Microsoft Aims To Offer Windows 10 Upgrades For All Windows Phone 8 Lumias 77
An anonymous reader writes News suggesting that Microsoft plans to offer Windows 10 upgrades for all its Windows Phone 8 devices broke today. "It's our intention to enable a Windows 10 upgrade for Lumia Windows Phone 8 smartphones," a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat. "At this early stage in the development process, and given the vast portfolio of Windows devices worldwide, we can't predict that all devices will be upgradeable, but it is our intention that the Lumia smartphone line be upgradeable to Windows 10."
for free? (Score:1)
Unless they offer the upgrade for free that will not really help their market share that much,....
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Bypassing the carriers? (Score:2)
Will they bypass the likes of Verizon while doing this, so that we can get our updates directly from Microsoft instead of waiting for Verizon to roll them out? And I'm talking about automatically, just like Apple, as opposed to signing up for the MS Developers edition.
Incidentally, I got an update to WP8.1 yesterday on that, and now they've tossed in folders - the same way one does in iOS by merging 2 icons. Managed to reorganize a lot on that phone following that.
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Windows is currently free of charge on phones, small tablets, and low-cost laptops. Unless Microsoft reverses course on that, the Windows Phone upgrades will be free.
This isn't all that big a commitment. The number of Windows Phone 8 models is modest: perhaps a dozen Lumia models plus a couple of phones from other companies. So it's not much worse than Apple's commitment to iOS updates for older phones and tablets. It's not like, say, committing to updating every Android Jelly Bean and KitKat phone to Lolli
terrible summary + not news (Score:5, Insightful)
The first line has garden path construction that first parses as " ... Windows Phone 8 devices broke today."
Next, the summary doesn't include the word "free." If the offer isn't free, then it's just "Microsoft plans to offer try to sell a new product to its existing customers."
Actually after clicking through to the original article, I think this is the case. Basically I think Microsoft is saying "we hope to make it possible to sell Windows 10 to Windows 8 users, but the old hardware might prevent us from doing that."
This isn't news. At best, this is just press spin. At worst, it's just part of the Windows 10 advertising campaign.
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Re:terrible summary + not news (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless the summary changed, the words
News suggesting that Microsoft plans to offer Windows 10 upgrades for all its Windows Phone 8 devices broke today.
does not parse the way you say it does. There is no situation, other than not reading, that parses the way you suggest.
And just as much as you are harping on it potentially not being free, I'll harp on the wonderful possibility that it could be free! And you know what? Neither of us know anything about their plans because they just now kinda-sorta gave us a hint as to the future roadmap of these devices.
Lay off the FUD.
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And further, this is actually an exciting development, it shows more of a commitment to keeping its older devices modern.
Apple supports mobile OS upgrades for its devices for at least 3 or 4 major versions. Android manufacturers tend to do the opposite, you'll be lucky if you get even minor version upgrades through your 2-year contract period. (My Android got point release updates for a few months, then surprisingly one large update about 1 1/2 years later. I seriously doubt my phone sees anything newer
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Who cares (Score:1, Insightful)
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about Windows phones, anyway?
I'd say "who cares about Windows Phones" because that's kinda not the problem here. It's not Windows Phone 8 that the 10 upgrade is sorely needed on. Windows 8 (the desktop OS) is the failure that needs to be fixed here. Precisely because a computer isn't a phone.
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Didn't they fixed most of the nuisances with 8.1 and 8.1 Update?
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Didn't they fixed most of the nuisances with 8.1 and 8.1 Update?
Hmmm, is there a start menu, and not just a start button which takes you to a start screen [wikipedia.org]? Is the interface discoverable or still just "magic"?
Windows 8.x is lethal for businesses. At my company, all laptops are issued with Windows 7 - including current purchases. We've even paid for extended support for Windows XP, simply because there are a lot of applications which work fine on Windows XP, but simply don't work right on Windows 7 (and no upgrades available from suppliers, either).
At home, we're all Linu
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Hmmm, is there a start menu
Once you install the third-party Classic Shell add-on, there is. It makes 8 look and feel like flat 7, modulo some differences in the Control Panel (things moved to the Metro-crap PC settings app).
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This may give an impression of slightly broken which is otherwise unusual in Windows (if you can gloss over some specific stuff or the non standard UI in antivirus and other software).
