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Not updating to Windows 8 does not mean dropping support. Windows Vista and XP still get updates, AFAIK.

Edited 2012-04-18 18:16 UTC

True, but all the cool stuff that may finally make Windows Phone worthwhile will probably only run on Windows Phone 8. Also, phones are a completely different climate to computers. People over the past ten years have grown to expect a certain support period and have a sense of entitlement regarding security updates and the like. Phones being updateable at all is a recent affectation. As recent as two and a half years ago, you could buy a phone and never expect an update, and the "average joe" customer probably wouldn't even notice he's not getting updates. He'd be encouraged to buy a new phone. Take Samsung, for example, they learned very quickly from the consumer backlash over their i7500 Galaxy Icon (their first Android handset) that you can't release an Android phone and never release an update. Prior to this phone, they'd actually re-release the SAME PHONES with a software update, and call them a new model. See the F480 and F480i, or any of a dozen early Omnia models.

Increasingly, when manufacturers put out some new device, they're letting their old ones rot, which effectively motivates upgrades.

But if an OS updates and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? unlike those other two examples what WinPhone has never had is APPS, and if they stick those that were foolish enough to actually believe in their product with an OS that will only get security updates while all the new devices and marketing and buzz goes to Win 8? Then they might as well not bother as anyone who bought it is basically gonna end up with a really expensive paperweight.

Frankly the ONLY ones I think that are gonna win on this whole deal is the geeks, hopefully when Win 8 comes out (which i predict will be Vista II, but that's another story) then the WinPhone devices will probably end up on places like Woot! at touchpad firesale prices. Hopefully somebody will hack together an Android that will run on them, if not I'd pay say $100 for an unlocked Lumia even if the OS is dead.

But if anyone has any doubts Ballmer is a bad CEO and doesn't understand the market here ya go, a perfect example. Yeah lets shoot Nokia right in the face when they are struggling by making sure nobody will touch winPhone with a 50 foot pole for fear they'll get an expensive paperweight. Hey while you're at it you'll infuriate those that bought your devices so much they'll NEVER buy another WinMobile, what a bright idea! I'm just glad when my dad needed a new smartphone i talked him out of a WinPhone for Android, at least with Droid if the carrier stops supporting it you still have a shot at CynogenMod, anybody who bought one of these is gonna end up with a very expensive paperweight and a serious case of buyer's remorse. what a dumb move MSFT, dumb move.

People are doing that left and right for Android phones that wont be officially supported the day you buy them...

It's called a joke. I'm sorry it flew that far over your head.

If you've paid any attention to the android ecosystem since it's inception, you'd realize that carriers and makers have an extremely lacklustre history of support.

Falling back to calling someone a troll because you cant string together a coherent retort is just poor form.

My reply was coherent.

Google is not in control of the versions of android that the manufacturers provide for handsets, and the carriers certify. You are referring to a number of manufacturers that together promised to provide updates to phones for newer versions of Android, if they are capable of supporting them.

Well, guess what, many high end phones are not capable of supporting newer versions of android with in that time frame and even if they are, it takes forever for manufacturers to update them due to their own customizations and carrier certification requirements.

So your statement while based off of a true pledge, really hasn't been consumers experience.

The "troll" comment above is much closer to reality.

However, if you are smart enough to buy a phone supported by cyanogen mod, then the support for your phone is much more assured. Which is more than any windows phone 7 owner can hope for. Android support for older phones isn't great, but its better than anything else out there.

Yeah, I'll definitely go with you here. If I got another Android phone, it would ONLY be one that cyanogen supports. Their support for handsets really is commendable.

I LOVED how Samsung shipped the Cyanogen mod team 10 SGS II handsets, and said "Here you go! Only one thing required...just get our phones to work with Cyanogen!" Great stuff! Oh, and then they hire the main guy from Cyanogen to come work for them! This is a company that truly gets it! Maybe Microsoft should learn from their example...

I somehow think an up vote here might have been more worthwhile than my comment on the above post. Plays For Sure was a joke, and made a bigger joke of the Zune when Microsoft's own media player wasn't part of their so called Plays For Sure family. By the way, I have an old Plays For Sure mp3 player from Sandisk. Think it'll work in Windows beyond a mass storage device? Nope!

