Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 20th Jun 2012 18:38 UTC
So, Windows Phone 7.5. I love it - warts and all. It has its issues, but it's so distinctive and fun it's pretty hard to not like it. So, for me, those three other people, and that cow, Microsoft today announced Windows Phone 8. It brings lots of cool new features, is built upon the Windows NT kernel and shares much of its lower levels with Windows 8, and oh, not a single current Windows Phone 7 device will be upgraded to it.
Thread beginning with comment 523062
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-11
All the noise about "another platform upgrade" is a little overstated... Almost none of the pre-2.3 Android phones were upgraded to something newer, and even a lot of the 2.3 phones will never see ICS....
Maybe not officially, but a lot of phones that shipped with Android 1.5 or 1.6 got custom ROMs with 2.1, 2.2, and even 2.3 (like my wife's LG Eve).
And you don't need new hardware to run a new version of Android. But you need new hardware in order to run the new version of WinPhone. Very big difference!
So, in the span of 3 years, mobile Windows users have been forced through three incompatible "upgrades": Windows CE/Mobile/PocketPC/whatever to Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8. Each one requiring new hardware.
Member since:2005-11-14
Member since:2005-11-13
All the noise about "another platform upgrade" is a little overstated... Almost none of the pre-2.3 Android phones were upgraded to something newer, and even a lot of the 2.3 phones will never see ICS....
At least on Android, you have a decent shot of getting updates via custom roms. But still, the lack of updates sucks on Android, and it'll suck on Windows Phone too.
As for WP8, the feature that was most crucial (IMO) was porting over WinRT, so that you could run Metro apps on phone, tablet, and desktop. Apparently, that didn't happen this time around. *boo* *hiss* MS, WTF are you waiting for?
Member since:2010-04-06
Member since:2005-09-01
The problem is elevated by low WP7 market uptake.
Both developers and users are basically screwed.
The developers produced the 100k apps in good faith that MS (and IDC, techblogs, etc) mires will come true and WP7 jump to double digits is just around the corner.
Now they have no other choice than to start over and switch to WP8 (or the competition will beat them using native WP8 APIs) or they are left serving miniscule audience.
The WP7 users who bought into the ecosystem in good faith that the app situation will eventually catch up to IOS are screwed bc developers will abandon the platform in no time knowing it's dead in the water.
Nokia is screwed bc MS has osbourned them for the 2nd time after Elop did it 1.5 y ago.
Android fragmentation is not that critical as majority devices at least got bump to 2.1 and that's where most important apis (including GL) got introduced and native code was supported almost from the beginning.
Edited 2012-06-21 12:44 UTC
Member since:2006-01-06
The problem is elevated by low WP7 market uptake.
Both developers and users are basically screwed.
The developers produced the 100k apps in good faith that MS (and IDC, techblogs, etc) mires will come true and WP7 jump to double digits is just around the corner.
Now they have no other choice than to start over and switch to WP8 (or the competition will beat them using native WP8 APIs) or they are left serving miniscule audience.
The WP7 users who bought into the ecosystem in good faith that the app situation will eventually catch up to IOS are screwed bc developers will abandon the platform in no time knowing it's dead in the water.
Nokia is screwed bc MS has osbourned them for the 2nd time after Elop did it 1.5 y ago.
Android fragmentation is not that critical as majority devices at least got bump to 2.1 and that's where most important apis (including GL) got introduced and native code was supported almost from the beginning.
Both developers and users are basically screwed.
The developers produced the 100k apps in good faith that MS (and IDC, techblogs, etc) mires will come true and WP7 jump to double digits is just around the corner.
Now they have no other choice than to start over and switch to WP8 (or the competition will beat them using native WP8 APIs) or they are left serving miniscule audience.
The WP7 users who bought into the ecosystem in good faith that the app situation will eventually catch up to IOS are screwed bc developers will abandon the platform in no time knowing it's dead in the water.
Nokia is screwed bc MS has osbourned them for the 2nd time after Elop did it 1.5 y ago.
Android fragmentation is not that critical as majority devices at least got bump to 2.1 and that's where most important apis (including GL) got introduced and native code was supported almost from the beginning.
C'mon, admit it. You didn't bother to read the article. Because I don't see how you could have missed this glaring statement.
Despite this change, all 100,000 existing Windows Phone apps will continue to run on Windows Phone 8. "We architected Windows Phone 8 in a way to drive full application compatibility so that every existing application will continue to run," says Microsoft's Larry Lieberman. Developers will get access to new tools and an updated SDK later this summer that are based on Visual Studio 2012 — supporting apps for both Windows Phone and Windows Phone 8.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2006-03-20
All the noise about "another platform upgrade" is a little overstated... Almost none of the pre-2.3 Android phones were upgraded to something newer, and even a lot of the 2.3 phones will never see ICS....
What Microsoft is doing isn't that much different, only they are deciding for the OEMs instead of letting them decide. Maybe not nice, but definitely not something new...