Legacy PHones no Apollo Update, will get 7.8 update

[tk-093]

Apps written for WP8 ONLY won't run in WP7.x. That is correct. However, apps written for 7.x will work on Windows 8.

Why would a developer, at least right away, write an app that targets only Windows Phone 8 users, of which there are currently zero, and ignore the tons of WP7.x users? (I know the market share of WP is low, that that still translates into a crap load of devices)

Now a developer can write an app that will work on 7.5 as well as a brand new market that will grow over time.

 

[eastbayrae]

Geez. Just go get an iPhone or Android already.

Nobody screwed anyone over.

Products evolve.

Welcome to the world of technology.

I can somewhat understand some people feeling disappointed. But when they said that they got "screwed over", that's just pretty lame. It's as if nobody has any sense of personal responsibility in the decisions they make when they purchase something. Someone else always owes them more than what they paid for.

This.

Would you have liked NO update at all or what you got?

 

[Reflexx]

If i get my money back for Lumia 900 then I will stick around.

If you bought it for $99 like a lot of people did, then you'll have no problem getting your money back. ****, I'd buy it off you.

 

[naplesbill]

Socialcarpet you are clueless about anything I have said. I get new devices every few months so I can clearly afford it. That has zero to do with how Microsoft has unnecessarily forced me into new hardware. They have been doing this to me for 20 years so stupid me.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[Winterfang]

What a disaster...

I had my expectations very very low for this event but they still managed to disappointed me.

Windows Phone 7 is dead, dead like webOS and meego. Good luck getting new apps or games or any kind of support. Our phones have no future, this update system makes Google look like Apple.

The 900 is basically useless right now ( I don't feel bad for Nokia, since they love their dead OS 's like Symbian and meego), though it's still a better deal than the N9 and 808.

They even went as far as ruining the only thing the OS had going for it, the main screen. It now looks worse than even the crappiest 100 bucks android than grandma has.

Yes, Windows Phone 7 is dead, but it's not all bad news. Windows Phone 8 is coming and it looks promising, WP8 will bring much needed unity to Windows and I want to be part of this ecosystem. Consider me cautious but optimistic .

 

[HeyCori]

WP 7 users: 13-14 million
WP 8 users: 0
Win 8 users: 0

I'm sure developers are lining up to jump into that 0 percent market share. People are acting as if devs will immediately abandon WP7 once 8 comes out. They won't. It's true, they will leave eventually - but not any time soon.. A smart developer will program for the least common denominator (7.8) to gain access to the largest market share. Devs want to make money. You need users to do that, something WP8 and W8 doesn't have. Yes, there will be X amount of devs who immediately push the limit but the idea that the WP7 marketplace will become bone dry this fall is very Chicken Little.

And no, this did not deserve it's own thread.

 

[sting7k]

Work with carriers to make a special upgrade program for those who bought one of the newer Windows Phone in 2012 such as Lumia 900, Focus 2, and Titan II.

What I'm trying to say is to find a way to delight those who bought one of the "newer" phones.

Agree? Disagree? Other suggestions?

EDIT: By "special upgrade" I mean a super early upgrade to a WP8 phone.

EDIT 2: Making a note that it is perfectly understood that Microsoft and their partners may very well do nothing, but it would be nice if they did. That is the gist of this post.

You can sell what ever phone you have for close to half the cost of a new WP8 device. With that money a new phone at full retail would be close to the subsidized price.

Especially if your Lumia 900 was $99 or free for some of us.

 

[anon(5335877)]

The old look with the "gutter" makes it look a lot cleaner. That's not there at all with 8.

Agreed. I liked the negative space (or whatever it is).

