Microsoft warns asks WP7 users to wait for the real thing

Hacking the NoDo update onto your Windows Phone 7 handset could prevent you getting later updates, and even brick the handset, but that's OK, 'cos the files have vanished anyway. On Monday, one of the hackers responsible for the Windows Phone 7 jailbreaking application, Chris Walsh, posted a hack allowing anyone to install the …

[Gulfie]

"mixed success"

Well that's not exactly news in the root and flash community (hur hur), you take your life in your own hands when you do this. Devices that appear from the outside to be the same tend to get tweaked over their lifetime, especially in the most sensitive areas - such as radio firmware.

My rule of thumb is to not flash a phone using a set of files + instructions unless I can confirm that everything on the device I'm intending to flash - especially the radio firmware - is identical to the one used to create the instructions. Otherwise there is *no* guarantee of anything working but a greater probability of owning a £500 brick.

[IT specialist]

Windows Phone 7 is a lost cause

Windows Phone 7 is soon to get axed, as Microsoft moves to a version of Windows 8 that runs on ARM-based phones.

It's all part of Microsoft's unified platform running on 3 screens, with AppX.

What this means is that Windows Phone 7 is doomed. It will get one more update, 'Mango', before the whole platform is discontinued. It will basically end up like the Microsoft Kin did.

Windows 8, even though it will run on ARM phones, will not run on today's Windows Phone 7 handsets, so those users are screwed.

[pan2008]

are you?

You are talking b*llshit. Are you really an IT specialist?

[DrXym]

WP is not a lost cause

Microsoft have broken into a lot of markets with a passable first effort and then followed up with something which is vastly better by virtue of extreme effort and complacency from rivals.

Just because WP7 is half baked and flawed doesn't mean it will always be that way. I do agree though that anyone contemplating a Windows phone probably shouldn't bother though. What's the point when there are better phone operating systems such as Android out there?

[IT specialist]

Why Windows Phone 7 will fail

People keep using the Xbox/Kinnect as an example of Microsoft pushing into markets.

Notice the Xbox doesn't carry any Microsoft branding or logo on the front. That's because they know Microsoft's reputation in consumer circles is not good. Imagine if they had instead called Xbox "Windows Game".

Windows Phone 7 is in a more difficult situation, and will fail, because Microsoft has to deal with carriers, which it didn't with Xbox. The carriers will only stock a losing product like Windows Phone 7 for so long, before they give up. This is the reason Kin failed.

Listen to Mary-Jo's podcast on The Register two days ago:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/05/microbite_march_2011/

Microsoft keeps resetting its mobile platform, and will do it again with Windows 8. People grow tired of these platform resets.

[pan2008]

20% for WP7 soon(ish)

Windows Phone 7 put around 20% by gartner this time, IDC was the last one to put it around 19%.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/07/gartner-android-grabbing-over-38-percent-of-smartphone-market-i/

Even though predictions are difficult it shows the dynamics. Windows phone is an excellent OS so am not surprised.

[Tim Walker]

Or...

Symbian^3?

No, really - even if you dislike the UI (and I don't mind it, but that's a whole other flamewar...), S^3 already boasts quite a few features (HDMI, USB on-the-go, USB mass-storage, cut-and-paste, etc. etc.) that WP7 lacks, but might just get some time later this year (maybe, if at all, er...).

Thinking about all that, wouldn't it be crazy if Nokia's (formerly from Microsoft) CEO were to announce that they were ditching Symbian^3 for WP7? Wouldn't it...

...WHAT did you say he did in February??? Where's the "Trojan Horse" icon?

[Jim Coleman]

Yeah but

WP7 phones will be upgradeable to WP8 / W8 and not only that, all the apps, which are written in Silverlight / XNA, will port across too as there isn't any native code.

That was kinda the reason why MS wouldn't allow apps to be written in native code, TBH. They wouldn't have been portable.

The way I see it, a quick recompile will make any app happy on WP8 / W8.

Don't know why you're being so dramatic about what is a perfectly mundane transition. *shrug*

[DrXym]

@Jim you hope

"WP7 phones will be upgradeable to WP8 / W8 and not only that, all the apps, which are written in Silverlight / XNA, will port across too as there isn't any native code."

That's called wishful thinking. Perhaps they'll be upgradeable, perhaps they won't. For all you know MS will revise their baseline specs upwards and some existing WP7 phones won't meet the grade. Other phones might not get an update because mobos can't be bothered to upgrade them.

[GrantB]

Just like Windows Mobile 6.5

No upgrade provided for Windows Mobile to Win7, so not a great indicator of MS playing nice.

If they have sold as few WP7 phones as suspected, then I would guess that means less incentive to provide an upgrade from WP7 to W8 Mobile or whatever it will be called.

Add to that, the Silverlight solution looks dubious; within MS, Silverlight has largely been placed on the backburner and the future is HTML5.

I imagine WP7 will be replaced; and few will care, with Nokia maybe never actually releasing a WP7 device, and most people happily using Android, iOS or other

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like Android 2.0

No upgrade provided for Android 1.6 to Android 2.0 for a lot of phones, so not a great indicator of Google playing nice.

[Dave Eyraud]

Are you sure?

Back in July 2010 the US Gov't ruled that jailbreaking the iPhone (to remove carrier lock and install apple-unauthorized software) was not illegal. While you certainly are putting your device's 'life' at risk by doing so, precedent says that the practice is not illegal.

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/07/27/242100/iPhone-jailbreaking-not-illegal-says-US-government.htm

[Oninoshiko]

who are you responding too

The fine article said that it is legal in the US, not illegal. I will admit I misread it the first time to though.

"Jailbreaking – unlocking handsets to allow the installation of unauthorised software – is explicitly legal in the US"

[W. Keith Wingate]

Windows Phone; 'zat still around!?

I WinCE every time I hear about MS trying to revive their long moribund effort to monopolize yet another market with a new release of their mobile O/S.

Although I am neither an Apple fanboi nor a hater, I honestly haven't spent a lot of time w/ the i{phone,pad}, but have been chained to work issue phones running Blackberry, Symbian, and MS O/S's, and MS (It was Windows Mobile at the time) was by far the worst of the three.

It's unlike the boys in Redmond to give up a market once they put their marketing muscle into it, and certainly this particular monopoly is still up for grabs ('could be Apple, or Google, or even RIM), but they should give this one up.

[Anonymous Coward]

FFS. Enough already.

"We are el reg". "We hate Microsoft". Check your facts. I've had the NoDo update on this phone since Monday. o2. HD7. It works fine. My gf is running Android. It's no better. No worse. IPhone? It is what it is. Mediocre when it arrives, wrapped up with a few bows and ribbons to make people think its solo hi-tech. Then it is replaced 10 months later.

Copy and paste? Ok.

"We are el reg". "We hate Microsoft". Check your facts. I've had the NoDo update on this phone since Monday. o2. HD7. It works fine. My gf is running Android. It's no better. No worse. IPhone? It is what it is. Mediocre when it arrives, wrapped up with a few bows and ribbons to make people think its solo hi-tech. Then it is replaced 10 months later.

[wraith404]

Wp7. =windows phail 7

All the negatives of ios and android rolled into one and drizzled with microsoft bloat and red tape

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: FFS. Enough already

P.s. My gf got her Sony X10 for Christmas - Christmas that was- as a present from me.

When I got this phone in March her comments were: "How come you always get the posh phones". I think that speaks for itself.