Actually playsforsure was a hit but then Ballmer showed what an incompetent CEO he was by slaughtering a success to push his own iPod ripoff, but before the Zune there were several sites selling monthly subscriptions that were quite popular. The nice thing about PFS was that it worked on everything from that $20 MP3 player you got at the Walgreen's checkout to that $200 PMP and most places were offering anywhere from 5 to 10 downloads to keep and all you could listen to a month for $10.

BTW have you tried switching it to MPC mode? Most of those old players had a setting buried in the options, I still use my 4Gb Sandisk E series in Win 7 and it recognizes and loads just fine. WMP 12 will even auto-transcode to my preferred bitrate for the device without me having to tell it beyond when i initially plugged it in. Works just fine, not a bit of trouble and it was a PFS device too.

As for TFA...sigh, is anyone surprised? What we are seeing is just like the Pepsi guy at Apple, a CEO that doesn't know what he is doing aping those around him and failing horribly and this is from someone who has been on Windows since 3.x. just look at how many DUMB moves the man has made, PFS being killed for Zune, Kin, pushing on the X360 with a billion dollar flaw, Vista, and now WinPhone. Frankly if it weren't for Win 7 the guy would have had nothing but fails on his watch. he's just a bad CEO folks, and stupid moves like this just shows how he doesn't understand his customers. Boy I bet Nokia is really regretting that deal now huh?

I honestly haven't touched my old Sandisk media player for years. I use my phone for playing music, these days. Copy and paste the files onto the SD card, and like magic, the Android media player finds them.

bassbeast waxed nostalgic...

Yeah, I remember all that, and I remember how mind boggling stupid I thought Microsoft was for killing that market and setting back the future of subscription audio for years..... It didn't hurt me though despite having an old Rio MP3 player at the time, because I saw that it was Microsoft involved and knew better than to trust them by then, so I stuck with podcasts and cdex for my music needs.

I wager a lot of people who have had other products of Microsoft's and seen how they treat their customers have come to the same conclusion, that it simply isn't worth taking the chance. Past performance will eventually get you every time, which is why it is always a good idea to treat your customers well.

--bornagainpenguin

PS: can we please get a mobile app (Android and iOS) for the Site? My god, but how the input box fights with me on my tablet!

IMHO, if the website doesn't work with a mobile web browser, then the website needs fixing. I really don't think that hiding problems between effort duplication, like some other websites do, is such a bright idea...

I thought at the time just more proof that Ballmer only got the job by virtue of being gates' little buddy and frankly wasn't cut out for the task. When he drove a stake in PFS there were several sites bringing in millions (that MSFT was getting a cut of every quarter) and for those that wanted new music constantly it was the cheapest thing going. Literally you had 10s of 1000s of songs at your fingertips, most had these cool genre playlists that would load you up with an entire device full of new music in the style/s you liked AND you got to keep 10 songs, all for $10?

While I didn't use them personally (I had been buying used CDs since the 80s and ripping them to MP3 so I already have more music than i could ever listen to) I knew several that did and all they did was gush on about how great it was, that PFS took all the work out and made it as simple as "plug in device once a month, hit load, enjoy new tunes" like having a personal commercial free radio station that played only genres you liked hassle free.

But again we shouldn't be surprised, if its one thing Ballmer has taught us its that while a good CEO can take a bad situation and turn it into a positive its also true a terrible CEO can take a golden goose and slaughter it. PFS was a winner, now what do they have? Nothing, Zune flopped just like everyone knew it would and now Amazon and Apple own the market. Just another dumb move from a CEO who has done nothing BUT dumb moves.

I agree. I know one person who has one which is my cousin and he got it from his company just to play with and that's an IT company so they have to test everything. Other than that I almost never see them in the wild. The only thing I see are Blackberries (yes, they are still quite popular here in our country), iOS or Android.

Seems like Windows Phone and Windows 8 are both going to be a major fail. I would never buy or even install Windows 8 with Metro and I would never ever consider buying a Windows Phone or tablet. I wouldn't even use one if I got it for free.

