Possible Time Frame On 7.8?

[iop777]

Take a look at this article, it say's 7.8 isn't to far off, and it has some good points. Neowin - Where unprofessional journalism looks better - Neowin

 

[rockstarzzz]

Unprofessinal Journalism? Don't even feel like clicking that link. But March 2013.

 

[iop777]

Unprofessinal Journalism? Don't even feel like clicking that link. But March 2013.

It doesn't seem the most reliable but it has some points. I'd say it's gonna drop before March though. It would make sense if it was around the same time as the low end 7.8 devices.

 

[rockstarzzz]

New rumours say mid-November, but I think it's highly unlikely. They will follow the trend of Lumia 800, HTC Titan. So new phones with 7.8 first (not this holiday season surely!) and then unlocked Gen2 phones get an update and then all carrier phones get update - somewhere Feb-March when roll out completes.

 

[1jaxstate1]

News on windows phone 7.8 will be coming soon. News on Windows phone 7.8 upgrade “will be announced soon” | WMPoweruser

Here's the original link from Nokia's offical Google+ page. https://plus.google.com/u/0/107582974303899710400/posts

I was just told Nokia news is not anything officially Nokia.

 

[wamsille]

Take some advice from someone that is coming from the Android camp and has had experience waiting on device updates:

Be patient.

Take a step back and relax and first realize that most phones out on the market right now are Windows Phone 7.5 - you are running the most current and commercially available OS available. When WP8 hits the market, it won't overtake WP7.5 ownership right away. This didn't happen with Android phones running Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich. Shoot, there are still a good number of devices running Froyo out in the wild but that number is dwarfed by Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich. Also remember that there is Anroid Jellybean running around. So, before you complain your phone isn't getting upgraded to more than 7.8 - remember it could be a lot worse.

But on Android you can get the updates early and for unsupported hardware!!!!

You realize it would make a great argument if that were factually true. Techincally you can port ROMs to devices they aren't meant to be run on and exchange libraries and whip up something that resembles an official release. That's what happened with the hacked 7.8 ROM floating around. Expect things to act strangely or not work at all.

But Cyanogenmod!!!!

Yeah, about that. What makes this different than having a skinned UI by Motorola or Samsung? Sure it's based on AOSP, but there are enough tweaks to take and make it theirs. Too many to be considered vanilla Android, but not so much that it actually makes the phone unusable. At that point your options are to either compile your own base ROM and only put in the tweaks you want or wait for someone to port actual AOSP to your device which might not ever happen. If you want that amount of control over your phone, which by all means take it if you want it, then that is the route you will likely take. As for the majority of the market, just make the phone run better out of the box and take better pictures or connect to the internet faster. But please, don't tell us that we need to learn how to use Linux and need to modify our phone like the kid down the street does with his '95 Civic.

Windows Phone marries the multiple device ecosystem that Android enjoys with a unified OS that looks and operates largely the same across the board aside from a few custom apps that may or may not be exclusive for the life of the phone. At some point in the development of Windows Phone 8 the companies involved decided that in order to keep up with the competition they needed to revamp the kernel, the device specs and make their phones stand tall amongst the iShiny's of the market. Your Lumia 900 running 7.5 and eventually 7.8 is still better than the guy's phone running Ice Cream Sandwich. You think they will get Jellybean quickly or at all? After they have rooted and soft bricked their phone trying to get another 45 minutes of talk time out of the battery and voided their warranty, you'll be sitting pretty with a device that does all of those things and all you had to do was hit 'update' in the Zune app on Windows.

 

[vinscg]

thats the reason i switched from android to wp , and cant stand an apple product(behavior)

 

[wamsille]

thats the reason i switched from android to wp , and cant stand an apple product(behavior)

Exactly - one OS with multiple devices to support it is more akin of the PC market. Let the Apple folks get their new device every year and Android users see their devices become irrelevant minutes after launching. One OS and one device to support it limits iPhone to competing with itself year after year. Problem is they aren't very competitive and if you use their mapping software you end up taking a left turn into a lake. Too many flavors / distros of your OS spread across multiple devices and your ecosystem looks more like a Branson, MO family reunion.

 

[iop777]

New rumours say mid-November, but I think it's highly unlikely. They will follow the trend of Lumia 800, HTC Titan. So new phones with 7.8 first (not this holiday season surely!) and then unlocked Gen2 phones get an update and then all carrier phones get update - somewhere Feb-March when roll out completes.

