Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) going on EVERY WP phone
One of the newer concerns that seemed to stack up against Nokia’s Lumia phones was – could it get the new update, WP8? For a long while it was assumed it would be the case, but recently there was a growing worry that it would not.
This uncertainty has led to some sites not recommending the Lumia at all despite liking the phone. Does it have the longevity of updates? Now some people are also of the opinion that when buying a phone, you should think about whether you’re happy with it as it is, or you’re actually hoping for something else in the future.
Engadget are reporting that WP8 (Apollo) is now supposedly going to all WP phones. Erm, Hurrah? Either way, updates would still come to the phones with features still being updated. The source is a ‘Microsoft Evangelist’. Does that mean simply a fan? Surur says according to his Linkedin, he works at MS. Is Evangelist Developer an actual job title?
Source: WMPoweruser via Engadget
Cheers Mitun for the tip
Category: Nokia, Windows Phone
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about what is an Microsoft Evangelist, see this link–> http://www.microsoft.com/northafrica/careers/positions/de.htm
sounds like a PR rep
Told you MS was starting a religion…
Previous Evangelical (that’s the proper word by the way)experience required?
Where do you get that?
Kind of saw this coming. Good news nevertheless even for the early adopters!
Not so fast, now MSFT are saying there is no news on updates. ie you wont see it on 800/900
Great, one more bad rumor put to rest.
Not at all, Mary-Jo Foley said something very odd in response to that.
She works for MS/Her sources are airtight within MS? I don’t exactly trust Verge, after all..
No, she’s more someone like Paul Thurott. Which is somewhere in between The Verge and Joe Belfiore. It’s the ambiguity that actually makes me question this.
All current Windows Phones have the potential and technical capability of running Windows Phone 8? Yes. All phones will get it? Some users still don’t have the 7740 and 8107 updates.
Microsoft would like to get Windows Phone 8 out to everyone, things would be much better for them that way, and would make support much easier, but they don’t want to make promises they can’t keep.
I don’t believe her. She and her “anonymous sources” can all go and join Topolsky and The Verge as big fat liars.
I believe an actual Microsoft employee over their silly sources.
MJF didn’t quote any anonymous sources, she more meticulously analysed what named sources have said.
Well, hope this is reliable.
It was in any event the most likely scenario. However, I would still guess that some features may only work on the new reference hardware, or work better on it (say, for example, if they were to introduce HDMI out or some such thing, or some graphich heavy games/apps may only work with the new GPU requirements).
Me too, because otherwise..
Why would you sign a 2 year contract for a phone that is outdated hardware wise (no big deal on WP, but still) and on top of that it will be software outdated in 5-6 months ? Now this might be ok of WP 7.5 wasn’t missing so many features.. but in this case the OS needs some work, most of which was promised to come with WP8…
Good thing most people in US don’t give a fk about all this and will buy it anyway.
lol consumerism…doesn’t it suck
How would WP Apollo look like?
I’ve seen WP8 APOLLO
but I’m not at liberty to show and tell
I bet that as ugly as wp7,5…and limited!
the u.i of windows phone is good but m.s should allow more customisation,changing colours tile cant be said as customisation.
Now you are just jerking us!
Ic true,at least give us your general impression.
don’t believe anything you type
Great news!
I don’t see how anyone can hate this. That means for Nokia fans specifically, all current Lumias on the market will get WP8.
Apollo was always scheduled for the current WP devices.. The question is whether the older WP devices will get the full Apollo experience? From what I heard\read, there will be limitations between full Apollo and current devices Apollo builds. It won’t be full Apollo..
Makes sense, you cannot expect magic to happen, for the old 1st gen hardware to be able to take advantage of features that require new hardware.
Still, this is good for customer satisfaction, and I think WP8 should run smooth and fast even on 1st gen hardware.
But i heard that WP8 was designed to run on phones with low specs,in order to make windows phones cheaper.
Nope.. The full Apollo experience is being developed on a MSM8960 based platform.
Apollo in general will have options on components like resolutions (seems it’ll support 4 different resolutions) and cameras. But I wonder if MS would compromise on the chipsets (which will in turn effect the fludity since each chipset would require different optimizations w.r.t the OS – one of the reason why MS has stuck with the OLD options for WP7.5).
Qualcomm is making their newer chips backwards compatible, so you can run older code on them and then upgrade the software to take advantage of it. That means anything running on an S3 or S4 shouldn’t have troubles running on an S2 if it doesn’t specifically require more power. They can definitely make Windows Phone 8 run fluidly on current hardware, what they might not be able to do is support all the features, but the ability to upgrade to Windows Phone 8 and use at least some new WP8 only apps will be there.
The optimisation issue is also being taken care of by moving to a single kernel – they don’t have to split resources between Windows Phone, Windows and (the next version of) Xbox. Any work done for a Krait will benefit both a Windows RT tablet and a Windows Phone 8 phone. They can afford to support S2 SoCs the same way they can afford to support single core x86 chips in Windows 8.
“samsung not launch anymore windows phone 7.5.three windows phone 8 appolo device from samsung this year at various pricepoint.”
This news gives doubt about current gen device update to appolo.
I think samsung will price there win8 phone agressively taking sales from nokia ,the samsung omnia w is cheaper than nokia 710 and offers more features it sells more than 710 lumia atleast in india,even with 0% marketing
Acer to launch windows 8 device with slide out qwert
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Samsung-done-with-Windows-Phone-7_id29120/comments/page/3/sort/popular
The Verge is stating that this is not the case however.
Who to believe?
I don’t trust anything from the Verge when it comes to Microsoft news.