Microsoft really missed the boat with their phone OS years and years ago. Everybody got so annoyed with WinMo for several years that nobody would even think of going back again even though the OS is much better now (although it's sitll light years away from the competition).

So I don't care what they do, even if they switched to a Linux Kernel I would still not buy one so go ahead switch to the NT kernel, I'm sure people will still not buy it.

I own one, I know 3 other people with WP7 phones and I see them floating around relatively often in the public.

How long have you been at Microsoft?

Never, luckily I hear it isn't the best place to work.

And thanks for insinuating I'm a MS shrill because I happen to like one of their products I'm typing this on my T60 running FC16... so... yeah.

Come on, I was having a bit of fun with you, thats all. But, if you look around, there IS a LOT of astroturfing going on from Microsoft in the various forums.

Heh, I wouldnt be surprised :p I usually dont comment on many forums. I do it on OSN out of habit, lol.

The sad part is they don't even give them fresh scripts! Point out that win 8 is gonna fail on any mainstream (or even some of the geek sites like slashdot) and watch as just like the sunrise they come. the sad part is they are SO obvious as the script they have them using is total market drone speak, the last one I saw had the phrase "consumer experience" like FIVE times in it! Who talks like that?

I mean you'd think that someone with the money of MSFT would get like the writers of 30 rock or some other top tier show to write them some compelling scripts, instead we get words like "synergy" and "consumer experience". I bet it would make a funny send up though..."Microsoft...where even our astroturf sounds like something from a Dilbert comic"

How Desktop agnostic is Windows Phone 7? Does it mount as a USB drive? Are the music files sanely stored with the same file names before you transferred, or do they end up with random numerical names?

It's in no way desktop agnostic, lol. It supports syncing under windows and OSX.

That is the most annoying part for me but it really hasnt been an issue. I run win7 on my desktop for various reasons (games, etc) and I occasionally sync my phone to it.

WP7 uses MTP, iirc, so it can, in theory, sync with other programs. You can't mount it as a mass storage device, though.

None of this matters to me, though, because I have a tablet that I use for everything and my phone is... a phone and light internet terminal.

But you do have very valid points which a lot of people should take into consideration.

Interesting. Well, MTP is kinda supported in Linux with libmtp. I've never tried it because I don't have a device that supports MTP.

http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/Issues/2009/104/MTP-in-Linux

There are also some androids that have MTP support. Sounds like its going to be the future there.

http://www.androidcentral.com/ics-feature-mtp-what-it-why-use-it-an...

Funny how OS X is more neardily ok considering the company is much worse.

Edit: UNIX badge?

Edited 2012-04-19 20:11 UTC

Yeah, I dont get that. I'll use whatever strikes my fancy; osx, windows, *linux, *bsd...

What about the bashing from Apple? Remember the PC guy and Mac guy? Remember how Apple make fun on Windows users?

It is marketing.

Haters gonna hate, I don't care if the mod/ others make this as spam. I just feel that NOT only the media, also YOU people are also insulting Windows Phone users. Do everyone has to use Android/ iPhone just because everyone else use it? Are you people so free that you need to bash Windows (Phone) users to kill your time?

Learn to respect the choice made by the others, learn what that there are always someone else want "alternatives".

This is not about hating or being a fanboy, and only a little about being insulting. It is more about being deceptive. Deception is just a form of lying. Lying to customers is at best unwise, if not incredibly stupid. Selling a phone which Microsoft and all associated parties, know will be obsolete in 6-months, but hide that fact, is just plain wrong. There is no hate in this, but there is karma, and karma is immutable. This is why posters are saying (in various iterations) that Microsoft will see a big backlash on this one. And yes, Microsoft and all associated parties did and do know the phone will be obsolete, regardless of what they say.

(Edited for clarity) Hey, that's a great line. Try it on the Redmond campus and see if it gets any traction. Any traction at all.

GraphiteCube blustered...

Whoa! ...whoa...

I didn't insult your mother or look at your girlfriend funny, all I said was Microsoft's marketing doesn't exactly inspire the fuzzies for me. And that none of their last few marketing campaigns have really resonated in a good way with me or others I know.

Why are you taking it so personally?

