Why Windows Phone 8 is not a phone version of Windows 8 (RT)

By Jay Bennett
last updated

Over at Pocket Lint there is an interesting interview with Greg Sullivan, the Senior Product manager for Windows Phone detailing why Microsoft has decided to continue down the route of an entirely separate operating system for phones rather than using Windows RT.

Sullivan states that he believes that the phone is "unique enough to devote a specific effort... and differentiating that", going on to make comparisons to the most successful tablet on the market at this time:

"When I use an iPad I think it’s a really pleasurable experience, it’s a great consumption device, but I constantly run into guardrails. I want to connect a USB mass storage, oh I can't. I want to print to a printer other than the one Lexmark or whatever, I can't. I keep wanting to do things I can't do. I think it's primarily because of the fundamental strategy where they [Apple] took a phone OS and stretched it up to a tablet.""We are taking a PC OS and shrinking it down. We could have done the same thing, but it doesn't make sense. When we deliver Surface or any Windows 8 device, the Pro model will run every Windows app ever written. That think will run Visicalc 1.0 from 1981. I saw a demo. It's amazing. It's part of the promise.""They draw the line between the phone/tablet and the PC, and we are drawing the line between the PC/tablet and the phone."

Let's back up a little bit, and remember the differences between Windows 8 and Windows RT. Windows 8 is your full-fat, all inclusive, no compromise operating system which runs on the traditional x86 infrastructure. This means it can be installed on your existing or new systems built on an Intel or AMD processor (or something more exotic using the same instruction set)...

On the other hand Windows RT is designed to run on ARM devices like the Snapdragon in your current Windows Phone.

Consumers; thanks to Windows 8 using the existing architecture and supporting Win32 APIs it can run any application that currently works on existing Windows versions. Whereas Windows RT uses the new WinRT (Windows Runtime) programming model only, so Metro style apps will work, and that's all. Actually one minor exception there, the bundled Microsoft Office on Windows RT will run in a desktop environment.

For those of you tracking the Surface as your next tablet, Windows 8 is the version coming in the larger "pro" version which will be released 3 months after the first "RT" version which, you guessed it, will run Windows RT.

So, if it runs on ARM devices, Windows RT could theoretically be installed on a phone device.

Windows RT though is something of an unknown beast right now. No one outside of Microsoft has had a lot of time utilizing it (unlike the extensively distributed preview versions), and we really don't know how stable and usable it will be, and I for one, am glad to see it won't be fueling the Windows Phones of tomorrow.

Don't misunderstand me here, Windows 8 is a very exciting operating system, in fact this article is being composed on the release preview. The new metro interface is the same breath of fresh air many experience the first time the use Windows Phone 7, just a tad more familiar this many years later. However we don't know if Microsoft has got Windows RT right yet, we don't know if it will be a perfect tablet experience that is perfectly smooth, reliable, and able to compete on the incredibly fierce tablet market. Right now, Windows 8 has still got a few bugs to be ironed out as those trying the previews will have experienced, apps crash, the system can occasionally freeze up, and I have actually had a critical failure which forced me to re-install from scratch.

To my mind this kind of behaviour simply cannot occur on a phone. A phone absolutely must be reliable, I should never worry myself over what I'll find when I press the power button. Nor should I find myself performing a soft reset or pulling the battery on a regular basis. A phone should also be smooth, fast and not bogged-down with time and continued use. As it stands Windows Phone embodies stability compared to some of the other offerings right now, and Microsoft seem to understand that.

Of course, some degree of convergence between the two operating systems is a very good thing, particularly for both developers and end users when it comes to applications. We have mentioned in previous articles that Windows Phone 8 will use the WinPRT (windows phone runtime) programming model which is a subset of WinRT with a few Win32 and COM APIs available. This allows a lot of code to be shared between the platforms, providing developers with the tools to bring similar, but refined, experiences to both tablets and phones.

We'll leave you with one final quote from Greg Sullivan on the matter of convergence which re-iterates Microsoft's approach to their mobile platforms:

"Over time we will already, in Windows Phone 8, share more things like the architecture, and user experience level, and as I hinted that kind of convergence will mean it will make more sense to invest in our platform in the future."