Exactly. Their Lumia 900 review is unfair as hell, I’m surprised Engadget made a more neutral approach than these folks on The Verge!
It’s not a really big deal if the full Apollo experience won’t be coming to Mango WPs. I’m pretty sure that Nokia will keep on pushing necessary updates to all of their Windows Phones through its lifetime. A stripped down version of WP8 will be much appreciated, of course.
They were right. WP is worst mobile OS on the market. Is not capable to support playing video in most popular formats. Is very difficult to use when you want to personalize it. I prefer symbian based devices like 700 which is better that 710.
“They were right. WP is worst mobile OS on the market.”
Obviously you’ve never used a Blackberry then.
Funnily enough my WP device plays formats that my E7 can’t play… What do we learn of this? YMMV.
http://mobile.theverge.com/2012/4/17/2956439/windows-phone-8-apollo-no-upgrade
uh.. that was link to mobile-version of the site. Heres proper for desktops:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/17/2956439/windows-phone-8-apollo-no-upgrade
I think they might be taking it a bit too far the other way.
Presumably Windows Phone doesn’t carry the same kind of weight as the iPhone. Apple can do pretty much whatever it likes because if a carrier stops selling the iPhone, people will go to another carrier that does.
That means if a carrier doesn’t want to test and approve a new Windows Phone update, Microsoft probably can’t have it forced through. They might have a different agreement with hardware partners.
So what might happen is that someone who buys an AT&T Dell Venue Pro just plain doesn’t get WP8, but someone who buys an unlocked one, or maybe a T-Mobile one, will get Windows Phone 8.
Like one of the commenters said, Microsoft would be insane not to put WP8 on current devices. They might not have a choice when it comes to carrier branded devices, but they will want to have at least some first gen devices getting upgraded to Windows Phone 8. If it’s some but not others, the blame can be put on the shoulders of the carriers, and consumers will then have to think twice about whether they buy a phone from AT&T or some other carrier (who would presumably not allow Android updates either), rather than deciding that buying from MS isn’t worth it.
On the other hand, the HD2 didn’t get a WP7 update, even though MS did nothing to discourage modders from taking it there unofficially. I just can’t see them doing that clean cut twice. If they did, they’d pretty much be ceding the mobile market to Apple and Google.
I’m not so sure where that would go with Nokia – they don’t really have a good history of SW updates pre-Elop, but you’d think since they’re all-in with Windows Phone they’d understand the importance of having WP8 on all Lumia phones (except maybe the 610 if it can’t handle it), and that they’d make sure that at least is running.
Still, only speculation at this point, there is clearly no debunking of what The Verge posted, but it’s not like it’s implausible, and I’m still not sure why MS hasn’t at least said that some current WP devices will be getting WP8, but they can’t make guarantees about all of them.
http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windowsphone75/windows-phone-software-updates-revisited-142382
Goes into that a bit more. So when it comes to WP7.x, MS will continue trying to push updates out to all the carriers, in the hopes that eventually one will take and it’ll get rolled out. Presumably if a carrier can refuse a minor WP7 update, they can refuse a very major WP8 update.
Wasn’t the big ‘pro’ of WP and a general mantra of early adopters that Microsoft promised carriers won’t be able to block updates? IIRC, carriers could block one update, but not the next one – that is, as it was explained, Microsoft’s goodwill to give a grace period for carriers to test the updates on their network.
I’m pretty positive I’ve read about it all over the interwebs back in the early WP days.
The state of that matter has, apparently, changed since then, at least if we are to believe this article: http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windowsphone75/windows-phone-software-updates-revisited-142382
Yeah, I think from the sounds of it Paul slightly misunderstood Joe Belfiore, because going back to it Joe only said that all the updates would get rolled together, he didn’t say they’d have to approve it.
So it was more something MS liked to imply so that users would make the inferences without actually saying it directly.
At the moment I’m quite happy with my Lumia 710, and my girlfriend with her DVP, so not getting WP8 wouldn’t be terrible, as the phones are stable, but once more phones start launching with ICS, what advantage does WP have? ICS is apparently lag free on a dual core, the interface is actually quite nice… only question really would be stability. You pick a WP if you want a stable phone at the expense of features and an Android if you want features at the expense of stability, and other than that, no real advantage.
P.S. I know it’s a goodwill gesture towards carriers and OEMs to allow them a certain control over the way the software rolls out – after all, you don’t want to piss off carriers if you’re not Apple – but it still baffles me how can a carrier block an update? It’s Microsoft’s software all around – the WP itself and its update manager, the Zune, etc. So, if Microsoft really wanted, they could push an update easily.
Even if the carrier blocks the software delivery by blocking Microsoft update servers on their 3G network – you could still obtain it directly from Microsoft via WiFi or USB…
Carriers need to test the update to make sure that it doesn’t break anything. Let’s say the generic 7740 update somehow causes calls to drop, while 7720 still works. That carrier wouldn’t want to approve it, because as far as the user can tell, it’s a network problem. That would drive users away from the carrier. And the carrier could probably sue MS for pushing it out. Apple probably has some contract that they have to approve all the updates or else they just don’t get to sell the phone.
If Verges story is true…
Does MS think that WP7.5 suck as they have to do that big changes? Basically WP7.5 is as dead OS as Meego was bit before N9 came out.
What are these big changes? After all, it’s only software. Why it can’t run on current-hw (but yesterdays tech)? Incompatible screen resolution?
Windows 8 runs on a single core Atom @ 1.6GHz with 512MB RAM – not terribly well, but it does. That’s including the legacy mode which is essentially emulating Windows 7 inside Windows 8.