I hate to say it, but when has honesty ever been top priority for marketing departments? I love the honesty, but Microsoft is like that guy that's TOO honest, so no one likes him. The Focus 2 and Titan II are not important, really. How many do you think they really sold? Plus, Samsung and HTC don't need Windows Phone, so the reputation there is not as important as Nokia's.
7.8 DOES count as an upgrade, but can't you hear the sales reps in a few months "I don't know about that new Lumia 950, the last Lumia was pretty popular and they didn't even bother giving it WP8"?
That sounds like a plan too devious for Microsoft. We're talking about the company whose main policy with differentiating WP8 and 7.8 is "honesty."
Finally, I just had an idea: What if Microsoft did pick up Nokia and they name their Surfaces for screen size? Like there'd be a Surface 4, a Surface 5, 7, and 10. And every year there'd be a refresh and they'd have the same name.

I'm pretty sure Samsung doesn't need Windows Phone, but I would think HTC could do well with Windows Phone if their support was better. Wasn't there a figure that said Samsung and Apple made 99% of the profits in the mobile phone market? And another one that said Samsung sells 44% of the Android devices, while HTC is under 10%?

I think you may be right about the sales reps, sometimes they're very uninformed. And what about all those AT&T reps who were given or forced to use a Lumia 900 as their corporate/business device? What are they going to say when they learn that they're only getting 7.8? Yikes.

I'm not sure about the naming, it seems too Samsungy. Doesn't really sound cool to me either for some reason.

 

[tk-093]

That is incorrect. No windows phone 8 app will run on windows phone 7. the developer either has to write it as a windows phone 7 app (which will also run on wp8) or release two versions of the app, one for 7 and another for 8.

That's exactly what I said.... most Windows 8 apps will run on W7 if they are written that way... which is using the WP7 tools. Unless there are specific W8 features that they app requires, it would be silly for a developer to ignore the million+ existing install base of WP7 just to write an app that targets an install base that is currently non-existant. They don't need two apps... just one. At least that is what i got out of the presentation.

Now, if you get into a situation where you have an app that needs some of those multitasking voip APIs or whatever, then yeah, you either need two different apps with different features, or just pick W8. But the vast majority of apps out there are simple things that can be written once.

 

[HeyCori]

Repost:

WP 7 users: 13-14 million
WP 8 users: 0
Win 8 users: 0

I'm sure developers are lining up to jump into that 0 percent market share. People are acting as if devs will immediately abandon WP7 once 8 comes out. They won't. It's true, they will leave eventually - but not any time soon.. A smart developer will program for the least common denominator (7.8) to gain access to the largest market share. Devs want to make money. You need users to do that, something WP8 and W8 doesn't have. Yes, there will be X amount of devs who immediately push the limit but the idea that the WP7 marketplace will become bone dry this fall is very Chicken Little.

 

[anon(5335877)]

And no, this did not deserve it's own thread.

That always seems to happen around here. Duplicate threads. I think we have like 10 just on how older phones are only getting 7.8.

 

[socialcarpet]

Honestly I don't know why people would invest in this platform anymore...

Windows Mobile was ended with no official upgrade path
windows phone 7 is ended with only a feature upgrade but no app written for windows phone 8 will work.

In a year or two...will Windows Phone 8 not run windows phone 9 apps because Microsoft is just too lazy to invest in this? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

It's a phone. Not an investment.

You buy the phone. You use it for 2 years. You buy another phone.

What part of that do you not understand?

 

[eric12341]

Let me get this straight. Microsoft is stupid for not letting your phone which you probably got for free upgrade to features that will render it painful to use or make it useless? Don't understand the logic there, the SGS2 is even struggling hard with the ICS update as well as other Android phones. That's the kinda mess you will encounter when you goto Android.

 

[anon(5335877)]

The 900 is basically useless right now ( I don't feel bad for Nokia, since they love their dead OS 's like Symbian and meego), though it's still a better deal than the N9 and 808.

How is it useless all of a sudden? It's not like all WP7 phones will quit working tomorrow.

 

[socialcarpet]

HOLY CRAP MICROSOFT JUST SCREWED UP BIG TIME!!!!

They are making a new OS that won't run on my 3 year old phone.