Even with a start menu you may have the charms bar or more annoyingly Metro windows media player starts when you double click on a file so there's some more work to do which us old users take for granted but user competence with little settings and customisation isn't on the rise. They don't even know what a file manager is th
Closing a Modern UI app in Windows 8.1 (Score:2)
This may give an impression of slightly broken which is otherwise unusual in Windows [...] annoyingly Metro windows media player starts when you double click on a file
To test your hypothesis, I just started the Modern UI-based Music app in Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell. When I moved the mouse to the top of the screen, its title bar faded in with an X button at the far right, the same place where one expects to find it in a maximized desktop application. I was able to close it by clicking the X button. This title bar appears to be a new feature of 8.1 compared to 8 though. And in any case, right-clicking a file and choosing "Open with > Choose default program..." will
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Didn't they fixed most of the nuisances with 8.1 and 8.1 Update?
No, because the Charms bar is still there, and unremovable, and when you click on the start button on the keyboard, you get a start screen, rather than a start button. One thing that MS could have done, but didn't, could have been to introduce multiple virtual desktops, like you have in X11 based DEs. Windows 10, OTOH, supposedly allows you to make Windows a Windows 7 when a keyboard is attached to the tablet making it a de facto laptop (and indeed may be the default on laptops as well) and Windows 8 whe
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They fixed some but not all of the problems in the updates. Some more can be fixed with third party add-ons: there are multiple Start Menu apps for Windows 8, and Modern Mix lets you run Metro apps in a normal window rather than having them take over the entire screen. Even with that some awkward things remain, notably the odd split of capabilities between the PC Settings app for Metro and the Control Panel app for the desktop. (On Windows 8 and 8.1 there are things you can do in PC Settings that you can't
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No precisely because they didn't require people to use the right hardware so they had a bad experience. Windows 8 is really good on hardware designed for Windows 8. Had they not allowed Windows 7 hardware to run Windows 8, not treating it like an upgrade for existing systems there wouldn't have been this backlash.
Same mistake they made with Vista.
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What the fuck are you talking about? Windows 8 runs just as good as Windows 7 on hardware released pre-Windows 8. Haven't noticed any issues at all on any of my systems that ran Windows 7 prior to Windows 8.
Stop spouting bullshit.
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Windows 8 should only be allowed on pad like devices, that is his point: it is a touch based interface, don't run it on traditional equipment
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What I'm talking about is an interface designed around touch that is somewhat counter intuitive on non-touch based systems.
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It requires a DirectX 9 GPU with a driver that works on Windows 8, and a CPU with NX bit. Really antique hardware is already left out, so you know.
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Since late Pentium 4, not even the first version of Prescott.
Windows 8 driver on radeon 9600, X300 and geforce FX etc. : not sure that really works. Windows 8.x use WDDM 1.2 and 1.3, while Windows 7 uses WDDM 1.1 or XP driver mode. Anyway the computers aren't junk, when they do fucking work. I ought to put together some win 7 junk box so that a) I piss you off and b) run old games, if I come across an old KVM.
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No precisely because they didn't require people to use the right hardware so they had a bad experience. Windows 8 is really good on hardware designed for Windows 8. Had they not allowed Windows 7 hardware to run Windows 8, not treating it like an upgrade for existing systems there wouldn't have been this backlash.
Same mistake they made with Vista.
You mean not allowing Windows 8 on non-touch laptops?
Aside from that, not the case. I bought a Dell Inspiron (albeit non-touch) a few months ago from Costco, preloaded w/ Windows 8. The configuration? A Core i7, 8GB of RAM, 1TB HDD. Issue was not the performance, which was fine. Issue was that the whole experience of working w/ Windows was totally overhauled. I installed Classic Shell, which initially seemed to fix it somewhat, but I found out that when I'd type a document and the cursor got anywhe
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Yes. Or requiring an external digitizer (i.e. typical artist setup).
Exactly. The experience is both different and worse on non-touch equipment.
I've seen that before with Macs. You may want to see if your battery overheated, expanded and pushed the trackpad slightly. That migh
Frankly speaking (Score:1)
Windows doesn't really need to be fixed, but be left behind for good.
It would be fair to finally people understand that it's like SCO UNIX and Xenix that should be buried and never look back. The only people that should ever look back are few historians and computer scientists writing books of a well known and cautious example how things can go horribly wrong when you let marketing department lead development changing their mind again and again after few years until its time to repeat same mistakes and igno
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Switch to what?
The competition on its terms, default target for hardware support of almost every hardware and installation of arbitrary software, is Android.
I guess PCs could switch to Android 5 as the default OS, then you'd be stepping from Windows to another new kind of Windows with most of the same issues.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Informative)
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I'd say "who cares about Windows Phones" because that's kinda not the problem here. It's not Windows Phone 8 that the 10 upgrade is sorely needed on. Windows 8 (the desktop OS) is the failure that needs to be fixed here. Precisely because a computer isn't a phone.
I have a wonderful cell for sale if anyone is interested. The radio is absolutely excellent and rarely drops calls even in remote locations. The hardware has not given me any issues at all over 5 years of use and the battery is interchangeable by the user! Really it is called a Samsung Omnia 910. Trouble with the phone though is the OS which is essentially useless for web surfing with html 5 multimedia content.