Scaling that down to a 1GHz-1.4GHz Snapdragon with 512MB RAM isn’t really going to be so hard, particularly if there’s no emulating of Windows 7 going on – just the managed code for XNA and Silverlight, which isn’t going to be that resource intensive.
Also, anything over 800×480 is overkill for a low end phone with a small screen (3.5″-3.8″). If WP8 doesn’t support low end hardware, how is Windows Phone going to scale down?
The problem isn’t a technical one, all the speculation by commenters on The Verge about very strict hardware requirements for Windows Phone 8 is off base. It’s not that current phones will lack the capability of running Windows Phone 8, it’s that Microsoft might not be able to roll it out.
The Nexus S doesn’t lack the hardware to run ICS, it’s just that it hasn’t had ICS rolled out to it yet.
This isn’t actually particularly new, the N95-4 launched with a 1.x FW, went up to 11.x, then 22.x and then 32.x – carrier branded N95-4s that launched with 1.x FW sometimes got updated to 11.x, but no further, 22.x and 32.x had to be done via changing the product code in NSS and installing a generic firmware (or firmware for another carrier).
That’s the problem Android is having with fragmentation right now, what Symbian had (and has), what Windows Mobile had, and even to an extent BlackBerries have.
Apple has a deal that lets them push out updates to whomever they wish, and the carriers can’t block it. Windows Phone, like every other non-iPhone out there, is still at the mercy of carriers.
What strikes me as odd in this situation is that it’s in the carriers’ best interests for Windows Phone to get stronger, and for BB10 to succeed as well, a 4 or 5 way tie between mobile platforms gives them power. As long as iOS is still the leading platform in terms of desirability, if no longer marketshare, Apple gets to call the shots. Apple makes all the profit from app sales, with nothing going to them.
If WP succeeds and gains enough marketshare, they can start playing hardball with Apple, demanding some concessions from them as well. Particularly, if WP gets carrier billing going further, and carriers get a cut of every sale done through carrier billing, it’s financially way better for them to sell Windows Phones than iPhones. They can’t do that if consumers don’t want them, and if WPs aren’t getting updates because the carriers aren’t allowing them, they won’t sell.
The NT kernel is relatively lightweight and will be one of the few things that WP8 will have in common with Windows 8.
There is a lot more going on in a desktop OS than in a mobile OS, so making any kinds of comparisons is quite pointless.
Bascially, I agree with you
So example in Finland current wp7(.5) phones will get WP8 upgrade?
Maybe well have just have to wait and not blame operators or any other party till we know the truth.
The thing that MS doesn’t tell how things are them selves right know tells something. Saying that current phones don’t get wp8 ain’t good idea, but if they do get it, that’s a good news. Being quiet is some kind of compromise, hope that no one notices. Of course there can be much more behind this story. So all this speculation is useless
It’s perfectly reasonable to blame AT&T. It’s like AT&T that’s the thorn in MS’ side preventing them from saying all current phones will get the update.
My Rogers Lumia 710 had 3 software updates in as many months, apparently they’re approving everything MS rolls out, so I figure I’ll probably get it. Someone with a Samsung Focus on AT&T however might not be so lucky, and that’s a concern for someone getting the Lumia 900.
No it’s not if truth is that MS does not even offer the update! We don’t know yet!
Of course MS/WP-fanboys want to blame some big operator, but that’s just stupid.
More on this topic:
http://www.intomobile.com/2012/04/17/current-windows-phone-devices-not-get-upgraded-windows-phone-8/
No, blaming AT&T isn’t stupid. They’re already doing it. MS has offered 7740 and 8107, yet AT&T users are still stuck on 7720 for anything except the Lumia 900.
Are we talking about same thing?
I said that it’s stupid to blame operators, example AT&T if it’s MS who is not offering wp8 upgrade to wp7-phones.
It really doesn’t matter in that case what AT&T is doing now, in the past or future.
AT&T not allowing updates presently would mean they could continue not doing it, meaning MS couldn’t say with certainty that all current devices get WP8 because AT&T is in the way as a likely exception. They’re better off saying nothing and having most phones upgrade than saying something and a bunch of upset class-action happy AT&T customers. AT&T is definitely responsible for the lack of debunking of the issue by MS.
The Verge story is a lie! Boycott The Verge!
its on gsmarena
this news really gonna affect current lumia device sales
http://www.gsmarena.com/current_windows_phone_mango_devices_wont_get_the_apollo_update-news-4108.php
Ah fuck this shit. I am just going to wait for the confirmation from Microsoft and Nokia about Apollo. The Verge and the Microsoft evangelist are both as trustworthy as I can throw them.
*shrug*
Like 90% of the people buying phones in Western Europe and the US I upgrade my phone every year to two years. It’ll be nice if I get the Apollo software on my 800 but, frankly, it’s not a biggie.
It’s not huge no, but that will factor into a decision to buy another Windows Phone when it comes time to upgrade.
I’m not fond that Apple starts killing support for phones no longer getting upgrades, and that there’s essentially a forced upgrade every 18-30 months due to planned obsolessence. That devalues my phone, as once I’m done with it I can barely pass it on to someone else to use.
If MS at least doesn’t break support for WP7.5 devices (even if they don’t get upgraded to WP8), then there’s an advantage there. If I want, a WP7.5 device lasts 4-5 years, instead of half that time. On the flip side, not getting upgraded to WP8, while every iOS device gets 2 major software upgrades (for the length of their contract in most cases, the 3GS launching with iOS 5 gets zero major upgrades), that devalues a Windows Phone.