Didn't Microsoft say at the first WP8 conference that 7.8 will bypass carries and be straight trough Zune though?

 

[wamsille]

Didn't Microsoft say at the first WP8 conference that 7.8 will bypass carries and be straight trough Zune though?

If someone can verify that it would probably slow to a simmer the folks stewing over another 6-12 month wait for a software update to their phone. (If it ever gets one)

 

[1jaxstate1]

My old Galaxy S2 was upgraded to ICS and is planned to get jelly bean. If someone has a G1 expecting to get jelly bean, then they are stupid. So they received at least ONE for sure update and it's been posted that they will receive another.

There has been no offical mention of an upgrade for Gen 2 WP7 devices, which were released THIS year. As far as which on is better, that's a personal opinion. I think they all pretty much do the same thing, but with a different approach.

Your Lumia 900 running 7.5 and eventually 7.8 is still better than the guy's phone running Ice Cream Sandwich. You think they will get Jellybean quickly or at all? After they have rooted and soft bricked their phone trying to get another 45 minutes of talk time out of the battery and voided their warranty, you'll be sitting pretty with a device that does all of those things and all you had to do was hit 'update' in the Zune app on Windows.

 

[Michael Alan Goff]

If someone can verify that it would probably slow to a simmer the folks stewing over another 6-12 month wait for a software update to their phone. (If it ever gets one)

I think we're all going by Paul Thurrot, I can't find a Microsoft official saying that sort of thing.

 

[rockstarzzz]

There has been no offical mention of an upgrade for Gen 2 WP7 devices, which were released THIS year. As far as which on is better, that's a personal opinion. I think they all pretty much do the same thing, but with a different approach.

Looks like you missed out on the 7.8 announcement. That was official though! No mention of dates as usual, but they've said there is 7.8 coming.

 

[iop777]

If someone can verify that it would probably slow to a simmer the folks stewing over another 6-12 month wait for a software update to their phone. (If it ever gets one)

Here's a article about it: Windows Phone 7.8 update will bypass carriers, include new Start Screen | WMPoweruser

 

[1jaxstate1]

I didn't miss out on them saying the announcement, I missed out on a date and details of what's included

 

[Michael Alan Goff]

I was right. We're all going from rumor on this one. Paul is normally right, though.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[wamsille]

My old Galaxy S2 was upgraded to ICS and is planned to get jelly bean. If someone has a G1 expecting to get jelly bean, then they are stupid. So they received at least ONE for sure update and it's been posted that they will receive another.

There has been no offical mention of an upgrade for Gen 2 WP7 devices, which were released THIS year. As far as which on is better, that's a personal opinion. I think they all pretty much do the same thing, but with a different approach.

Here is the difference between Windows Phone and iOS comapred to Android:

The OS ecosystem isn't fractured.

But Windows Phone 7.8! Yeah, it isn't the greatest development in the world but it's a long-term solution to a short-term problem. The CE kernel was dated and in the end the move to NT is what was needed to further the OS. It's a shame that phones were still being produced to run on the old CE kernel and released as late as April 2012 but sometimes even the most well thought out plans fall apart. The fact that there are still going to be 7.8 devices produced tells me that there might be some plausbility to 7.8 being more than a new start screen and a way for companies to produce low cost handset alernatives to their bigger brother, WP8 counterparts.

I'm not going to suggest phones based on the NT kernel with WP8 are meant to last through WP12 as that would be a silly notion to think the current crop of features wouldn't be improved upon over the next several years. That being said, why do we need to have a new mobile OS every year? Because Apple or Google says so? If the ecosystem for WP8 can be sustained while other camps are focused on development for iOS 7, 8 and Android 5.1, 6.0 - wouldn't that in the end make hardware for WP8 cheaper to produce and less costly to develop for? I know that development plan doesn't translate into a new iShiny every 12 months but tough titties. Just because you need something new doesn't mean what you have is broken.