The offending OS is unfortunately a Windows mobile mashup of xp and double unfortunately even tho
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Of course the market is small. They aren't denying that. They are trying to grow it, which is why they are "sinking cash" into it.
I don't know that. You don't know that. Android is 5 years old. The focus of Android is down market. The focus of Apple is very up market. I can see an obvious gap developing of the next 5 years at the mid price points. Other possibilities are more corporate ori
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The focus of Android is down market.
Well, no, and also no. The only market Google is actually focusing on is up market. That's why the Nexus line is flagship devices. The down market will take care of itself. Google does tinker around with mid-level STBs occasionally, but they aren't the cheapest ones and they aren't very serious.
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You're both wrong. They're wrong, Windows Phone isn't targeting mid market it's setting its sights firmly on the low-end. And you're wrong, Google is doing a ton to make Android work on the low-end. Low end is doing things like adding dual sims and other features for people in the developing world. Low end means heavily optimizing the OS so that it runs smoothly on weaker hardware. Google could be adding features but all of their press is on optimizing the rendering to achieve better framerates with
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Nokia has always been a low end vendor. This is where Nokia's culture and Microsoft's culture diverge. There is no value for Microsoft in the low end at all. I just don't see Windows Phone going there.
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Google's Android strategy is down market. Google's hardware strategy is a show device that they don't push for large sales number but demonstrates the operating system.
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There are parts of the world where it is simply not affordable to spend multiples of your monthly income on a single phone [...] windows phones are pretty simple to use for older people who are upgrading from dump phones.
I'm assuming you're referring to the "Balassa-Samuelson" model, which predicts that a country's currency will be undervalued before it develops a vibrant export sector. For someone in a low-currency-value country upgrading from a dumbphone with $80 per year service, I imagine that the $500 per year service for a smartphone will be at least as painful as buying the handset.
As long as it has a real start MENU that's fine (Score:1)
Because I hate a phone without a real start MENU. And let's not call it a phone anymore is right. Who does voice calls anymore anyway?
Not everyone subscribes to unlimited SMS (Score:3)
Who does voice calls anymore anyway?
People who don't pay several hundred dollars per year to a cellular carrier. This includes land line users and (by extension) people who call land line users. It also includes users of $7/mo pay-as-you-go flip phones, for whom multitap composition of SMS is a serious chore and T9 isn't much better.
I want to form an opinion again (Score:4, Funny)
Not a long time ago, I was just a normal internet user that surfed various news sites like Sladshdot [slashdot.org], reddit, or wsj.com. I read a story, perhaps clicked onto some links it contained, and I was mostly happy with my life.
Then, one day, I surfed Slashdot [slashdot.org]. It was one of those days you will remember for the rest of your life. So, as I surfed Sladshdot [slashdot.org], the title of a story got my attention. I read the summary. The topic seemed interesting, so I decided to read further. I read:
Read on below for the rest what Bennett has to say.
Usually I don't read first line of a story which contains the user who has submitted it. On that day, I didn't neither. As I've only read that bottom line, I asked myself: who is this misterious Bennett? I decided to click onto the "Read the comments" link to read more of the story that was, as it seems, written by some Bennett. During reading, I was already impressed by the clear and detailed but still concise structure of the text. As I finished reading, I was convinced it was the best story I've ever read on Sladshdot [slashdot.org], or any comparable news site. I asked myself: perhaps this misterious Bennett has contributed more frequently than just once?
To find that out, I went to Sladshdot's [slashdot.org] search bar and searched for "Bennett". I clicked the second entry, and it began with:
Frequent contributor Bennett Haselton writes
I searched for the "Read on" line, and I was happy when I found it. As it seemed, he was a frequent contributor. However the story was on a topic completely unrelated to the topic of my article. Would the other article still be as insightful as the first? And the other stories in the search result? Would they be also by Bennett? Or someone else? I decided first to be happy to have found such an insightful article, and decided to make a photograph of me, before I read the second story.
I still have that photograph of me and I can see the hope and the satisfaction in my eyes, the hope that the other stories are also written by this brilliant author called Bennett, and the satisfaction of having read such an insightful article. As I've read the first couple of stories by Bennett, I couldn't believe what my eyes saw: all the stories were as insightful or even more insightful than the original story I read. I asked myself whether the spectators in the Globe theatre would have felt the same way when they watched a piece by shakespeare: Witnessing history of writing. I realized Bennett is one of histories great writers.