Source: Pocket Lint

Jay Bennett
Jay Bennett
78 Comments
  • Nice article. Also, other than Microsoft office, desktop IE also works on Windows RT.
  • Also things like visual studio right? I'm hoping that sun quickly kicks out a java version for windows arm devices (i figure they will), then I can run eclipse on my surface. Ahhh, that'll be very nice.
  • No, Visual Studio will not work on Windows8 RT. You could remote into an x86 machine and run it from there though!
    To run VS from a Surface tablet, you'll need to get a Surface Pro with the x86 processor in it.
  • Woah, woah slow down there cowboy! Java, like flash, needs to die and it needs to die soon. Even adobe knows flash must die, but I don't think sun microsystems is done trying to beat their dead horse yet. Regardless, windows rt will probably never get Java unless they can convince Microsoft to embed it in the system (which they won't be able to do).
  • If you've ever written an app for Android (which I'm guessing you haven't) then you'd know Java is the primary language used to develop it's Activities and Intents. Thus Java won't be going away anytime soon.
  • Java is also one of the most used languages on the planet, and Sun were bought in January 2010, so your info is a little off.
  • Glad to see they aren't just slapping WP together like a cheap sandwich. I switched from blackberry and WP is by far the best OS i have ever used.
  • I think it's WinRTP (WinRT Portable), not WinPRT.
  • No, it's actualy called WinPRT.
  • Of course not. Microsoft have to hold something back so they can burn the windows phone 8 platform when windows phone 9 is released.
     
    But don't worry, their customers will assure themselves they weren't ripped off because it's a large change, after all Apples 4 year old iPhone 3 can't do everything a 4s can do! (Seems to be the common fanboy defence line at the moment).
  • The genius is in the room. Why don't you come up with a clear way this transition could have been done to bring everyone with a Windows Phone 7.x along for the ride and give them every single feature in Windows Phone 8? That's right, that's what I thought.
  • how about the fact that the iphone has never changed kernels and thus never had to worry about their older devices running at least current software that isnt hardware dependant?
    or maybe the fact that no matter what you do when you buy a phone you have to understand that your device may not be relevant in six months?
    am i mad about not getting WP8? yes
    Do i understand why i wont be getting? yes
    is the reason given a reasonable reason to not bitch about it? absolutely
    do i think they are going to release something in wp9 that wp8 may not get? yes
    Thats technology dude the only person here who sounds like their in denial of the truth is you. hardware becomes outdated fast. If by now that hasnt registered with you your probably in the wrong place. please dont spew your apple filth in here because the way i see it the only fanboy here is you....
    This is wpcentral not imore this is news about wp and msft and nok and all hardware oem partners for wp not apple... you like apples product better get an iphone and quit trying to convert people because your too stubborn to face the fact that people are happy with their products regardless of apollo...
  • +1, where is the like button when u need it
  • Thanks lol ill register that like in my head :D
  • Yea yea, wp7 devices do not run eufi bios and cannot run wp8 secure boot loader. Do I understand? Of course. is there a good chance I'll be switching from windows phone where my device is made irrelevant 4 months after launch back to iOS where I'll definitely get a good two years of support? Id have to be a blind Microsoft fanboy not to consider it. Windows phone doesn't even have a backup and restore feature! So not only is there the insult of having my device outdated quicker than android (when even 2.3 can run new apps) but I would have to set up a new phone from scratch? I have an iOS backup from May that would set up an iPhone 5 with all my apps including settings, system settings and sms history. Have you seen anything about 7.8 getting backup and restore? Because an uglier skin than 7.5 doesn't impress me, without this feature 7.8 is an even bigger insult to existing users.
  • Somebody ban this fool
  • Yea, better ban me because I say it like it is and don't apologise for rich multinational corporations using customers as cash cows while they plan to cut their support. Id better just be happy that WP7.8 will never see a Citrix client, or that Microsoft are keeping really quiet about smart glass on WP7.8 just like they kept real quiet about the Wp8 upgrade path. Please Microsoft, sell me a brand new phone 5 months after I bought your top of the line brand new device you just killed. I just want to shut up and give you my money without thinking about the process at all. There we go, that should make the fanboys happy. The most hillarious part of this entire thing has to by far be the smartphone beta tester ads. WP7 users were the ultimate smart phone beta testers.