Someone who’s happy getting a free/cheap phone every 2 years would much rather updates keeping their phone current.
The issue you then end up with is WP and Android have the same flaw compared to iOS, and to an extent the same advantage, and WP goes straight against Android on other characteristics. Again, devaluing.
If WP can be updated at least 1 major time (if they roll out a major update every 2-3 years), and still work reasonably well after that update, it has a better value proposition than both iOS and Android.
That said, someone from MS would be better clearing this one up as there seems to a be a lot of negative PR out at the moment.
Strange that with the L900 selling well in the US. If I was cynical I would say there’s a connection…
All this won’t help the L900 sales, it was better when it was all quiet and no one was asking any questions. But maybe the WP crowd is not upgrade crazy like the Symbian one..
Microsoft/Nokia need to step up and say what is going on.. but something tells me that if the 900 was going to get w8 they would’ve made a HUGE deal out of it already… “Windows Phone 8 ready” on retail box ? hah
The Symbian crowd is upgrade crazy? You mean on account of formerly never getting any upgrades?
People forget quickly that it was Elop who brought us major Symbian updates to old models. OPK made us buy new phones.
You mean the updates planned and developed during the OPK reign?? The Symbian^3 devices were all destined to get the Anna\Belle updates from the start which was during OPK’s reign. The only thing Elop did was to rename Symbian releases based on female names similar to Android releases and I’m not a big fan of that.
You crediting Elop for the Anna\Belle releases makes some things clearer..
Besides all CEO’s want to sell new devices.. No one wants users to stick to old models.. Lets see if Elop will get MS to release post-Apollo updates to the current Lumias..
No, actually, under OPK’s reign there was supposed to be Symbian^4 instead of Belle. Anna perhaps would have come as a PRx.x, but Belle – I don’t think so. Elop changes things (it happened in Q4/2010, widely publicized) so that Symbian would continue evolving more like iOS and less like Symbian of old (where major steps came out with new phones only).
Sure, all CEOs want to sell devices, but let’s at least give credit where credit is due. Elop has done some things that anger people, but he also has done some nice things like change the Symbian update policy.
It was announced during Q4 2010 but the development was already under way.. Besides, Symbian^4 sketches from early 2010 showed 3 UI (Elop wasn’t in Nokia’s picture back then) – iOS, Android and Comic-theme ones. I’ve confirmed info on this one from inside Nokia.
I do credit Elop for starting the Office to Symbian deal 3-4years back, also introducing WP into Nokia and the final UI on MeeGo-Harmattan. I only criticize his “only WP” strategy which has affected Nokia a lot and seems almost impossible to get out of.
Eh, since when did he have anything to do with the final UI on Harmattan?
That was decided on about the time he arrived, in an area that has nothing to do with what he typically does.
BTW: If anyone has information to the contrary on how Symbian^3 was planned to evolve, feel free to add to this. But there was a quite a significant Symbian-related announcement after Elop came on board relating to how the update policy would be changed.
Given that the E72 and a few other devices like the 5800 got updates long after they weren’t being sold anymore shows that it really is an Elop change.
Sure, they got updates but not major OS upgrades like Belle, which were released on new models and then brought to older models as well.
Nokia’s old upgrade model was more akin to “bug fixes” only. Generational/version changes came with new phones.
Nokia’s old update model was pre-Symbian^3 where it was more of bug-fixes and feature enhancement\addition. It all changed with Symbian^3 cycle.
Based on what? As far as I know the next major release intended was Symbian^4 and it wasn’t meant for Symbian^3 devices. You have information that it was?
Those bug fixes would have never happened before. I remember my E62 never getting any updates at all.
A bug fix 3 years later is still pretty damn impressive compared to what you had before. Obviously a non touchscreen device isn’t going to get a major upgrade if there isn’t even anything to upgrade to.
Even my 7110 got several bugfix updates.
You mean to say Elop started teams to release updates to E72 & 5800? Those teams where there before Elop came on board. Most product teams (except some case like N97 with its hardware limitation) released updates to their phones at regularly over a period of 2years. It has been in Nokia culture for some time…
No, by the time those updates came out for those devices, and a few others, they hadn’t seen anything for ages. Under OPK that would have been it.
Well, the WP crowd is maybe 4% of the total global marketshare so it’s not important if they are upgrade minded or not, they are hardcore fans and will take everything for granted; you see it all around this blog.
To the other 96% it’s very important, you’ll see that over and over again with the upgrades for iOS and Android and please note that the vast majority of them buys a phone with a two year contract so they are keen to know if their new phone has a future or not.
In case of the 900 it’s even more important to know if there’s a new upgrade coming because it’s already a phone with 2011 specs.
We can’t say the introduction from Nokia with WP has been a big success; first the battery problems on the 800, than the connection saga with the 900 and now the big question mark about an upgrade to Apollo: no surprise the carriers in Europe are going to place the 900 in the cellar instead of the store itself.
And of course, the above mentioned problems with the introduction are not the only problems, they are just a tip of the iceberg.
Nokia must act fast now, is it possible to upgrade or not; a simple question, a simple yes or no.
This is so bad for the mindshare, the news yesterday from the European carries was all over the media, not only the techsites but almost every mainstream newspaper reported about it and you can be sure that this story will follow in due course.
No, that’s not the case at all. Given that WP early adopters weren’t fans of Android for the lack of updates, not rolling it out at all could be a major blow to WP.
If no current device at all gets it, I don’t know if MS can recover. If every unbranded device gets WP8, and only some carrier branded ones don’t, then MS is OK.
