Apollo coming to all (1G/2G) Windows Phones!

[N8ter]

Nope, it is not really a problem for a developer if there are multiple versions of an OS out there, as long as he can be assured that there are a limited number of them, and those older versions will disappear over some reasonable time frame. This can't happen if manufacturers and carriers keep selling obsolete versions to new customers.

Nobody ever whines about Windows being fragmented, at least not since XP replaced Windows ME. Even though there are lots of XP systems out there, there aren't any new XP systems being sold anymore, so nowadays it's possible for a developer to simply ignore the existence of XP and target the Vista APIs.

Android is in the situation that Windows would be in if Dell and Gateway were still selling Windows 95 systems. Except worse, because the handset manufacturers and carriers insist on doing their own versions of the OS with their own bugs and compatibility issues.

Hypothetically, if no Android handset were ever upgraded, but each new handset sold came with the latest version of Android, then although there would be fragmentation it would be very managable; by now nearly all handsets still under contract would be running Gingerbread, and new development projects could target Ice Cream Sandwich without a second's hesitation.

If Apollo doesn't come to the older WP7 devices then yes there will be fragmentation. But that fragmentation will exist *anyway*, unless you believe that WP8 will be coming to these little 256MB Tango devices as well. It'll be interesting to see what happens to Tango after WP8 comes out. I suspect we're heading to a fragmented WP world whether we like it or not.

You're wrong about xp. It's marketshare is still massive especially for business applications abandoning it can be suicide even now. That can work for some apps. Ie photoshop users are less likely to be using legacy windows versions. But for stuff like general office apps and even games in many instances you cannot in good faith drop xp support. Too many people still run it.


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[mparker]

Your logic fails yet again, Windows 8 actually runs on 64MB!

Windows 8 Runs on 64MB and 128 MB RAM | Windows 8 Beta

I don't think you actually read the article. It took 10 minutes to boot, and it's paging itself senseless and is completely unusable. An original XP or W2K system would be running just fine in that environment. Even at 128MB while it boots up ok without thrashing, it won't run any apps.

It does give some hope that a system like this might be able to run an app in 256MB of RAM. He's doing this in a desktop X86 system, running in a VM, so these results aren't directly applicable to ARM on physical hardware. But it does give me hope that 512MB will be enough RAM.

1G WP7 handsets have 512MB, the same as 2G WP7. System requirements are definitely not an argument against the Apollo update on 1G handsets.

They also have a much weaker GPU and slower clock speed. Even if the OS installs it may run poorly. We really don't know yet. And this is all assuming that the carriers and manufacturers will approve the Apollo update for those old handsets.

And yet there is no hardware differentiation from the Lumia 900 to the other handsets, it still runs the same Snapdragon chipset.

If other handsets have exactly the same chipset, why wouldn't they be able to run Apollo? And if Windows 8 can run on 64MB, why wouldn't Apollo run on the 256MB of Tango handsets?

According to that article, it *boots* in 64MB and only "runs" for the smallest possible value of "run". Even at 128MB it can't run any apps. And this is a desktop-level X86 system, running in a VM, these results aren't directly applicable to Win8 on an ARM SoC.

...carriers are obligated to release major updates...

I'm a skeptic. I'll believe that when I see the contract, including where it attresses things like what "major update" means, what exactly constitutes a "release", how long are they obligated to update a given handset, how long can they delay it "testing", what testing criteria can they use to fail an update, etc.

 

[mparker]

You're wrong about xp. It's marketshare is still massive especially for business applications abandoning it can be suicide even now. That can work for some apps. Ie photoshop users are less likely to be using legacy windows versions. But for stuff like general office apps and even games in many instances you cannot in good faith drop xp support. Too many people still run it.

Yes it's installed base is still large, but it is shrinking fast. The software I work on is used by large corporations; most of our customers have already gone to Win 7, the rest will be there by end of Q2. We are still supporting the XP versions of our software, but new development efforts and the next major releases of our existing software products are all targeting Win 7 for the desktop and iOS for tablets and phones.

 

[canesfan625]

Mparker, you really have to step back and enjoy both the irony and the humor of the situation. You have Spock over here preaching about logic based on the recital of articles and lack of understanding of basic concepts. I've seen windows XP run on a 486dx before. So your logic is fail because just because we can we should or something.

I can see how clock speeds for CPU and maybe ram could be an issue but i don't see why gpu will matter. have I missed some new eye candy at the core? (not counting upcoming games) A friend once showed me a site that had the update details. I could swore it was actually somewhere on channel 9 or elsewhere on MSDN. I'll see if I can dig it up. Apollo does fall under the mandate though unless there has been a change


-edit- I guess im kinda thinking that Apollo with be to 1st gen/current mid range phones what tango is to low end. It will work and be an efficient daily driver but some things will have a tango like upgrade message.

 

[Seketh]

I don't think you actually read the article. It took 10 minutes to boot, and it's paging itself senseless and is completely unusable. An original XP or W2K system would be running just fine in that environment. Even at 128MB while it boots up ok without thrashing, it won't run any apps.

I read the article. You simply stated that it wouldn't run, but it does. It might take 10 minutes, but it does run, and 64MB is way below minimum system requirements. That is just an example that even Windows 8, can indeed run on 64mb of ram, even if most stuff doesn't work.