That does it. I'm going to show them. I will never buy the phone I like again, I will switch to another platform I don't like as much, to punish them. That will show them! :lol:

 

[tenoclock]

If you can't afford to buy a new smartphone at the end of your contract, then you probably can't afford your cell phone plan either.

Get over it.

1/2 the reason the Windows desktop OS sucked so much for so long is because of the relentless demand for endless backwards compatibility stifling any progress.

Microsoft doesn't SELL smartphones, genius. They could care less if you need new hardware. They are trying to make the OS as good as they can so they can climb out of 3% marketshare.

Doing that means sometimes some people get hurt, and honestly the best customers are the ones who adopt new technology, not the ones who buy a WM 6.5 phone and use it for 8 years and then demand that it upgrade seamlessly to WP8.

Get over it. The break has to occur somewhere. I have a Lumia 900 too, but you don't see me flipping out like Microsoft and Nokia pulled a prank on me. It's business. I understand that. I got what I paid for. I love my phone. No matter what comes out in the next 2 years, it won't change what I like about my phone. I bought my phone because of what it is, not what it might be in 2 years after 3 more OS updates.

It's a freakin $99 phone that many of us, myself included, got for FREE.

Nah, some people paid out right. And you are probably paying $70 (voice+data) * 24 (mo) to be locked in the contract that doesn't give you eligibility to upgrade until 18 months later. Any cool new WP8, Android, Blackberry 10, iPhone5/5s you won't get unless you pay more for another account or pay it out right.

As Nokia owner you are either making billion of dollars that you don't care that your 2 months old phone is already/almost obsolete, or you just don't care getting bent over .

I think current situation is that we have two 1.5 generation models (Titan 2 and Lumia 900) owners who just purchased the devices not too long ago, rest of the users probably already owned their device for a year or more.

 

[jimmy1one]

For people, like me, who have a 2 month old phone, hearing we will continue to get new apps for the next 4 months isn't exactly comforting. That leaves me with 18 months of my contract where my phone will be out dated and not receiving new apps. That is 3/4 of my contract. Now if these numbers were reversed, I'd be okay with it. If I had an 18 month old phone that wouldn't get support for the last 6 months of contract, no biggie. But this is ridiculous.

You pay your money and you take your chances. Everyone here who reads the threads knew that WP7 handsets would not be able to run WP 8. Any attempt to find out any info regarding the WP 8 specs would have given ordinary care yielded the same result.

BTW my phone is 3 weeks old I went into my purchase with my eyes wide open. I'll simply get a new WP 8 phone when they are available give the old one to my gran and keep on stepping. Am I upset, no I try to avoid getting angry with myself when I knew or had every reason to believe this is what was "the hand writing on the well: I want the best phone, ie windows phone available so I have no issue. I had a focus, I using my own reasons picked up the 900 no one made any promises. I can not understand why it's an issue, if you want to be on the cutting edge some times there's blood:blush:

 

[Mr_pither]

"What Microsoft is doing with Windows Phone 8 is what it has to do: laying cement for an OS that will last deep into the future—or at least as long as you'll own your phone. Your Lumia is based on Windows CE, software that was first released during the Clinton administration. It's ancient, and it's holding the entire platform back. WP8, and its incompatibility with the phone you might own right now, is a much-needed fresh start."

Sorry, But Microsoft Screwing Windows Phone Fans Is the Right Thing To Do

 

[kenzibit]

What I see is, developers will try to make use of the multicore capabilities of WP8. With this, you can not develop an app for both WP8 and 7.x and they'll will probably be developing those new apps on a WP8 device later this year. You just can't develop a multicore app on WP7.x. The android boys now have something to laugh at....FRAGMENTATION....welcomed at last.

What happens after WP7.8 upgrade? NOTHING? DEAD END I guess. Your fresh Lumia 900 is obsolete now.

 

[eric12341]

Windows Phone 7 is not dead, there will still be apps that are developed for it (apps aren't everything anyway).