Are you licking your lips reading the list of all the new features in Windows Phone 8? You better be. Microsoft has a fantastic OS on their hands that can finally challenge the mighty iOS and Android. Are you also a current Windows Phone 7 user with the latest phone? Bad news for you. Microsoft has made official the worst fears of anyone who recently bought a Windows Phone 7, which includes the Lumia and Titan range. None of the current phones will be getting Windows Phone 8. Instead they will get Windows Phone 7.8. What is 7.8 and how does it differ from Windows Phone 8?
Windows Phone 7.8 is essentially Windows Phone 7 with the new start screen. This means current generation WP7 users will be able to resize and restack the live tiles just as the new WP8 users will be. You also get more theme colors. Other than that everything from Windows Phone 7 has remained unchanged.
It’s understandable if you’re a recent buyer of the latest and greatest Windows Phone 7 and are more than a little unhappy to know your phone is already outdated. What Microsoft has also done is to effectively kill of any current Windows Phone sales. It makes no sense at all to purchase a Windows Phone right now knowing that it wont be getting WP8 later this year.
Such is the brutality of innovation at blistering pace. Some people will get left behind. Windows Phone 7 hardware is just not fast enough to run Windows Phone 8. As mentioned before, this is not an incremental update, it’s a massive overhaul and with it it will need the most up to date hardware. Microsoft could have made WP8 available for WP7 phones but that would have compromised performance, which totally goes against what Windows Phone stands for.
The question on everyones mind right now should be, will apps for WP8 work on WP7 phones? Will this fragment the marketplace?