And even if WP8 doesn’t make it to WP7 devices, MS ought to make another update with certain minor modifications (name it something fun, too) just to keep current WP7 users and buyers hyped up and happy. If they don’t, then yes, customers can and will be lost.
Tango will come either way, but I don’t think that’s really what anyone was counting on. Their naming is also rather bizarre. NoDo doesn’t really get a version number, it’s just an update, so how is that different from 7740 and 8107? Also, Mango is called 7.5 but shows up as 7.10.xxxx. I don’t think Tango would satisfy users, especially since it’s mainly about making the system more efficient and bringing it to cheaper hardware. That doesn’t hugely benefit existing users.
dr_zorg: Agreed. I think Microsoft absolutely needs to release the next major Windows Phone (after Tango) to at least second generation phones. If it nees to be a crippled down version, so be it, but anything other than a major release at a similar timeframe as the new devices would cause and understandable shitstorm (and a fresh one at that, not a Feb11 rehash we keep having nowadays).
At least Nokia couldn’t afford that to happen, given the already fragile situation
Yeah, they can’t afford for it to happen, but will they have any choice? Do they have an agreement with AT&T to push out all available updates to the 900?
“To the other 96% it’s very important”
No it isn’t. Don’t confuse nerds with normal buyers.
Everyone in the UK buying that class of phone upgrades every 12-24 months. No-one cares about the old handsest other than to flog them or give them to their kids.
Simply not an issue and never has been.
The haters at the Verge are actually the same people who used to hate at Engadget so don’t be surprised. Engadget is much better and less biassed now. Just don’t read what those haters and bullies write.
What I’ve heard, now from multiple sources, and some articles over the interwebs – and let me be clear, this is a highly speculative matter – is that the Apollo update is not what everyone makes it to be.
That is, Apollo ought to run on the WinCE kernel same as the current WP7s, with updates to the middle and upper layers, much like the previous Mango update – a move to the MinWin kernel is postponed in order to meet the deadlines and milestones. This (being late with projections) is supposedly the prime reason why the ex head of WP was ‘sacked’.
If that’s true – there is no technical reason why the current WP7 devices wouldn’t receive the Apollo update – sure, it might require stronger GPU or something like that for some of its possible upgraded features, but there should be a straight hardware compatibility.
Of course, it appears that the early rah rah about WP being upgradeable whether the carriers and OEMs want it or not is, blatantly put – hogwash – so even if there are no technical difficulties carriers and OEMs could block the update anyway. But if what I’ve heard is true, there really ought to be no technical reasons for that.
OTOH, I can see the switch to MinWin being incompatible with the current WP7 hardware and Microsoft not bothering to adapt the new system for that hardware – if Microsoft could afford to piss off their existing WM users with the switch to WP back when it had a multiple times larger market share than the WP has, they can afford to do it again. At least they’ve cleverly created a path for 3rd party software to work in their new system with little to no modifications so they won’t be pissing off the developers.
Interesting post, thanks!
Thanks, your post is more informative than the stuff I could read on the news
Yeah, you’re right, if WP8 is just an upgrade to WP7, with additional features and cleaning up the OS, then WP8 should even go to devices like the Lumia 610.
I would think that if WP8 is based on the WinCE kernel, then it’s quite possible they wouldn’t bother making MinWin run on first and second gen hardware – they already got their major upgrade to Apollo, and really as long as WP8 brings as much new stuff on top of 7.5 as 7.5 did on 7, I’ll be satisfied.
If WP8 is on the MinWin kernel however, they’d be insane not to make it run on first and 2nd gen hardware.
With Qualcomm making the Snapdragons backwards compatible, it’d be possible to release future proof WP8 phones that have more theoretical power than current devices, but for the time being don’t do anything else. Much like dual core phones being released on Froyo and Gingerbread not really taking advantage of it until Ice Cream Sandwich.
I just hope MS has a plan and are sticking to it. If they were counting on going to MinWin and taking advantage of what the Windows 8 team is doing, then not much has been done with current Windows Phone code, and they’d be late either way.
Mind you, if what I’ve heard is true, it doesn’t mean that there won’t be hardware difficulties to overcome. Not all WinCE devices are born equal.
WinCE base of the WP is a branched, bastardized if you will version of WinCE 6 – and by features and advancement it lays somewhere between WinCE 6 and WinCE 7. If it’s true that they couldn’t get the MinWin streamlined for phone usage in time and decided to stick with WinCE for the next update – nothing guarantees that it will be the same version of WinCE.
In fact, if that’s the case, I’d bet it would use WinCE 7 so it can broaden its hardware support (7 supports some multi-core CPUs, tho severely lacks the means of properly utilizing them, kind of like pre-ICS Android) and optionally future-proof the WP devices that should come in the fall for the big switch to MinWin in the future.
But there is a problem with WinCE 7, tho, regarding some of the targeted platforms that the current WP runs on – that’s why they bastardized WinCE 6 and used it in the first place – so I imagine there’s quite bit of work to do there as well, which is why Microsoft is reluctant to say anything on the matter.
If they are indeed moving to MinWin there are far more hurdles to overcome with older devices, not just from a hardware perspective but from the structure available as well. What if the boot process is completely different (and it is) between WinCE and MinWin – they’d need to find a way to rework boot loaders as well during the update, and if that was easy to do in the first place we’d already have Androids running on WP devices – their boot loaders are locked down for security purposes. Not to mention that swapping a boot loader, even if possible, during an update grants a high risk of irrecoverable bricking of the said device and Microsoft certainly doesn’t need some more bad press.
