apps will run on WP8.

And with a bit of work you can translate that to Windows 8 and potentially Xbox(Though the Xbox portion hasn't been talked about).

 

[poofyhairguy]

Yes you missed that. This is pretty much a pillar of their strategy going forward, all current apps will run on WP8.

Thank goodness. Finally a company other than Apple gets it right. Now I feel much better about WM8, thank you.

 

[blurredvision]

It spells the end of Nokia's credibility.

They have basically been gone from the US market for years and the new Luminas were their first chance to make a good impression on the American public and return as a major player.

And this was their marketing campaign for that one chance:

Epic fail.

Eh, it's just a marketing slogan, I'm not able to relate it at all to the impending WP8 incompatibility. Just because they say the phone beta test is over doesn't mean they're trying to tell everybody this is the only phone they're going to need for the next 20 years.

The whole "you bought your phone and that is all you get" is basically unacceptable in 2012, or have you missed the huge flamewar on this very forum about Android's lack of updates?

Honestly I am one that agrees with you- consumers don't care about OS updates. I think a bigger problem is that WM7 never got popular enough for it to continue to be supported by apps going forward. Many new apps will be WM8 only, cutting off old users (because why put in the work for like 1% of the phone market?)

My response to the first paragraph is essentially the second paragraph. Us tech nerds will argue about this stuff but the majority of the public does not care. Take my wife for example. She got my old iPhone 4 and all she cares about is that it is an iPhone. She has no idea what the differences between iOS5 and iOS6 are. If Apple announced iOS6 and then said they weren't upgrading the iPhone 4, my wife would be none the wiser. If somebody told her that her phone can't upgrade to iOS6, she wouldn't know why she should care.

 

[lothar]

I have been looking through news articles trying to find a decision on this. IMHO this is what makes or breaks the platform- if the update is only for one SoC of 2012 hardware then by the time we see a single device they will be obsolete.

WM7 has been the worst of both worlds, and I hope MS learns from that mistake because I really think there needs to be a third player to keep the big two from being complacent.

Microsoft will be sticking to SoCs from Qualcomm for WP8.

 

[kaerflog]

I've been reading news on WP8 and the more I look at the start screen, the more I like.
I don't know why but I hated WP7 start screen and while its just a subtle change(getting rid of the wasted space on the right), I've completely changed my tune.

 

[finbarqs]

well it's a wait and see... Some people may even bring back the old late steve jobs' quote in regards to the other tablets: DOA

 

[Pretty Cool]

I do not believe it is correct to say that Nokia did not know about current generation phones not getting Apollo. Probably all the big vendors involved with Windows Phones knew about it long ago. That is why some were holding off on releasing new products until Apollo is released this fall. Paul Thurrott even said there will be no updates in April. Mary Jo Foley said it and the site Wpcentral pretty much expected it as well.

Nokia had to sell phones and WP7 is the current generation, so they were going to make and sell them. I seem to remember that in the past Nokia had some trade-in program where you got a discount on a new phone. Hopefully, they do it again this time. Maybe not too many people will take advantage of it, but at least this would show that they are trying to reward loyal customers. Doubt if Samsung or HTC would do this however. If not exactly a trade-in, I hope Nokia does do something. I was hoping that Microsoft would subsidize a trade-in because of the drastic change. Plus, they just abandoned WM users only a few years ago, but it does not look like that will happen.

On the positive side for WP8, it looks like everybody with a WP8 (regardless of maker) will be getting the Nokia mapping system for free. That includes Nokia Drive where you get a pretty good offline gps. No need to download a certain mile radius beforehand either.

 

[darkewaffle]

I agree that most people don't know nor care what version their phone software is. I could tell most Android users in my office that they're using "Butter Pecan 8.2" and they'd just nod their heads agreeing with me.

The "Beta Test" marketing, to me, was more an effort to support the idea that WP7 is a fairly complete package just as it is. Since WP7.5 was released I think WP has been a pretty well rounded platform that suffers mostly from a less entrenched ecosystem. Whereas many Android upgrades are accompanied by queries of "Is Android finally 'there'?" and user reviews stating "Oh this is so much better/worse!".

I think that, aside from WP8 exclusive apps, that you'll have a hard time discerning WP7.8 from WP8 in most usage cases. And that's not because WP8 isn't moving forward, but rather because WP7 is already pretty robust.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

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.

The internal storage on the Galaxy S is partitioned differently than the Nexus S which was an issue since ICS is larger than past releases of Android. While Samsung could have still put out an update that resolved this doing so would have added additional risk to the upgrade process, something the average user does not want.

 

[darkewaffle]

Update: Qualcomm stated in a note to us that the initial Windows Phone 8 devices will use a Snapdragon S4 Plus SoC. I asked for clarification about which specific SoC this is, and found out it is indeed MSM8960 inside - dual core krait with Adreno 225.

Courtesy of Anand.