As I've finished reading all contributions by Bennett Haselton on Sladshdot [slashdot.org], I went back to the first Bennett story, and read them a second time. I sat three days straight, missing all social events during that span, only reading Bennett's stories, and reading them again and again. During that time my eyes opened to the fact that my whole life, I've known nothing. Bennett's stories explained every aspect of very complicated things in such detail, that I formed something in my mind. First, I couldn't describe it what it was, but years later I know that, for the first time of my life, I formed something called "opinion" on a topic. Previously, I've only adopted opinions from others, but Bennett's stories enable people to make their opinions for themselfes, to form them. With his stories, Bennett gives you the material to form your own opinion on your own. I know you will say that you can form your opinion on your own, and that you don't need Bennett for that. I
disagree with you. What you call opinion, is in reality just ideology you imitate from others. You don't form your opinions, you don't have them.
Every time Bennett writes a new story on Sladshdot [slashdot.org], I take a free day and spend it reading the story
I'd rather be hit over the head ... (Score:2)
... with a wet squirrel than
Read the rest of this comment... [slashdot.org]
Not interested (Score:2)
Wake me when they offer a Win10 upgrade for those who had to suffer from Win8 on a Desktop. It's kinda a slap in the face when they only offer an upgrade for an OS for the only platform where that OS at least remotely made any sense.
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It's kinda a slap in the face when they only offer an upgrade for [Windows Phone]
But this isn't the case at all. Perhaps you need a slap in the face just to knock some sense into you.
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pfft, wake me up when they extend the Vista to Windows 7 upgrade program to all users. Vista is a festering pile of shit utterly unusable since it was last service packed and they made it even slower than it already was, it's unsuitable for the declared purpose.
Through Windows Phone Store (Score:2)
How would they ask money through windows update?
Microsoft has already offered the first service pack for Windows 8.1 as a free app in the Windows Store instead of Windows Update. So Microsoft could ask for money through Windows Phone Store.
And the Lumia 900? (Score:2, Troll)
What about the once-flagship Nokia Lumia 900? Oh sure, nevermind; that phone will always be stuck at Windows Phone 7.5. As TFA says, only Windows Phone 8 will be upgraded. Pity those fools that trusted Microsoft and their %$#@! Windows Phone when they bought their new, first ever released (non-linux, non-symbian) Nokia Lumia, complete with new and shiny Windows Phone 7.5.
It would be very interesting to learn the stats on those buyers' subsequent smartphone purchases, assuming that was possible.
Re:And the Lumia 900? (Score:4, Insightful)
What about the once-flagship Nokia Lumia 900? Oh sure, nevermind; that phone will always be stuck at Windows Phone 7.5. As TFA says, only Windows Phone 8 will be upgraded. Pity those fools that trusted Microsoft and their %$#@! Windows Phone when they bought their new, first ever released (non-linux, non-symbian) Nokia Lumia, complete with new and shiny Windows Phone 7.5. It would be very interesting to learn the stats on those buyers' subsequent smartphone purchases, assuming that was possible.
And that's what this announcement is all about, keep on buying WP8 phones because they won't be obsoleted by Win10 like WP7.5 was. With enough weasel words that they don't actually promise anything.
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And Microsoft should support 3-4 year old phones... why exactly?
Slashdot - Daily Microsoft blog (Score:1)
No other site covers Microsoft so much.
So much love or rather donations are coming Slashdot way?
Re:Slashdot - Daily Microsoft blog (Score:5, Funny)
No other site covers Microsoft so much.
If you think Slashdot is bad, you should see this one :- www.microsoft.com [microsoft.com]
More Information (Score:3)
From TheVerge ...
Microsoft doesn't plan on making the same mistake twice: the company has made a public pledge that all of Nokia's Lumia Windows Phone 8 devices will be upgraded to the mobile version of Windows 10 when it's released. Responding to a customer's question on the topic, Microsoft tweeted, "We plan to upgrade all Windows Phone 8 devices to Windows 10 in the future." Microsoft's next big operating system remains in early development, so the company obviously isn't revealing details as to when that update will arrive.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1... [theverge.com]
too little, many years too late (Score:1)
i had a windows 6 mobile phone with a start menu. it was a great phone to type on, as it had a real keyboard. i also liked having EXCEL on my phone as i could keep a list of supplies and prices to help me make purchase decisions. but it was slow so i moved to android, then the iphone. none of my phones took upgrades until i moved to the iOS platform. so while i acknowledge it's a good idea for microsoft to offer windows 10 to existing windows 8 phone users, they didn't make an upgrade path from 6>6.5, fr
FTFY (Score:1)
Funny way of phrasing that... (Score:2)
I'm so used to reading broken English on sites like Stack Overflow, I thought the article said free Windows 10 upgrade for people whose Windows 8 phones suddenly broke today.
Well... (Score:1)