You may not have this problem personally, but a good number of the posts I read are from people upset they didn't get update Y when they bought their phone running version X of the OS. They fear that by the time Y comes along new phones will be running Z, making their phone pretty much a paperweight. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Here is the problem that I have with Android - unless you are getting that tall drink of water straight from the tap you are missing, or taking away, the best of Android in exchange for Samsung/HTC/Motorola's vision of the OS. Sense UI on the One X killed the experience for me. The locked bootloader, inability to root and load a ROM on it removed any hope I had for making it work. I wasn't aware of the multi-tasking issues with the device and for that it is my fault I didn't do enough research. I thought the RAM, processor and version of Android were enough to overcome most issues I've seen with Android with Sense UI skinned over it. Nope.

Windows Phone has one UI. That's it. No one "skins it" and makes it their own. To distinguish themselves HTC/Samsung/Nokia have to make compelling hardware and truly add to the experience rather than reinventing it. If Android devices all ran stock ICS or Jellybean from the beginning with no changes it would be a surprisingly better experience for everyone. Updates would come more regularly, and possibly without carrier input. Sure, HTC could have phones with an ImageSense processor and apps specific to their phones, but the CORE operating system is unaffected which keeps the updates coming. But, much like Linux in general, everyone has to have their own custom distro. SenseUI is Ubuntu/Mint, TouchWiz is Fedora and Blur is OpenSuse. AOSP for the record would be Debian - but you get the idea.

Oh, and Amazon with their Kindle is Ubuntu running xfce or something similar.

But seriously - you have an ecosystem ranging from Eclair and Froyo to ICS and Jellybean. There are devices that run Honeycomb still while many are still on Gingerbread with no chance of being upgraded despite promises to the contrary. There are far fewer active Windows Phone variants in the marketplace compared to Android. For that matter, there are far fewer iOS variants compared to Android and Windows Phone combined.

Apple has a good strategy with its one device, one OS progression on the mobile phone front. Unfortunately, they compete directly with themself in this arena. Android is open and free to all that want it. The problem is people want to take that and put their own spin on it - running it on phones, tablets, watches and even computers. (Oh, and now cameras) A developer could potentially screw themselves if they support the wrong base of consumers. Simply going by which OS in that case is the most widely used doesn't tell you what will be relevant 6 months from now.

I love Android, and I think some of the more compelling devices out there have been released with a variant of the OS. Unfortunately, that innovation often comes too often and at the expense of reducing the life cycle of devices after they are released. The Lumia 900 is a bad example of how Windows Phone can change this, but it illustrates my point in the Android side of things.

 

[rockstarzzz]

Here is the difference between Windows Phone and iOS comapred to Android:

The OS ecosystem isn't fractured.

But Windows Phone 7.8! Yeah, it isn't the greatest development in the world but it's a long-term solution to a short-term problem. The CE kernel was dated and in the end the move to NT is what was needed to further the OS. It's a shame that phones were still being produced to run on the old CE kernel and released as late as April 2012 but sometimes even the most well thought out plans fall apart. The fact that there are still going to be 7.8 devices produced tells me that there might be some plausbility to 7.8 being more than a new start screen and a way for companies to produce low cost handset alernatives to their bigger brother, WP8 counterparts.

I'm not going to suggest phones based on the NT kernel with WP8 are meant to last through WP12 as that would be a silly notion to think the current crop of features wouldn't be improved upon over the next several years. That being said, why do we need to have a new mobile OS every year? Because Apple or Google says so? If the ecosystem for WP8 can be sustained while other camps are focused on development for iOS 7, 8 and Android 5.1, 6.0 - wouldn't that in the end make hardware for WP8 cheaper to produce and less costly to develop for? I know that development plan doesn't translate into a new iShiny every 12 months but tough titties. Just because you need something new doesn't mean what you have is broken.

You may not have this problem personally, but a good number of the posts I read are from people upset they didn't get update Y when they bought their phone running version X of the OS. They fear that by the time Y comes along new phones will be running Z, making their phone pretty much a paperweight. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Here is the problem that I have with Android - unless you are getting that tall drink of water straight from the tap you are missing, or taking away, the best of Android in exchange for Samsung/HTC/Motorola's vision of the OS. Sense UI on the One X killed the experience for me. The locked bootloader, inability to root and load a ROM on it removed any hope I had for making it work. I wasn't aware of the multi-tasking issues with the device and for that it is my fault I didn't do enough research. I thought the RAM, processor and version of Android were enough to overcome most issues I've seen with Android with Sense UI skinned over it. Nope.

