“If you’re looking forward to Windows Phone 8, you might not want to buy a Nokia Lumia 900 or any other Windows Phone 7.5 handset,” Jared Newman reports for PCWorld.
MacDailyNews Take: If you’re looking forward to Windows Phone 8, you’re either a handset assembler eyeing rapidly multiplying Android royalties and legal cases or you are, at the very least, a very confused consumer* who should bolt to your nearest Apple Store and get yourself an iPhone post haste. That’s what you really want. The real deal. With Siri, no less.
*If you don’t think you’re confused, please seek immediate help from a mental health professional.
Newman reports, “According to several reports, existing Windows Phones will not be upgraded to the next major software version, known as Windows Phone 8 or ‘Apollo.’ …Microsoft hasn’t made any official statements on the upgrade path for existing Windows Phones. The company is still trying to get Windows Phone off the ground, and finally has the hardware to do it in Nokia’s Lumia 900. From a business standpoint, now is not the time to tell customers that they’ll be left behind. Still, many customers — especially those who keep a close eye on technology — will surely feel burned by Microsoft if they don’t get any more major updates.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Just like the typical Windows PC. To “upgrade” the OS, most Windows sufferers buy a whole new PC. Pretty much the same case with Android phones, too. It’s ludicrous.
As with a Mac, get an iPhone and you’ll be good to go.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Sound advice MDN.
Can’t really argue with the Siri point.
I’ve got a friend that had an iPhone but switched to Windows Phone a year or so ago because everyone had an iPhone, he wanted to be different. He just got a Lumina 900 to replace his first Windows Phone. He probably runs Windows on his MacBook.
He’s different alright!
While it seems nonsensical to us that people would buy an un upgradable phone, I think those people who do, probably think of it as a feature, having been conditioned to it as a Windows user.
obviously today’s WP 7.5 models will NOT get a full upgrade to WP 8. does anyone seriously think MS/Nokia don’t already know if they can/will, just months before the WP 8 release? of course they do. if the answer were yes, they would be yelling it as loud as possible today, because Nokia is desperate to get Lumia sales going RIGHT NOW. their silence is deafening.
what we can reasonably expect are some further app upgrades and access to cloud services in a WP 7.6 that add just some of WP 8’s new features to current handsets.
but this shuck and jive by MS/Nokia is so cynical, selling hardware that will be obsolete in just 6 months without any disclosure. where’s the outrage?
” if the answer were yes, they would be yelling it as loud as possible today, ”
Good point!
The problem for MS is that the next version of WinPhone will be running the NT kernel, and a bunch of the phones they have already sold most likely don’t have the balls to run the NT kernel.
In terms of upgradability of the OS in the mobile phone world, iPhone is the exception, not the norm. Most mobile phones are “feature phones.” What you have as features when you buy it are what it will have for its lifetime.
An Android phone should be more than just a feature phone, but in terms of the phone’s OS, Android phone manufacturers often treat them like they were just feature phones. Whatever OS version it has when you buy it is what it will have for its lifetime.
Windows Phone is just an alternative to Android, as far as phone manufacturers are concerned. They will treat Windows Phone the same way.
“known as Windows Phone 8 or ‘Apollo.’ …”
“Houston, we have a problem.”
Two dinosaurs beating themselves into oblivion… At least MS has the installed PC base and the enterprise biz to keep going but Nokia is in a spectacular free fall. Only 5 years ago when the iPhone was first introduced Nokia ruled the mobile world with both dominant market share and around 70% of the profits. Amazing…
Current WP7 phones that are just being released can’t be upgraded to WP8? Wow, what are these people thinking? I have to admit that Apple’s been lucky to a degree competing against these bloated, lumbering, and grossly incompetent fools in the mobile arena. I just don’t see how Nokia and RIM can get back into the game. It looks absolutely hopeless for them.
Well, I just hope Apple learns from what has happened to these dinosaurs and what Apple did to them could happen to Apple some years down the road. I’m sure TC and the Apple executive team won’t take anything for granted and will press ahead as they always have.
As Andy Grove once said, only the paranoid survive in this biz. Obviously, when the iPhone came out Nokia and RIM didn’t exhibit any paranoia and just laughed off the iPhone. Ditto for Ballmer and MS… Well, it doesn’t seem like Nokia and RIM will survive…
Another thing… I remember reading some fairly recent Gartner and/or IDC reports forecasting mobile sales through 2015 that said Symbian will still have strong sales through 2012~3 and will gradually be phased out as WP is gradually phased in. They even predicted that WP will overtake iOS by 2015.
Well, it seems Gartner and IDC are *also* dinosaurs who only look at past metrics of the PC biz and apply them to the mobile biz. Perhaps Nokia and RIM relied on their data of 4~5 years ago to feel secure about their respective positions? Did ANYONE in ’07~8 predict ANYTHING close to what’s going on now? Of course not… Not even Apple…
What’s funny is that so many people believe there will be an update for them. They don’t realize that WP8 will be a whole new platform. It has to be. The only good news to come from this for Microsoft fans is that finally, Microsoft will have one OS across PCs, tablets, and phones. But that means killing off WP7 and starting over from scratch, yet again.