I might even add that Windows 8 is not optimized to run specific hardware, and Apollo is, so why wouldn't it run on 256MB?

Also, Apollo won't be exactly the same as Windows 8, it won't require as many system resources.

They also have a much weaker GPU and slower clock speed. Even if the OS installs it may run poorly. We really don't know yet. And this is all assuming that the carriers and manufacturers will approve the Apollo update for those old handsets.

The weaker chipset shouldn't be of concern, the difference is really not that great.

The carriers and manufacturers are something we should be worried about, yes, but I believe that Microsoft had the Windows 8 upgrade planned all along on the 1G and 2G handsets roadmap.

-edit- I guess im kinda thinking that Apollo with be to 1st gen/current mid range phones what tango is to low end. It will work and be an efficient daily driver but some things will have a tango like upgrade message.

Exactly, that's what should be expected. 1G and 2G handsets won't run the same things as the dual-core Apollo handsets, so we'll probably have some limitations, which is normal.

And that is yet another argument in favor of Apollo coming to all existing handsets.

 

[Old_Cus]

Are we still talking about this? Wow this might become the longest running thread on this forum. Maybe it will stay active until the actual release of Apollo!

 

[canesfan625]

I read the article. You simply stated that it wouldn't run, but it does. It might take 10 minutes, but it does run, and 64MB is way below minimum system requirements. That is just an example that even Windows 8, can indeed run on 64mb of ram, even if most stuff doesn't work.

I might even add that Windows 8 is not optimized to run specific hardware, and Apollo is, so why wouldn't it run on 256MB?

Because its not just about if the bare OS can run? Its a moot point if I can turn my phone on and thats it.

 

[Seketh]

Because its not just about if the bare OS can run? Its a moot point if I can turn my phone on and thats it.

Of course it's not just about if the OS can barely run on the system, but the original argument is that it wouldn't run, and the fact is that it indeed does run on a system way below required system specs.

And it is relevant for my original argument. If Windows 8 can still run (even if nothing really works) on 64MB, Apollo will definitely run on 256MB with the required optimizations, although with the obvious limitations we already discussed.

 

[canesfan625]

Of course it's not just about if the OS can barely run on the system, but the original argument is that it wouldn't run, and the fact is that it indeed does run on a system way below required system specs.

And it is relevant for my original argument. If Windows 8 can still run (even if nothing really works) on 64MB, Apollo will definitely run on 256MB with the required optimizations, although with the obvious limitations we already discussed.

Can't quite say that. X86 ≠ ARM SoC. There is a significant difference in speed even at the same clock speeds which is in part why it was mentioned earlier that its no directly applicable.

 

[Seketh]

Can't quite say that. X86 ≠ ARM SoC. There is a significant difference in speed even at the same clock speeds which is in part why it was mentioned earlier that its no directly applicable.

Truth be told, we still have no idea what kind of performance we can expect from ARM running Windows 8.

But I'm 100% certain of one thing in Windows Phone 8: It will run as fast, or faster, than Windows Phone 7.

 

[N8ter]

Windows 8 boots on 64MB. It doesn't run on that. Stability and performance is so bad that no one would think of running it on that. Full Desktop Linux distros can also be booted on very low RAM amounts but that doesn't make them usable.

2k needs at least 128 MB RAM to be usable as a desktop system, and even then you'd want at least 256 or you run into Swapping/Virtual Memory/Performance issues when loading larger apps, which these days also includes web browsers.

XP needs at least 256 RAM to be usable as a desktop system. On 128 you will barely be able to run any app without tons of thrashing and even at 256 you can't reliably multi task any apps of decent size (that includes web browsers, which can take up over 100MB RAM with a few tabs open). You get tons of Yellow Virtual Memory warnings in your system tray and you have to reboot your system a lot more often than someone with 512 RAM.

Part of the Vista Capable/Premium Certification was to stop OEMs from shipping underspecced machines with the latest OS, because a lot of XP machines were shipped with 256 MB RAM and that ran fine until you intalled a few apps and started running multiple apps concurrently, then the experience was terrible. But they fudged that up as well :-(

I used to run older desktops as test machines. When 2k released my PC had 320 MB RAM, though, so I never had "RAM issues." It was a gaming rig, though.

Fitting an OS (or any software) in smaller RAM footprints isn't always due to "optimizations" because I doubt microsoft is rewriting so much code to the point that the base RAM footprint of the OS has shrunk so much, especially going from WP7.5 to WP8. It's not a full Win8 port to phone... Sometimes it's due to trimming, as in trimming features/drivers/etc. to make the software perform/function adequately in the lower spec. That's what they're going to do with Apollo if they put them on 1gen devices. Those devices won't need drivers for things like FFC or even the built-in software code to deal with it because they don't have it, same for stuff like Gyroscope (which they're also missing), 1080p Encoding, NFC, etc. All of that can be ripped out to make the OS fit in a smaller RAM foot print and perform better in the lower spec.

 

[canesfan625]

There is a photo from an early WOA build running on the ASUS E600. It's eating up most of its RAM but that's running the full desktop.

 

[DanielCeleste]

It only makes sense considering newer devices with Only 256mb of RAM are coming out soon, compared to 512mb of RAM on 1G devices.