Windows Phone has one UI. That's it. No one "skins it" and makes it their own. To distinguish themselves HTC/Samsung/Nokia have to make compelling hardware and truly add to the experience rather than reinventing it. If Android devices all ran stock ICS or Jellybean from the beginning with no changes it would be a surprisingly better experience for everyone. Updates would come more regularly, and possibly without carrier input. Sure, HTC could have phones with an ImageSense processor and apps specific to their phones, but the CORE operating system is unaffected which keeps the updates coming. But, much like Linux in general, everyone has to have their own custom distro. SenseUI is Ubuntu/Mint, TouchWiz is Fedora and Blur is OpenSuse. AOSP for the record would be Debian - but you get the idea.

Oh, and Amazon with their Kindle is Ubuntu running xfce or something similar.

But seriously - you have an ecosystem ranging from Eclair and Froyo to ICS and Jellybean. There are devices that run Honeycomb still while many are still on Gingerbread with no chance of being upgraded despite promises to the contrary. There are far fewer active Windows Phone variants in the marketplace compared to Android. For that matter, there are far fewer iOS variants compared to Android and Windows Phone combined.

Apple has a good strategy with its one device, one OS progression on the mobile phone front. Unfortunately, they compete directly with themself in this arena. Android is open and free to all that want it. The problem is people want to take that and put their own spin on it - running it on phones, tablets, watches and even computers. (Oh, and now cameras) A developer could potentially screw themselves if they support the wrong base of consumers. Simply going by which OS in that case is the most widely used doesn't tell you what will be relevant 6 months from now.

I love Android, and I think some of the more compelling devices out there have been released with a variant of the OS. Unfortunately, that innovation often comes too often and at the expense of reducing the life cycle of devices after they are released. The Lumia 900 is a bad example of how Windows Phone can change this, but it illustrates my point in the Android side of things.

Excellent post!

May I add my experience of ROM flashing with Android? Oh, I just will.

HTC Sensation XL and HTC Titan - one came with ICS and other came with WP7.5

Excellent hardware - exactly same, just different OS. One had BEATS audio and other had SRS.

As you mentioned the Sense UI got on my tits in no time. The multi tasking is so messed up that I cannot think of running 5 apps at the same time. People complain about WP7 multitasking, but they don't see the way they never have to force close a thing or restart an app!

I tried custom ROMs - uh no, can't. Locked bootloader sizzle for some time. Then eventually unlocks for both phones come in, of course Sensation XL came first. I flashed a custom ROM. Guess what? With Android till date, I haven't found a ROM that doesn't have something written in red with XYZ NOT working. If it is all working, it still has a sense UI. How on earth do I get a perfect custom ROM on Android? I dont know. Now don't get me wrong. I've been Android for 2 years. I've flashed plenty of custom ROMs but none was ever perfect. There is always something missing. Battery life, force close blah blah.

On the other hand, WP7, I've flashed only 3 ROMs so far and each of them have been SO perfect. Everything works! Deepshining, DFT and Ultrashot's ROMs. - all perfect.

My point being, no not getting updates was the same scenario for both. Jelly bean is promised on XL, 7.8 is promised on Titan. But then when I try to take matters in hand by using custom ROMs, I still feel more satisfied on Titan.

I might be the only one though, not long before people label me WP ****** for all the wrong reasons.

 

[wamsille]

I agree with you @rockstarzzz, but the locked bootloader and flashing restrictions are not just limited to HTC. Motorola tends to love their customers that way as well. Past the original Droid, rooting became more of a spectator sport with bets being placed on who could find the exploit first. Custom ROMs that don't case a wide enough net - that aren't necessarily custom but lend themselves to being customized - just take what is supposed to be a beautfiul OS and kill it. Just take a look at MIUI, which puts a Cupertino flair on Android. It's just Sense UI in Steve Jobs clothing.

Seriously, going back to the topic, Windows Phone is marketedly improved over the Android ecosystem. Microsoft just needs to find a killer app that is Windows Phone only that everyone wants. No, it isn't OneNote.

 

[1jaxstate1]

I'm not sure about a ecosystem, but the WP OS is fragmented. It's started with the update to the FB app, that's only available to WP8 devices [via WMPU].

If the CE was so outdated, why did MS use it. Surely they could have looked passed 1 year into the future to see that I would be useless going forward. But as you stated, no one knows what will actually be in WP7.8. I'm hoping more than a few crumbs thrown our way.

