Bill, "There's a huge difference between current models which are being actively advertised compared to models released well over two years ago"
No there actually isn't. IT'S THE SAME HARDWARE. The only "difference" is a bump in processor, the processors that have been approved for 7.* are STILL 2+ years old, 42nm manufacturing processes. They're the "same". Just because Nokia released a Lumia 900 this year doesn't mean the internals are "new" :) -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill McCarthy Sent: Thursday, 28 June 2012 1:58 PM To: 'ozDotNet' Subject: RE: Windows Phone 8 announced Hi Chris, I think you'd have to go from the date of first general availability in the country. What they should avoid is their phone partners releasing products as new only to be obsolete within months. As to the HTC Mozart, that's well over 24 months old now. Telstra stopped selling them online last year sometime; I recall clearly there were no WP phones available online from Telstra late last year. My mozart is sitting in a draw somewhere and I don't expect that to be upgraded now and I doubt anyone would. There's a huge difference between current models which are being actively advertised compared to models released well over two years ago. (oh and it did come with a 24 month warranty from Telstra, FWIW ;) ). |-----Original Message----- |From: [email protected] [mailto:ozdotnet- |[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chris Walsh |Sent: Thursday, 28 June 2012 1:29 PM |To: ozDotNet |Subject: RE: Windows Phone 8 announced | |Bill, | |" I wouldn't expect updates to be provided to all phones, but the most current |ones" | |Where do you draw the line? The HTC Mozart is still available in some Telstra |stores. So the end-user their 1st generation HTC Mozart is "new". At |the end of |the day, there is NO difference between 1st & 2nd gen handsets, some |have newer procs and a gyro but the hardware is the "same". | |As for pro-rataed discounts, good luck getting one apart from AT&T. | |Just because you bought a phone that seems "new" doesn't mean it is, |nor does |the maker of the OS or the hardware have to do anything for you apart |from validate the warranty. | | |-----Original Message----- |From: [email protected] [mailto:ozdotnet- |[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill McCarthy |Sent: Thursday, 28 June 2012 12:08 PM |To: 'ozDotNet' |Subject: RE: Windows Phone 8 announced | |Ian & Chris, | |I hadn't responded to the second part of Chris's post yet as I wanted |to first |establish that the ACCC warning telcos to provide warranty the same as |the devices contracts is not "bullhonky", but is a fact. The only one |that doesn't still is |Telstra with iPhone, at least judging from this article. |But as they note they'd be had pressed if it was legally challenged: |http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/iphone/the-wisdom-of-warranty- |20120328 |-1vx3y.html | |Regarding the updates, the Windows Phone update process is complex |across all |regions/telcos. This applies equally to the 7.8 update that's being |rolled out. Also |note Nokia is also provided a firmware update as well. |The new devices do not need to have secure boot, just like laptops & tablets do |not require secure boot to run windows 8. The issue about losing all |your apps |and data is a real one, the same issue that applies when you have to |reset your |device. | |I wouldn't expect updates to be provided to all phones, but the most current |ones, especially the ones that Microsoft and the handset makers have |been promoting heavily. Eg HTC Titan, Lumias etc. If they find it too |costly then |perhaps they should offer a pro-rata discount off updating when they release |their WP8 phone. Because Microsoft built a complex ecosystem with |multiple device manufactures and multiple telcos, doesn't mean the |consumer should have to pay every time MS feels they need to adjust direction. | | | ||-----Original Message----- ||From: [email protected] [mailto:ozdotnet- ||[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ian Thomas ||Sent: Thursday, 28 June 2012 11:44 AM ||To: 'ozDotNet' ||Subject: RE: Windows Phone 8 announced || ||Chris || ||That is the most informative response I have seen - I (for one) ||appreciate |it. You ||have described what I suspected were the technical problems behind the ||decisions on WP8's new start in the smartphone business. || ||Bill McCarthy obviously (imo) has some valid arguments about the ||evolution |of ||WP since mid-2011 Mango timeframe, and compares Apple's / Google's ||upgrade planning. What happens will happen. I'd like to WP8 succeed. || ||A few weeks ago I inferred that I thought the Lumia 900 was an advance ||on |the ||800, but still underpowered and had less than optimum screen ||resolution |(or, at ||least I think I did; I haven't looked for the evidence). Bill McC who ||owns |a Lumia ||800 mildly chastised me, rightly pointing out that it was better than ||the |desktop ||screens (RGB, etc) that we had a few years back. But I hate these ||small |screens ||with inadequate resolution for my eyesight. || ||And the trivial "apps" - lumping phone + tablet together here. If I ||want |info from ||IMDB on a movie or its participants, I don't want a summary of this ||week's |box ||office successes, and other superficial fast food approaches to data ||or |opinion. ||Admittedly I've seen less than a hundred iPad apps, but enough for me ||to be unimpressed by the median quality of the other 250K that are available. || ||Actually - and hindsight is a great convenience if not a wonderful ||thing - |I've had ||the lingering discomfort that all of the WP hardware used by the |manufacturers ||of Windows Phones has been lagging or lacking. But that depends on ||what you want in a smartphone, of course. || ||I don't really know what I want in one - I use my non-smart mobile ||phone |for ||voice and SMS only (and not for data), and really dislike my Sony ||Ericsson |W508a ||(freed from Telstra but with its highly-modified menus and links to ||useless |stuff. ||And it PC to phone software is the worst I have encountered. || ||But when a decent Windows Phone catches