A report by Wirtschafts Woche, the German version of Business Week, supports earlier rumours that current Windows Phone 7.x devices will not be upgraded to Windows Phone 8 (Apollo). According to its Microsoft and Nokia sources, these devices will instead receive a “feature update” likely to be known as Windows Phone 7.6 or 7.7.
This update will consist of the majority of Windows Phone 8 features. Microsoft’s thinking is that customers will not care about the OS version number as long as they have the same functionality on their devices.
The report provides an explanation as to why current Windows Phone devices will not be upgradeable. Windows Phone 8 will use a stripped down version of the Windows 8 kernel whereas Windows Phone 7.x uses a version of the Windows CE kernel. Windows Phone 8 will also have higher system requirements.
What do you think? Is this a good compromise?
Read more: Wirtschafts Woche (in German) [Google translation] (Source: WMPoweruser)