  • So I see, when Apple change to Intel did they supported everything from their past or simply didn't care for their users? Yet W8 Pro will run apps all the way back to what was running in Windows 3.1, so changing WP8 to the same kernel means support for just a little bit more than your beloved "2" years. It means that in a close future I could run Excel 3.0 or apps from then on mi phone if I needed to, it is over "2" decades!
  • wow, not only do you not understand what WP8 is at all, but you don't even understand what WindowsRT is. Have fun trying to get your 2 decade apps to work in either haha. You'll soon find only x86 windows 8 pro is capable of that.
  • As i said before if you feel that the iphone is better then by all means get one dude no one is forcing you to deal with anything. i don't doubt that you like wp7.5/8, , or that you dont have valid points for why you feel that way. Heres the thing though there are 3 ecosystems for a reason, im well invested in microsoft and have no intentions of switching. im planning on getting a surface a wp8 a new xbox when released and i pay for multiple streaming services and am a heavy gamer. what your mad about isnt going to happen with every new software iteration of wp....it is only this one time for the time being. Though it wouldnt matter anyway because hardware limitations are the norm....IMHO and no disrespect to anyone but i use my phone primarily as a phone, an outlet to communicate with people and if you dont then thats you...im happy with my choice and i do not regret it. Ultimately at the end of the day man coming on here and laughing at people because they dont share similar feelings as you is as immature as someone asking you to be banned dont you think? I think we as a society have become lazy and expect everything in the world to be done for us by tech, and i have to be honest i wouldnt want the world to be that way.
  • You do realize that apple is worse in this regard, don't you? Hold your tongue before you belay any more foolishness. IOS never changed kernels, but apple pushes out irreversible updates that quite nearly bricks old devices, and not even a jailbreak can undo the damage or revert the update. At least our WP7.8 phones won't be crippled and forever useless like every iPhone before iPhone 3GS is (note that the 3GS lags and performs worse on the latest ios than older versions, but it's still useable at least... and I bet you the 3GS is going to be mutilated with the next major update)
  • lmao  But seriously, troll harder.
  • Or how about the og iPhone after two years of being released couldn't upgrade to IOS 4 thus hindering it from using apps that require 4.0 and higher? Or how about blackberry users receiving new devices this year only to get phased out by next year when bb10 comes out? Have.A.Seat.
  • Read what you just wrote again. "omg, apple cut support after 2 years, that's just as bad as Microsoft cutting support to brand new phones that have only been out for two months" You're the exact kind of blind fanboy I was talking about.
  • Because they want to introduce it in wp9 and wp8 won't get upgrade to it because hardware limitation. :P
  • I know you're kind of joking but such a comment is like saying the earth is flat--it sounds really dumb and makes non sense. There are no other kernels for MS to switch to for WP9, so there's no way this can happen. The point of WP8/NT is it is basically limitless for hardware (e.g. it can support up to 64 cores). MS couldn't do this 2 years ago simply put because Qualcomm and ARM processors did not support NT. MS had to port the whole platform and that was far from trivial. 
  • There was no kernel switch between Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 either.
    They'll find an excuse.
  • I don't really "get" this article. Windows Phone 8 IS Windows RT. Yea, it's stripped down and has a different shell/UI than the main Windows RT but it is still very much Windows RT. I'm not saying it will be buggy but your logic is flawed. If Windows RT is buggy (I don't think it will be) I would be shocked if WP8 is not buggy as well. The things that would make it buggy, mainly API or driver bugs, are shared between them both. Microsoft has done so much splitting over the last few years that practically the only things that can cause BSODs (aka kernel panics aka hard resets) are faulty kernel mode drivers which are relatively few and far between since they moved most drivers to user mode.
    So yea, this whole article really doesn't make much sense. I know they won't look or really behave the same but that top layer is hardly ever where bugs are. It's in the underpinnings. It would be a bug in the IE rendering engine, flawed design of the sensor API, terrible display drivers from NVidia, etc that would cause issues. Luckily I don't think any of this will be a problem for WP8 or WRT (believe Microsoft is writing all the ARM drivers themselves) so we should be good.
  • +1 on this. I have to say that the logic presented in the article is rather flawed. To say that prerelease builds of Windows 8 / RT have bugs and that's the reason it shouldn't be on a phone doesn't make a lot of sense. Nobody here has had the chance to play with prerelease builds of WP8, so what's to say that that doesn't have bugs either.
     
