MS kills backward compatibility yet again in phones

[mike123abc]

Why buy a Windows phone? Today MS reveals that Windows phone 8 not coming to the current Lumina phones....

AnandTech - Existing Windows Phone 7 devices will get updated to Windows Phone 7.8, not Windows 8

Every generation of Windows phone so far has not been upgradeable with the OS...

Looks like some of the earlier rumors about the upgrade path for existing WP7 devices turned out to be true. Microsoft just now announced that existing WP7 devices will not get updated to WP8, instead they'll get WP7.8 and a partial update feature set, including the new home screen with customizable live tiles.

One would think with how hard they work to have desktop Windows be backwards compatible with just about anything they would work on the phone situation, especially when they just released the Lumina phones.

Here is a run down of the other phone announcements... http://www.anandtech.com/show/6027/microsofts-windows-phone-summit-in-san-francisco-were-there-

They are trying to converge the desktop/tablet kernel into Windows phone...

 

[meStevo]

Exactly why I said I wasn't really considering a W7.5 phone when the 4S disappointed and held out for my Nexus... the fear of having a "pre-W8" device because by the time I upgrade again the desktop OS will have been out a year.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[mike123abc]

It is like MS is trying to kill Nokia... Do not buy a Nokia Windows phone, we have a much better one coming out by the end of the year... The Osborne effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect

Maybe by then the stock price will be cheap enough for MS...

 

[Poke]

Nothing new Windows 8 Phones hardware and up my guess is that they will be able to upgrade to the next version. Windows 7.5 devices are 1st Gens so not surprised that you will need to get on a Windows Phone 8 device due to hardware specs so forth. Right now AT&T always gets the new stuff thats always been their marketing tool. Most of the other carries only had 1 Windows Phone 7 device which makes allot of sense for them to do that since they knew there was going to be a ton of new hardware coming out for Windows Phone 8. So by this fall you should start seeing more of the new hardware and 1st part of next year and Things will be Backward Compatible with Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 on the PC's,Slates,Laptops so forth everything will be able to run across the board. Overall nothing big for me I'm almost at the point that I'm ready to upgrade my 7.5 device to a 8 device and by that time they will be out. This is nothing new with any phone most cases you got to upgrade your hardware anyway that's why most carriers offer a 2yr upgrade..

 

[JamesJ]

Dont buy a apple phone, or google phone then either, they do the same thing.

 

[isaacmorseMI]

Dont buy a apple phone, or google phone then either, they do the same thing.

Well, most Gingerbread phones will see an ICS update at some point.

Sent from my iPad 2 using Forum Runner

 

[digiblur]

Dont buy a apple phone, or google phone then either, they do the same thing.

You can still run some old school apps though on android.

Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge

 

[jayn_j]

You know, this isn't what I consider backward compatibility. New operating systems don't always work on older hardware, be it phones, tablets, mainframes, whatever. I don't expect Windows 7 to run on my Pentium 3, circa 2000, so why should we expect that a newer OS runs on an old phone.

When I think of backward compatibility, I am considering the other way. Applications that ran on the old platform should continue to run on the new one. If all my purchased apps for the Windows 7 phone ceased working when I upgraded to a windows 8 phone, then I would have a reason to complain.

 

[mike123abc]

Dont buy a apple phone, or google phone then either, they do the same thing.

Apple says they are getting most the functionality of IOS6 into the 3GS (3 year old phone) - we are talking a 2-3 month old phone in Microsoft's case... This is nothing more than Microsoft trying to keep up interest in their platform while they work on the "real OS"... 3 different platforms essentially. Why would we now believe that W8 phone is really going to be the one they are going to use in the long run? Microsoft is just trying to buy time, and it is coming at the expense of Nokia. Why would any hardware vendor want to team up with MS after what they have done?

 

[harshness]

You know, this isn't what I consider backward compatibility. New operating systems don't always work on older hardware, be it phones, tablets, mainframes, whatever. I don't expect Windows 7 to run on my Pentium 3, circa 2000, so why should we expect that a newer OS runs on an old phone.

Therein lies Micro$oft's boggle. They don't make money selling hardware, they make money selling Windows and the associated newer versions of tired old software. It is clearly in their best interest to provide a software upgrade path even if there isn't a reasonable hardware upgrade path.

 

[JamesJ]

Apple says they are getting most the functionality of IOS6 into the 3GS (3 year old phone) - we are talking a 2-3 month old phone in Microsoft's case... This is nothing more than Microsoft trying to keep up interest in their platform while they work on the "real OS"... 3 different platforms essentially. Why would we now believe that W8 phone is really going to be the one they are going to use in the long run? Microsoft is just trying to buy time, and it is coming at the expense of Nokia. Why would any hardware vendor want to team up with MS after what they have done?

okay, show me the turn by turn nav, or facetime over 3g on "older" hardware...most of the functionality of windows phone 8 is coming to the older phones...not nfc or sd card support....All Phone systems have fragmentation, this should really not come as a surprise to anyone.