Either way, Microsoft would be crazy if they don’t find a way to upgrade the devices selling this year to an OS due in 6 months – that could downright kill and bury their platform so deep that no amount of money Microsoft throws at it won’t resurrect it. They need at the very least to allow the same development environment on both platforms – if WP8 gets WinRT and other layers, so must the older devices as well, otherwise all the new software will be coming for WP8 and WP7 users will be left out in the cold.
As for Nokia, should Microsoft pull what is rumored – they’re good as dead.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-S4-class-Adreno-QRD,14236.html
They have another option, let Qualcomm handle it for them. Stick with WinCE 6 for now, only utilising one core on the newer dual core Snapdragons, purely for the upgrade potential when they finally do get MinWin working.
As far as that goes, picking Qualcomm as their only chip manufacturer for the time being might have turned out to be their best decision. With the 8225 and 8625 being compatible with the 7225 in the Lumia 610, they’d even be able to bring WP8 to their low end phones. It would look good for them for PR purposes, a low end Lumia 610 would run just as well as a newly launched dual core WP8 device, which thanks to being DC would at least appease the people just looking at spec check lists, and the WP8 device would be just not taking advantage of the extra juice the CPU provides.
That means all they really need is to add more features to Windows Phone, and smooth out some of the usability issues that are currently there, and possibly even just do a UI overhaul to make things look a bit more like Windows 8 or the new Xbox 360 dashboard.
So 2012 sees Windows Phone 8 launch along with Windows 8 for x86, even though it could have just been called Windows Phone 7.6, sometime in 2013 Windows RT launches (formerly called Windows on ARM), and MS gets to work out running it on various hardware there, and a Windows Phone 8.5 gets released that uses some WinCE 7 code to take a bit more advantage of the dual core CPUs. 8.5 only comes to devices that launched with WP8, 8.0 is the last for first gen devices.
Then in 2014, Windows Phone 9 is released which actually uses MinWin and takes advantage of the testing and experience they have from Windows RT, runs on the systems that had WP8 at launch, and supports superphones that compete with Android running on quad-core and similar class SoCs.
That’s a slower roll-out than is ideal, but that’s almost a worst case scenario. It would probably leave Windows Phone in 3rd place for a quite long time, as if WP takes 2 more years to really catch up, Android 5.0 or 6.0 will be out, and ICS is already pretty solid, it’s to Android what Apollo with MinWin was supposed to be for Windows Phone, so a lot of the criticisms levelled against Android will be gone by the time WP catches up.
That isn’t necessarily doom and gloom for Nokia either, they’ve got S40 still, which is developing quite nicely, and they’d still be a big fish. Just like Apple got a disproportionate amount of news coverage for their marketshare back in the 90s, if Nokia is the big fish in the small Windows Phone pond, if they make a big deal of their own OS that they’d be launching once they actually have something ready a few years from now, the world will pay attention.
incognito: Now, aside the hyperbole at the end, that is an excellent post. Good insight and pondering. Thank you for it. Certainly something to look into further…
tis might be random, but remember the twit from that dude who works for nokia saying nokia apollo devices were amazing or what not?
i remember that ….the hype died lol
For what its worth, I don’t consider either source fully reliable. Even Mary Jo is just guessing. However, I think there is significant risk Apollo WON’T come to current devices. I’m not saying that is how it will be, just that until official confirmation one way or the other there seems to be genuine risk there. I hope the risk doesn’t become reality, of course.
I recommend people factor this risk and their ability to live with that in their purchases, until more information is made available.
Personally I think not making a version of Apollo for current devices would be a very bad move.
Some reasons why:
- Best case: Apollo is coming to at least most current Windows Phones but Microsoft does not want to discuss future products.
- Middle case: Certain technical challenges exist in making Apollo available on Windows Phone 7.x devices, it is yet unknown or uncertain if they can be or will be overcome. Or when.
- Worst case: For whatever reason, technical, deployment or otherwise Apollo is not coming to WP 7.x and Microsoft will shut up until new devices launch with it. In this scenario they only upside could be if a very good upgrade offer was made, but otherwise expect an understandable shitstorm.
They’ve already named Apollo, they’ve named Windows Phone 8, they do talk about it, so not wanting to talk about it is suspicious. It’s not likely something as inocuous as wanting to hold information back. There’s likely some reason why it’s a bad idea for them to comment officially on it, so the best case is highly unlikely.
I think your middle case is quite possible. The 256MB of RAM on the Lumia 610 strikes me as the biggest technical limitation for MinWin, getting the kernel down from a 1GB requirement to 512MB is already pretty damn impressive, but going further down to 256 strikes me as something that’s technically feasible but might take a lot of work.
I think the worst case could be mitigated by some of the manufacturers. Nokia could offer a trade-in program like they did for Symbian. Trade in a Lumia 900 get $300 off a new phone, Lumia 800 $200 off and 710 $100 off. Nokia has already done stuff like this, but you can bet they’d be pissed off at Microsoft for having to do that, and if MS’ chief hardware partner is upset with them, that would be highly damaging to the ecosystem.
I agree it is suspicious. On the other hand, they haven’t discussed Windows Phone 8 that openly yet, so all options are still possible in my books.
It is not the kernel that requires 1GB of RAM, similar to how Linux kernel runs fine on 32MB, the NT kernel doesn’t require much, it’s all the stuff around it like the explorer environment, backwards compatibility, millions of drivers, etc. that takes up most of it.