I don't think we need a new OS every year. But added functionality is a +. I don't see any of the major OSs delivering a new OS every year. They just add improvement and needed functionality.

I've had a Galaxy S1 [Craptivate] and a galaxy S2, which I really liked. I didn't have a problem with Samsung overlay. I was able to do pretty much everything someone with a Nexus device could[hardware allowable], except google wallet.

Android has been out longer, so of course you have phone with various OS versions. As of next month, WP will have some devices on 7.0, 7.5, and 7.8, and 8.0. That's in two year time frame.

I like Android just as much as I like WP7. I go back and forward between the two.

Here is the difference between Windows Phone and iOS comapred to Android:

The OS ecosystem isn't fractured.

But Windows Phone 7.8! Yeah, it isn't the greatest development in the world but it's a long-term solution to a short-term problem. The CE kernel was dated and in the end the move to NT is what was needed to further the OS. It's a shame that phones were still being produced to run on the old CE kernel and released as late as April 2012 but sometimes even the most well thought out plans fall apart. The fact that there are still going to be 7.8 devices produced tells me that there might be some plausbility to 7.8 being more than a new start screen and a way for companies to produce low cost handset alernatives to their bigger brother, WP8 counterparts.

I'm not going to suggest phones based on the NT kernel with WP8 are meant to last through WP12 as that would be a silly notion to think the current crop of features wouldn't be improved upon over the next several years. That being said, why do we need to have a new mobile OS every year? Because Apple or Google says so? If the ecosystem for WP8 can be sustained while other camps are focused on development for iOS 7, 8 and Android 5.1, 6.0 - wouldn't that in the end make hardware for WP8 cheaper to produce and less costly to develop for? I know that development plan doesn't translate into a new iShiny every 12 months but tough titties. Just because you need something new doesn't mean what you have is broken.

You may not have this problem personally, but a good number of the posts I read are from people upset they didn't get update Y when they bought their phone running version X of the OS. They fear that by the time Y comes along new phones will be running Z, making their phone pretty much a paperweight. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Here is the problem that I have with Android - unless you are getting that tall drink of water straight from the tap you are missing, or taking away, the best of Android in exchange for Samsung/HTC/Motorola's vision of the OS. Sense UI on the One X killed the experience for me. The locked bootloader, inability to root and load a ROM on it removed any hope I had for making it work. I wasn't aware of the multi-tasking issues with the device and for that it is my fault I didn't do enough research. I thought the RAM, processor and version of Android were enough to overcome most issues I've seen with Android with Sense UI skinned over it. Nope.

Windows Phone has one UI. That's it. No one "skins it" and makes it their own. To distinguish themselves HTC/Samsung/Nokia have to make compelling hardware and truly add to the experience rather than reinventing it. If Android devices all ran stock ICS or Jellybean from the beginning with no changes it would be a surprisingly better experience for everyone. Updates would come more regularly, and possibly without carrier input. Sure, HTC could have phones with an ImageSense processor and apps specific to their phones, but the CORE operating system is unaffected which keeps the updates coming. But, much like Linux in general, everyone has to have their own custom distro. SenseUI is Ubuntu/Mint, TouchWiz is Fedora and Blur is OpenSuse. AOSP for the record would be Debian - but you get the idea.

Oh, and Amazon with their Kindle is Ubuntu running xfce or something similar.

But seriously - you have an ecosystem ranging from Eclair and Froyo to ICS and Jellybean. There are devices that run Honeycomb still while many are still on Gingerbread with no chance of being upgraded despite promises to the contrary. There are far fewer active Windows Phone variants in the marketplace compared to Android. For that matter, there are far fewer iOS variants compared to Android and Windows Phone combined.

Apple has a good strategy with its one device, one OS progression on the mobile phone front. Unfortunately, they compete directly with themself in this arena. Android is open and free to all that want it. The problem is people want to take that and put their own spin on it - running it on phones, tablets, watches and even computers. (Oh, and now cameras) A developer could potentially screw themselves if they support the wrong base of consumers. Simply going by which OS in that case is the most widely used doesn't tell you what will be relevant 6 months from now.

I love Android, and I think some of the more compelling devices out there have been released with a variant of the OS. Unfortunately, that innovation often comes too often and at the expense of reducing the life cycle of devices after they are released. The Lumia 900 is a bad example of how Windows Phone can change this, but it illustrates my point in the Android side of things.