InfectedPhreak
New member
A lot of WP user's frustration with the 7.8/8 situation is that MS seemingly made a big thing about fragmentation not being an issue on WP, and then they go ahead and fragment the OS. And not even in a small version-number-type way. It's a completely different kernel.
Fragmentation still isn't an issue for WP, From what I see of it... Once those 2 year contracts are up people will be switching to WP8's or when they get their upgrade. I call that a roll over period, not fragmentation. It's playing catch up, pretty much.
To be fair, I think that Gen 1 WP users have been well served with Mango, and now with 7.8, but I can't help but feel sympathy for the 900 owners who aren't techies (ie - who didn't research the hazy upgrade issue first) and who may have been misled at time of sale, who are now finding out that their new phone is getting a kind of partial upgrade designed - let's be honest - to placate them and other WP owners.
I think those of who that have been interested in WP, and didn't impulsively buy the new L900 or T2... They should of known that WP8 was coming out in just a few months. I feel no sympathy for those individuals that KNEW it was coming, and what to possibly expect.
As for those non-techies, that were just looking for a new phone to pick up and get into the ecosystem the L900/T2 are still amazing phones. They will do them justice, and when their upgrade is available like everyone else, they'll get a W8P if they enjoy the WP OS.
MS could, and should, have cleared up the WP8 upgrade issue months ago when it was first raised (they would have been clear about the situation internally even long before that). They didn't do it because it would have killed sales of WP7.5 handsets. In anyones reasonable view, that is a decision made for the benefit of MS, to the detrement of it's customers. I would even go so far as to say it was dishonest, in that it was a case of witholding information in order not to affect sales.
I agree with this, but I also disagree. I think it was a good business play by them, due to the fact that WP is already in the gutter trailing behind with barely 10% of the market share. Now, if they wanted to throw this out into the wind... and said "Listen, no WP8 to current devices but there will be devices released later on with WP8"... People would of completely stopped by into the OS, and just waited. That few months or so without people buying WP7.5 phones, would of destroyed even more market placement... or they would bought into other OS's and then WP would of been completely SOL.
That's why - and I've said it before - I think they have a moral obligation to make sure that the 7.8 upgrade has all the non-hardware-reliant features of WP8. There is no reason why they couldn't do that.
Moral obligation? It's a business, and business don't play with morals or obligations. They will do what they want to do. As far as the details go, a lot of the new features for WP8 are with the new dual-cores and new kernel. So I don't really see many features from WP8 coming to 7.8 other then the new start screen. I could be completely wrong, but after all the details that are sprouting up all over the place about the new features of WP8 it seems core dependent and more then likely wont show up on WP7.8
If 7.8 is feature-packed, then I don't I don't think that anyone could have any major complaints - after all who cares about the name? But if it's just going to be the start screen update (and, looking at how MS are making such a big issue of the start screen, I would think it pretty much is) then I think it'll cost them more in bad publicity and reputation that it would have done to make the 7.8 update match WP8 in all but hardware-dependant features.
Microsoft is already buried when it comes to publicity and reputation, at least they have the balls to flat out drown themselves and publicly execute themselves.