Also, using "you people" like that just makes me hear Rush Limbaugh's voice in my head for some reason. And that's not a good thing in this instance.

GraphiteCube blustered...


Yeah, bad marketing.

You know, I often laughed at the I'm a Mac and I'm a PC commercials because those were mocking the middle management types, but they were never really personal. Apple understood that they needed to make people want what they offered. Microsoft's advertising here was personal and an attack. Not surprising that you don't know the difference given your level of anger on display, but let me recap:

In the "Smoked by Windows 7" marketing Microsoft deliberately targets those who are already fans of their preferred mobile devices and seeks to humiliate them using rigged challenges.

In the Nokia commercials they tell potential customers who are using other devices that they've been tricked into paying to beta test for others. Then mocks people saying: You didn't really think those other phones were for real, did you?

In the Mojave Experiment Microsoft more or less told potential customers that they were simply too stupid to see how wonderful Vista really was.

It's personal. The only one who should be getting angry about the I'm a Mac; I'm a PC commercials is John Hodgman. Or Justin Long, for being made out to be a Hipster.

GraphiteCube blustered...


Look, I don't care if you want a Windows phone or if you want to jump out of a Window--I'm just saying that these ads aren't provoking what I think is the hoped for response. I think Microsoft is blowing it on multiple levels due to 70's era Ma Bell arrogance, because they're Microsoft and not recognizing that in the mobile market they're the underdogs. In such a situation you need to make friends not enemies.

Not that I'd expect you to understand that sentiment considering the way you responded. Or should that be "you people" at Microsoft? :-P

--bornagainpenguin

EDIT -added missing "not" to fix sentence

Edited 2012-04-18 20:14 UTC

Except, by most reports, the Lumia 900 is selling very well...

It is strange to see so many anti-WP7 articles on the web lately considering that with the launch of the Lumia 900, WP7 is finally gaining awareness with the average consumer.

Citation needed?

Same as with the 800, eh? Except now the guidance from Nokia says that the Lumia line only sold 2 million units and that is part of why their earnings will be negative this quarter.



Click trollers will use anything that has a buzz to it to get page hits. The increased awareness is part of what makes it work for them.

If the Lumia 900 is selling well, then doesn't this news make it worse. Considering that Windows 7 was selling very poorly, that would mean that when Apollo is released, 75%+ of the phones that will be abandoned will be less than a year old. And the most popular models (800 & 900) are over $500 or come with 2 year commitments.

Who said they will be abandoned? Not getting WP8 is a TOTALLY different thing than being abandoned. One thing MS does, and does well, is support their software.

It's selling well in the US (http://www.dailytech.com/Windows+Phones+First+Hit+Nokia+Lumia+900+L...), but selling bad in the EU (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/17/uk-nokia-telcos-idUKBRE83G...).

They are saying it "sold out"...well, how many phones, exactly, is that? 1 million? 2? Not 4 million, then it would have been all over the news, since that is what Apple achieved with the 4s over it's initial weekend. So we have a low number shipped to retailers so they can say "WOW! We sold out! Look how great we are!" When in reality, they are probably being BURIED, even in the US. Since there are over 850,000 Android devices activated EVERY DAY, plus God only knows how many iPhones...how many will Microsoft and Nokia have to sell to even make a DENT in their abysmal 2.5% market share?

The number of iPhones and Android devices sold has little bearing on whether or not the Lumia 900 is selling well.

They are practically giving the Lumia 900 away for free, anything else but exhaustion of stock would have been worse than total failure.

That's something a lot of people ignore. When a phone is in demand it is not discounted. It is discounted to help boost sales when sales start to slow. Or an old model is continued to attract price conscious consumers.

i think ill have to find a smoked by Windows event and show how my phone can upgrade to the next version of the OS

Current WP7 devices ARE getting upgraded to the next version of the OS. Apollo is NOT the next version...

[quote]Current WP7 devices ARE getting upgraded to the next version of the OS. Apollo is NOT the next version...[/quote]

Unimportant distinction duly noted and filed away.

So the Lumia 900 can't be upgraded to the next major release that's coming out later this year - is that carefully worded enough? No, quibble a bit more?