Yeah, but if they strip too much out, it’s not like you’ll have much compatibility between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. Ideally they’re creating a platform where devs can make a universal app that has a UI scaled to different screen sizes and resolutions, but in the background runs the same way. Write once, run anywhere (that’s Windows) would be the promise. If you strip everything out so that it runs on 256MB, when a minimum for Windows 8 is 512MB, and even there you’d have a rather small selection of apps running with those low specs, that wouldn’t work.
That would be C# + .NET, already pretty lightweight, and only the Metro APIs are required so it’s not a big deal. I’d guess they can get WP8 on about 128MB RAM. No idea how much WP needs now, so I could be off, but I’m, again, guessing that not by more than 50MB.
They started at 512MB, got it down to 384, then down again to 256. I’d expect that eventually they couldn’t get it down much lower and be able to do anything but just run the OS and no apps.
I totally agree there. Paying $255+tax outright for my Lumia 710 was fine for me, I had a repeatedly crashing 5230 and then a repeatedly crashing BlackBerry Curve 9300, so a non-crashing Lumia 710 is welcome. I’d be much more upset paying $600+ outright for the Lumia 800 and not getting an update. I could buy 2 phones for that price, so I’d want more longevity.
If this news story blows up, and people think they wouldn’t want to be stuck on a 2 year contract with no updates, MS and Nokia might have to do some backroom dealing with AT&T to guarantee that at least the Lumia 900 will get all the available updates.
It seems that MS and Nokia has defecated on their legs… If there is no upgrade path for the current Lumia devices they should state this clearly. However, it will have an big impact on sales. It will also be another reason to cast doubt on the WP only strategy. Wasn’t MS going to fix the alleged problems Nokia had with software development?
MS has serious problems developing software, far more problems than Nokia has ever had. That “reason” was simply a copout to make the deal look more appealing to the public.
That depends entirely on the software. Windows NT has always been very good because they started from scratch rather than building on Windows 3.1.
Windows Phone also works very well because they cut off all legacy support from Windows Mobile.
They have of course had problems, most of the stuff in Longhorn never materialised, partially because it was overly ambitious and partially because the strategies switched mid-stream along with XP SP2 due to all the worms running around. Their roadmap got totally screwed up when they had to deal with security issues before looking at anything else.
MS’ track record with Windows Mobile wasn’t any better than Nokia’s with Symbian, but Windows Phone has already been better (unlike the camera quality on the N8 dropping with Anna and Belle, nothing has actually gotten worse in Windows Phone with NoDo and Mango), and their Windows on desktop track record is a hell of a lot better.
quality hasn’t dropped from updates…my n8 takes amazing pics
Here we go again… *flexes fingers*
Yes, Microsoft is and was supposd to improve the quality of software Nokia ships. And make updates more timely. So far, they have been doing exactly that. Will it be perfect? Of course not. Would not releasing Apollo on current devices be bad? Yes, shitstorm bad.
But we’ve had promise after promise for Symbian since 2009 and the N97. Microsoft is quite far from having it that bad. And Apollo remains to be seen. In any case, Microsoft as a software developer has really gotten better in recent years.
Many perceptions of Microsoft date back a decade or more. Modern Microsoft is actually quite good. They learned a lot from the beatings they got.
I’ve already had 3 updates in 3 months on my Lumia 710 – that’s official, carrier supported updates. My N95 8GB saw one after a year, and 2 more that required debranding, and the last of which I didn’t want to risk due to a bug being included that has never been subsequently fixed.
My girlfriend’s Dell Venue Pro is up to 8107 like my Lumia 710. Now compare that to the N8, the original launched with Symbian^3, then the Pink one was released that came stock with Anna, but all the previous ones still didn’t have the update to Anna. They’ve got it now, but that took a while.
The only thing Symbian has really done better so far is OTA in place upgrades. I was actually quite impressed with that. Overall though, I’ll take timely updates that require me to sync up with Zune than seriously delayed updates that go OTA.
Nokia running Windows Phone has been better in 3 months than Nokia running Symbian ever was.
have you even used/touched belle as yet ?
well, i have and there are still issues with it. The browser and the keyboard still is horrible. I don’t know any other way to cut it.
I would have used opera mobile or whatever, but when opening web pages from any links in symbian, it automatically goes to stock browser. No good at all.
Swipe don’t cut it for me since it slows my phone down. And even with swipe typing is a pain.
Using the browser and the keyboard is a daily thing for me, and i imagine a vast majority of the smartphone community.
disclaimers, im using a n8 so i don’t know how things work with the 700 belle devices.
But its just too laggy for me and swipe on the n8.
Best keyboard for comfortable typing is hands down the gravity keyboard. Wish he would port it to a sis file or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIp_Js7JInQ
Well it looks fine right?
are you talking about swype?
im not saying my problem is universal, but to say my problem is unique to myself is wrong. a quick search on google shows that.
im just not lucky i guess.
“Developer Evangelist at Microsoft
Lisbon Area, Portugal”???
I thought the main Apollo development was going on in the US.. Didn’t knew there was substantial development in ” Lisbon, Portugal” I mean it must be substantial how else would a local PR guy know about all of that???
A developer evangelist is somehone who reaches out to developers to tell them about the benefits of developing for a platform. It doesn’t mean he’s someone who works on WP code, it means he’s the middleman between the developers and the WP team. If they have all the evangelists in the US, that’s where most of the development comes from, MS wants devs from everywhere in the world, as that means more devs to choose from, more devs total, and more devs means more apps, which means the ecosystem competes better. He would obviously have to know certain things, as devs would have questions, and he would need to have answers.