 

[isaacmorseMI]

okay, show me the turn by turn nav, or facetime over 3g on "older" hardware...most of the functionality of windows phone 8 is coming to the older phones...not nfc or sd card support....All Phone systems have fragmentation, this should really not come as a surprise to anyone.

The 3GS or older doesn't even have a front-facing camera, so it can't do Facetime.

 

[JamesJ]

The 3GS or older doesn't even have a front-facing camera, so it can't do Facetime.

Ahh but the 4 does, the 3gs does have a GPS chip right? Why couldn't it do turn by turn? Also I haven't seen a list but what features aren't coming to let's say the trophy that is coming to new devices? Nfc? SD card support?

 

[mike123abc]

Ahh but the 4 does, the 3gs does have a GPS chip right? Why couldn't it do turn by turn? Also I haven't seen a list but what features aren't coming to let's say the trophy that is coming to new devices? Nfc? SD card support?

Lack of memory? Processing power?

But the point is a 3 year old phone is getting updates, as much as its hardware can handle. But, a phone that has been out 2 months is already announced to have one final revision left before the end of the year, then its over... A 6 month software update lifetime? Essentially saying tough luck that you bought a windows phone in the last couple of months, we really just wanted to have something in the market, it was not what we were planning at all.

Can anyone honestly believe that MS did have the specs for W8 phone at least planned 6 months to more likely a year before the Lumina launched? Can you really say that Nokia did not know? Essentially they both conspired to produce a stop gap product knowing full well that they did not plan on a future for the phone.

 

[JamesJ]

Lack of memory? Processing power?

But the point is a 3 year old phone is getting updates, as much as its hardware can handle. But, a phone that has been out 2 months is already announced to have one final revision left before the end of the year, then its over... A 6 month software update lifetime? Essentially saying tough luck that you bought a windows phone in the last couple of months, we really just wanted to have something in the market, it was not what we were planning at all.

Can anyone honestly believe that MS did have the specs for W8 phone at least planned 6 months to more likely a year before the Lumina launched? Can you really say that Nokia did not know? Essentially they both conspired to produce a stop gap product knowing full well that they did not plan on a future for the phone.

They may have had the specs for the last 6 months, but the cycle it takes to make a phone is a lot longer....again I am not saying this is all right..all I am saying is everyone is doing it, no need to just single out microsoft, lets get EVERYBODY in here..blackberry, android, ios, windows, they all do it. Also the reason being again is Hardware centered for microsoft, when apple or blackberry or android does it, they really cant use that excuse (especially android)...except for nfc.

 

[JAG72]

They may have had the specs for the last 6 months, but the cycle it takes to make a phone is a lot longer....again I am not saying this is all right..all I am saying is everyone is doing it, no need to just single out microsoft, lets get EVERYBODY in here..blackberry, android, ios, windows, they all do it. Also the reason being again is Hardware centered for microsoft, when apple or blackberry or android does it, they really cant use that excuse (especially android)...except for nfc.

You can't even compare what MS has done to what apple does with the iPhone. By the time iOS 6 comes out the iPhone 4 will have two devices released. If the 4S wasn't getting the features then you could make a point but having a device drop off with some features missing after 2 years isn't the same.

 

[JamesJ]

You can't even compare what MS has done to what apple does with the iPhone. By the time iOS 6 comes out the iPhone 4 will have two devices released. If the 4S wasn't getting the features then you could make a point but having a device drop off with some features missing after 2 years isn't the same.

What isnt coming to the nokia 900 that is coming to future phones? again it is hardware! here is a quote

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.

From here:http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/20/3...de-no-windows-phone-8-existing-devices.....So I will ask again, what features do you want the old phones to get? NFC? Dual Core Support? High Res Screens? SD card support?

 

[Neutron]

Android has the same issue. When my wife and I had Samsung Moments (utter junk) it came with Android 1.5. 6 months later we got to upgrade to 2.1. Right after that both Samsung and Sprint declined to further support the phone. This is 8 months after release.

At least Apple supports phones several generations back.

 

[JAG72]

What isnt coming to the nokia 900 that is coming to future phones? again it is hardware! here is a quote From here:http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/20/3096945/windows-phone-7-8-upgrade-no-windows-phone-8-existing-devices.....So I will ask again, what features do you want the old phones to get? NFC? Dual Core Support? High Res Screens? SD card support?

What about applications that are written for the os? Are all apps going to support both versions?

 

[JamesJ]

Android has the same issue. When my wife and I had Samsung Moments (utter junk) it came with Android 1.5. 6 months later we got to upgrade to 2.1. Right after that both Samsung and Sprint declined to further support the phone. This is 8 months after release.

At least Apple supports phones several generations back.

Correct Apple does bring the ios to older phones...it just takes away features and pares it down..but if anyone really truly supported a phone for a 18-24 month cycle right now its apple. Android does do the Nexus phones just like apple, where Android gets a bad rap is carriers and companies putting their skins on the phone...but when its a true google phone google does support it. Blackberrry is another good one, but they are ditching their whole platform.