Anyway, long story short the major news outlets are having trouble reporting the news, being stymied by this cleverness of words - and average consumer can't tell if they are getting WIndows Phone 8 or not, for the phone they just bought, and for which they likely now have a 2 year contract extension.

I appreciate OSNews just spelling it out.

Edited 2012-04-19 18:07 UTC

Biting the hands that feeds you.

http://www.osnews.com/story/24924/Microsoft_Demands_15_for_Every_Sa...

Those Android licensing disputes MS launched against their partners probably didn't help the cause either.

Samsung could have easily coerced carriers into carrying both versions of the Galaxy (S2 and Focus S). They're on top of the world right now. There could be a Samsung Focus Ace right now.

I must have missed this celebrity deathmatch, when the hell-sinki did Microsoft beat Sony up?

I'm guessing he's referring to Microsoft's Xbox 360 (very slightly) outselling the Sony Playstation 3.

And loosing billions of dollars in the process. If you beat your competitor, but do it at a loss, is that considered a success??!!

and yet IBM did a much better job with OS/2 than M$ is doing with WP 7. WP 7 is EPIC FAIL even compared to OS/2 and BeOS.

I know you're trolling, but really, how do you figure? As much as I love the BeOS, it was dead in the water before it was a common name even among OS geeks. And OS/2 never stood a chance despite being technically superior to Windows.

Interestingly, both OSes died at Microsoft's hands. If anything, the (prematurely reported) death of Windows Phone is nothing more than well deserved Karma, though I wouldn't count them out just yet.

And lest you flame me as a Microsoft shill etc etc, yes I do like the WP7 OS but I hate the company (as is well known here). With a few tweaks and some openness, WP7 could be the OS that Android would only dream of being. Unfortunately Microsoft has once again crippled a product that could have been great if only they knew what they were doing with it. The same goes for Windows 8 on x86/x64, as far as I'm concerned.

I know I'm veering a litte off-topic here, but the blood of OS/2 is squarely on IBM's hands. From paying Microsoft by the KLOC (1000 lines of code) instead of by feature, to their insistence that the 1.x line run on the 80286, shipping the first version on time but missing a GUI, their bizarre advertising (Czech nuns anyone?) and charging developers $1000s for the development kits instead of giving them away to anyone and everyone, Microsoft needed only give IBM sufficient rope to hang themselves and their product.

steampoweredlawn,

No doubt IBM royally screwed up. I still find it ironic, if not for IBM's cooperation with microsoft and essentially handing them an OS monopoly on the PC, the small company might have never become more than a blip on the radar. Of course the ties between Gate's mother and IBM executives was likely responsible for earlier lapses in judgment, however one has to wonder why these lapses continued for so long.

The way I remember it (granted, I was a teenager back then), Microsoft was on board with IBM all the way, then when Windows sales started zooming, they said "why do we need to keep up this partnership with IBM" and dropped them on the spot.

I remember this because I was in a computer store and saw a clerk marking boxed copies of OS/2 down by about 60%, and I asked him about it. He said they were told to sell all remaining stock at a discount because nobody would want it anymore now that Microsoft wasn't backing it. I went home and got on Compuserve, and eventually found a group discussing the issue. The consensus was what I posted above.

Thank you for pointing out the details, and I wonder now why I never read up on it before.

This is the Kin story repeating:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin

Developers don't want to support a "third ecosystem" right now. Market share numbers mean you can cover almost the whole public by supporting just iOS and Android. This, and the fact that Microsoft has demonstrated once and again what a marvelous business partner they are.

Carriers and handset makers just take the marketing dollars/patent abuse and do whatever minimum effort they need to do in order to tick the agreement boxes.

The same way that Linux on the desktop (as an alternative to Windows) has no big numbers, Windows Phone will fail to capture a significant share of the market. There are too many network effects at work in the current ecosystem.

Apple came first with a nice, new and working product.

Android got permission to live just because Apple's offer was so one-size-fits-all and people liked to have different options... a choice on the price/quality trade-off, and the possibility of using their hardware the way they liked.