my imagination, I might buy ||and use it. Maybe I want a tablet/slate instead? I'm attracted to the ||Windows |Surface as ||a tablet<--> PC, add Skype, and maybe I would dump my mobile account |entirely. || ||________________________________ ||Ian Thomas ||Victoria Park, Western Australia || ||-----Original Message----- ||From: [email protected] [mailto:ozdotnet- ||[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chris Walsh ||Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 7:22 AM ||To: ozDotNet ||Subject: RE: Windows Phone 8 announced || ||Bill, || ||"I'm pretty sure the ACCC told telcos they had to warranty devices for ||the |length ||of the contracts" || ||Complete bullhonky there mate. Telco's can have whatever length of |contract ||they like, the Hardware warranty isn't anything they can control. You ||can |pay ||extra to the telco and NOT get a 24month play, you get the luck of the ||draw getting a phone on contract. The ACCC tried to enforce it, but ||the ACCC |didn't ||have a leg to stand on. || ||As for the commentary on whether 1st & 2nd gen handsets would get the |update, ||let's have a discussion about this. || ||Take a step back and look at your Lumia 800/900 "new" device for a minute. ||The silicon running that device is 2+ years old, single core, no ||expandable memory, 16GB of flash, with 512MB of RAM. || ||As for the reason why existing devices couldn't be upgraded, you only ||need |to ||look at the "Shared Core" features to realise that WP8 Core has been |"re-written" ||from the ground up. Basically putting existing gen 1 & gen 2 device ||manufacturers & Microsoft in a position, where they need to create new ||bootloaders to support "Secure Boot" & bitlocker encryption, even if ||they |could ||magically do that, they've then got to repartition the NAND which ||stores |the OS, ||RIL firmware, and even the separate update partition. Try bundling ||that up |into ||an update and pushing it out to existing devices. ||Short answer is you can't. To repartition the NAND you need to supply ||a complete device image (FFU), inside the FFU the partition maps are ||picked |up by ||"updatewp" aka Zune and your device is repartitioned ready for the update. |One ||little tidbit, you've just lost your ENTIRE OS image, data, SMS ||messages |and the ||Plants vs Zombie saved games you were hanging onto because you'd ||gotten |past ||the first level. And we all know that you can't backup anything with ||WP7+ |devices ||:) || ||Now that you've got a device image, you have one, there are 15+ ||devices out there, each device has the possibility of having a ||DIFFERENT image for each Mobile Operator, with 300+ MO's out there, ||you are looking at creating |4500+ ||complete device images. Do you have any idea how long it takes to ||create complete device images? Even once you've created one, the MO ||needs to TEST the image, they find an issue, it's sent back to the ||handset maker to fix, |if it's ||Microsoft issue, then it goes back up the chain to fix a core issue, ||then |another ||image is created, and you repeat the process, over & over & over again. || ||Miraculously the MO's have tested and approved the update, you have to |cross ||your fingers, legs, toes & basically anything else when the END USERS ||are performing a COMPLETE device re-flash. If there was one little ||stuff up, |the user ||failed to download the update correctly, user was updating his/her ||device |with a ||shitty 3rd party microUSB cable, they've now got a brick, a brick that |can't be ||recovered. The only possibility of a recover is if they didn't stuff ||up |the ||bootloader flash, which is generally the first thing that gets ||flashed, |which if ||something was to go wrong, is the first thing to break. Even having ||the |ability to ||JTAG a device, it won't recover it (if you are lucky to have a device ||that |it's JTAG ||isn't locked). || ||Now, you've got a bricked device, that's out of warranty, but bricked |because ||Microsoft & the Handset manufacturers decided to push down an update, ||even though you ticked a million boxes saying updating it was your ||fault, the |end user ||still has a whinge, complains to 10+ people about shitty company X & Y |because ||they bricked their phone, they'll also complain to the MO and most ||likely |move to ||another carrier. If the update was somehow successful, how many ||people was that end user tell and phrase Microsoft to? ||Your answer is 1-2. But you are still going to whinge about losing ||your |Plants vs ||Zombie game saves! || ||Now you've got a commercial issue which is really a cluster f**k of a |decision and ||I've got no idea on how they make those. || ||Make sense? || || ||-----Original Message----- ||From: [email protected] [mailto:ozdotnet- ||[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill McCarthy ||Sent: Wednesday, 27 June 2012 9:13 PM ||To: 'ozDotNet' ||Subject: RE: Windows Phone 8 announced || ||Hi Stephen, || ||Yes phones will be out of date, the question is whether it is months ||or |years. In ||Australia, typical contracts are 24 months, and I'm pretty sure the ||ACCC |told ||telcos they had to warranty devices for the length of the contracts. ||So two |years ||is fair to expect to be a current lifetime; obviously there will be |hardware ||improvements in that time, but the software and apps available you'd |reasonably ||expect to be current. Apple deal with that by controlling the release ||dates |of ||devices to a new device a year and OS support roughly of +1: hence you ||can |be ||sure to get two years of being current. Android has been all over the |place, but ||the big players such as Samsung are also moving to give that period of |currency ||by providing OS updates (eg Galaxy II). For Windows Phone there isn't |that. || ||Personally the thing about this I dislike the most is not the fate of ||my |own phone ||(I do like my lumia), but that I can no longer recommend to people ||they |currently ||buy a windows phone. This is the real shame. It'd be a lot better if ||people |could ||upgrade: would probably still be worth waiting for the newer devices ||for |NFC. ||The sooner they get the new devices out the better. | | |