Duno if you ever attended any of this “talks” Microsoft and others promote world wide. This guys are usually clueless on the internals. knowing little more than joe enthusiast knows, and, this is not a minor thing, this is something that is kinda a big trade secret in Microsoft, I honestly doubt a joe/pr guy in Lisbon/Portugal would know much that is not publicly known worldwide…
Unless a substantial part of the WP development is going on there, and we have no info of such a thing.
So yeah I think some one might have talked to much on local minor blog and now it escalated. BTW the original video as been removed from the refereed blog.
They would know relevant information devs would ask for that the WP team has supplied them with. Whether current devices get upgraded to WP8 would be relevant information.
Yeah, I’m more inclined to believe this guy more than some nameless sources.
I’m not inclined to believe nameless sources either – but even less to so called evangelists, technological or otherwise. I was once to be recruited to be an ‘evangelist’ for a technology I was deeply involved in, and I actually thought it would be a good thing as I was already praising it left and right anyway and this would get me closer to the core and I might even earn some buck… Until I heard what it is what I was supposed to be doing… I told them to bugger-off, to put it mildly…
i hope they do something abt the tiles. Not saving they shd remove them , but they shd re design them. And get rid of those hardware limitations
That will happen. Look at the Xbox 360 Metro UI. It actually has a really good use of tiles. Dunno if it will happen for WP8 though, it seems W8 took cues from WP7 for their design instead of from the 360, so who knows how much will make its way over.
OK the news seams to be that apollo will NOT run on the L900,L800 and others…..
The real original story as been removed from the original local tech blog http://portal.zwame.pt/27496/artigo/entrevista-a-nuno-silva-evangelista-da-microsoft-para-o-windows-phone-em-portugal
The video is now private.
Some one talked way to much (about what he had no idea), and now it exploded..
If what he said was true the video had no reason to be removed… Good news are good news!
It depends on how untrue it is. He said all devices would get upgraded to WP8, maybe that won’t happen.
Dell has exited the Smartphone business, so perhaps Dell Venue Pros won’t get the update as there’s no point for Dell to roll it out. They’re not selling any new smartphones, so there’s no need to get goodwill among their existing customers. That could be one exception.
The other one is carriers, AT&T has already blocked post-mango updates for the Focus, so any first-gen AT&T WP users might not see WP8.
Both of those exceptions would mean it’s not all current devices getting upgraded to WP8, only some.
MS obviously doesn’t want to make a claim that could turn out to be false, as that could turn into a class-action lawsuit against them.
There is of course the possibility that none of the devices will get WP8, and MS doesn’t want to say that yet, but that’s pretty unlikely. It would be a very bad move on their part.
“There is of course the possibility that none of the devices will get WP8, and MS doesn’t want to say that yet, but that’s pretty unlikely. It would be a very bad move on their part.”
would also bee very consistent with what they do on the mobile space every-time
They’ve done both actually. Obviously WM-/->WP happened, Kin got aborted and the Zune HD got left behind, but 2 out of 3 were necessary to start of Windows Phone with a good start. WP is a consistent experience across all devices, and almost 2 years later they can still compete with Androids and iPhones. The Lumia 710 is cheaper than the iPhone 3GS and a better deal. The 900 sits somewhere between the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, but is priced lower than the iPhone 4 off contract and the same on contract. That’s with the specs Windows Phone launched with.
That was a decision made deliberately to get those kinds of benefits.
At the same time, you have to consider that WM kept backwards compatibility for almost a decade, so while they have a few cases of killing things off in the mobile space, they have a much longer history of keeping things going. WP using only XNA and Silverlight, rather than supporting native code is them deliberately holding things back now so that backwards compatibility isn’t sacrificed.
The final thing is MS is a publicly traded company, they have a duty to their shareholders to make a decision that brings them profit, if not in the short term, the long term.
Getting WP8 on first gen Windows Phones is necessary for longterm profit, and that’s the best reason to expect Apollo to make it to most, if not all, current devices.
Overall I’d say historically Microsoft is one of the best companies when it comes to maintaining backwards compatibility. Apple for example is much worse overall.
Of course I agree the exceptions migo listed above.
to a point
Wake up people…
MS is not going to give anything out. Check this link : http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/17/2956439/windows-phone-8-apollo-no-upgrade
This matches up with a previous report from Mary Jo Foley and explains the particular language Microsoft used when it responded to the story earlier today, saying “We have stated publicly that all apps in our Marketplace today will run on the next version of Windows Phone. Beyond that, we have nothing to share about future releases.”
The news that Mango phones won’t be getting an update to Windows Phone Apollo doesn’t bode well for everybody who just purchased a Nokia Lumia 900, to say nothing of the other phones that Microsoft and its partners have managed to sell.
There is no Apollo update for current WP phones and never will.
so what will the current lumias get instead?
But will we get updated apps like IE 10 and will the apps on win 8 then run on wp 7.5. Because if developers release new apps on wp 8 and they can´t run on 7.5 it will be pointless to buy atleast the the more expensive models like L900 and L800….
win 8 => i meant win phone 8
I think you are right current wp7 devices will not get the appollo update
http://www.intomobile.com/2012/04/17/current-windows-phone-devices-not-get-upgraded-windows-phone-8/
But Eldar replied to Verge’s tweet:
@verge they have Apollo style update in pipeline for wp7 (ui, some apps, tweaks). But it isn’t Apollo. People will like it I think
I will be happy if this is true! Microsoft will probably brand it as Apollo ligt but it will not share the same core(?)
IE10 will likely come either way. Other apps, not so likely.
WP7 apps will run on WP8 but will WP8 apps run on WP7?
I don’t think many WP8 apps will run on WP7.
sub.