Microsoft's offer is just a me-too on the locked side of the spectrum, with just a different GUI and a marginally wider range of terminals. And it's late to the game. Windows Phone is still several iterations behind Android and iOS, and thus if any platform is a Beta at all, it's Windows Phone.

You don't need to resort to conspiracy theories about sales channels boycotts or Skype-related carrier boycotts. It's just potential buyers not seeing the point of buying Windows Phone.

You should rethink moving to ANY Microsoft product! If you think things will magically get better when they release their new phone OS (pissing of dozens of loyal customers in the process!) then you are mistaken!

That's not entirely true, and for a lot of people it's simply impossible. Like it or not, Windows as a desktop OS is a requirement for some, and to them I say make the move to Windows 7 if they haven't already. Yes it's still Microsoft but it's seriously the best thing they've put out in a very long time, and the best Windows OS by a huge margin.

Personally I'm moving away from Windows on all my devices except my media center/PVR (Windows 7 offers the best, most complete support for my hardware) and I'm stuck with my WP7 phone for at least another year for financial reasons (that said, being "stuck" with either OS is just fine from a usability standpoint). Everything else in my home runs either Lubuntu, Arch Linux or Android.

jnemesh

Morgan


You did not read jnemesh comment correctly Tusharg.

Edited 2012-04-19 09:06 UTC

Okay, you quoted me and attributed it to TusharG. Anyway, I did read the parent post correctly; it was a gross generalization that I felt moved to address. Would you care to elaborate on your opinion?

Whoops. I have fixed it now.
I think jnemesh point was that you should try to get away from MS products. Your(Morgan) point is that jnemesh is not entirely right but your comment basically agrees with his premise.

In short; I think you agree with jnemesh that you should try to get a away from MS products.

Edited 2012-04-19 09:13 UTC

Well, my issue is that he said "You should rethink moving to ANY Microsoft product!" and I felt that was a gross generalization. Everyone's situation is different, and while personally I would love to live a Microsoft free life, it's just not feasible at the moment. Eventually I will be able to afford new hardware (both DVR and mobile phone) that are free from the Redmond Machine, but not yet.

It should go without saying that there are many, many mid-to-large businesses out there that have to stick with Microsoft products for a while yet. Once Windows 7 nears the end of its support cycle, I can see businesses starting to adopt alternatives. I certainly don't see them adopting Windows 8, that's for sure. Most long time IT guys know to skip every other major Windows workstation OS release. ME, Vista, and now Win8 are out of the question for serious business work.

I think you don't get my point. Rethinking means you will reconsider if you still need it. If you find that you still need it then so be it. If you find that there are alternatives that are at least as good then ding dong down goes the witch.

I'll stick with my Galaxy Note for a while, best phone I have ever owned. Everyone I know has a iPhone, never been a fan. No file manager, no decent codecs, UI is startimg to look dated, you can't simply mount the phone as a drive and it's to exspensive for such a small screen, I mean come one 3.5". Plus I don't want to be just another robot consumer who has the same thing everyome has, I like niche.

If there was a Sprint CDMA Note, it would be my next phone in a heartbeat. I have a friend/coworker who has one and she absolutely loves it. I helped her get it set up and it was a dream to operate.

Unfortunately since I've decided to stick with Sprint for their excellent service in my area, I'm severely limited on phone choices. When I do switch back to Android later this year or early next year, it will be to whichever "pure Google" phone is available.

Sure, the phones will most likely be supported by Microsoft, but if they will be supported by software developers are quite another matter. There are very few WP7 phones out there, and if WP8 becomes a success nobody will bother to make sure it works on old phones as well.

This discounts Apple's ability to introduce new products. At one time it was heavily dependent on iPods (although not 50% of revenue), then it was iPods and iPhones. Now it's iPods, iPhones and iPads. As long as they keep adding products to that list of "heavily dependent" on items, they will be okay.

That's the trap a lot of companies get in, when they have an established revenue stream from a set of products which they do not want to jeopardize.

Perhaps NT has bloated up in meantime.

Windows 2000 used to run perfectly fine on computers slower than modern phones, but then XP happened... and Vista happened... And only with Win7 Microsoft started to realize that ever-increasing bloat wasn't such a good idea.