    Like the previous poster, I was also under the assumption that the WP8 kernel had a lot more in common with WinRT than WP7/WinCE.
     
    I can't say I disagree with where Microsoft drew the line, at least for now, however in the future as things begin to converge in the phone/tablet/desktop space I would have to think that if Microsoft were to do another WP reboot like this again it would be suicide. It would make sense that in order to avoid that the kernels between phone and tablet/desktop are more similar than they are different.
  • I second this. If you have ever opened an app created for an iPhone on an iPad, it offers a pretty poor experience since it cannot utilize the larger screen size. Imagine what a wp7 app would look like on a 60 inch monitor if it was not able to scale up. I say keep the markets separate but give the dev's some kind of incentive to port there apps over.
  • Agreed.  The author gives very poor reasoning for the separation.  "It might be buggy?" Really?
  • As you'll see if you re-read the article I was referencing experience with Windows 8 release preview. We believe that RT will be different, but my suggestion was that if the two share a lot of infrastructure we can't be certain
  • Looking forward to ALL my windows apps running on W8pro. Autocad (Older than 2007) Leica Goeoffice neither run on anything newer than XP. An expensive hidden cost of upgrading. Other than that blatant hyperbole from MSFT, good article and I am looking forwards to W8pro, Rt and Phone. Roll on the Autumn. It might even stop raining!
  • XP Mode mitigates the vast majority of these problems, to be fair.
  • XP mode or Virtual PC, I got Windows 3.11 and Excel 3.0 running actually.
  • so, this means the worse: we can look forward to another platform reset when they go windows 8/9 RT and whatever da heck apollo is gets ditched and your new device will get windows phone 8.9....again MSFT ....REALLY?
  • Just stop
  • That's not accurate at all, no.
  • Log off the internet
  • Gosh, even when I was an iPhone fan I never kept a device for much longer than a year. Since switching over to WP (Lumia 900), I've been nothing but happy and will certainly upgrade to WP8, 9 and beyond. I love getting new gadgets!
  • Most of us here do the exact same thing. I've has all 5 iPhones and all 3 ipads. Since switching to wp7 I've had the Samsung focus, the HD7, then the Titan, followed by the Titan II, and now the lumia 900.
  • +1 :)
  • Have you never heard of a contract? Nice for you if you can afford to blow all that money on a new phone every year, but most people can't do that.
  • I'm one of those people don't have deep pocket to changed phone everytime but I'm not whining like you.
  • Making a point is whining now?
  • Definitely agree with you.
     
    iPhone will definitely get a good two years, the length of most contracts in most countries.
     
    Android will get a slow two years if you buy top of the line, or maybe nothing if you buy bottom of the line. Either way any device newer than 2.3 can run most apps.
     
    Windows Phone had the Lumia launch in April this year. This is the flagship device, and will not get the upgrade to 8.0 in October. Absolutely rediculous for anyone locked into a two year contract on this soon to be outdated far too quickly phone. Yes I am aware of the fact that 8.0 can run 7.8 apps, but don't forget it doesn't work the other way around. If for example Citrix come out with an app do you really think after ignoring WP7 two years they'll release a 7.8 app that can run on WP8? Or would the far more likely result be them releasing a WindowsRT app that can scale down to WP8? Plenty of other apps are going to start appearing once it's all tied in with Windows 8 that WP7 users will never see. WP7 will always be a niche disregarded audience. I like the citrix example, because it squashes the "there are other apps that do the same thing" retort that usually comes after this argument.
  • If you buy an iPhone a few months before the new one is announced, you are not "good for two years," quite the opposite, you're only good for a few months. The moment Apple announces a new product they do their best to make last year's product look worthless so people camp out to buy the new one. They even restrict purely software, server side features such as Siri to the latest kit and don't even try to appease owners of older Apple hardware even when there is absolutely zero reason why it can't be available for them, they just don't want people to use their new features without buying new products and they never go out their way to clarify this fact.
    MS's announcement clearly explained the situation and, unlike Apple who just ignore existing users who don't want to buy new hardware, have clearly shown their continued support for existing customers with WP 7.8. They made the distinction very clear for people, unlike apple who announce iOS X.Y.Z for it's new device and act like everyone will have the exact same version when, in actuallity previous devices will get iOS X.Y.Z minus any features reliant on new hardware and minus any features Apple decides to arbitrarily hold back as a selling point for the new device.
    WP7.8 sounds just like that except, you know, they're coming clean about it from the start instead of letting the masses find out only when they can't use the shiny new headline feature of iOS X.Y.Z because it's disabled for their old device.
    Basically, MS are no worse than Apple when it comes to supporting old, existing devices, they're just more clear about it. We can all hold onto the reassuring thought that both are far better than Android, which has flagship devices which aren't receiving updates to ICS which google claimed "everything" at that level of hardware could be upgraded to and solve fragmentation, let alone be upgraded to the recently revealed Jelly Bean. When you look at that situation, MS and Apple are both benevolent deities to their customers.
  • Okay sicarus1234 you've gotta stop the hard troll stroll in here man. You keep saying that wp7 didn't get 2yrs before it's change to wp8, but your totally off for consumers like myself that came on board at launch with the HD7. People getting the Lumia series now will probably be cool with what they have for another year or so. If they were so concerned then they would be like us on a blog learning about wp8 and waiting for the fall to switch.
  • So I take it when you upgrade quickly you generally sell your previous device to make up some of the cost? iPhones have a pretty fantastic resale value really due to the fixed pricing model and the fact that they will see continued support.
     
    What do you expect for your 5 month old Lumia come October? $100? $50? Why would anyone want to buy your dead platform phone from you for good money when there will be thousands of them for sale and they will never receive a meaninful upgrade or be able to run new apps?
     
    Unless you are just generally terrible and careless with money, in which case none of this should bother you.
  • Oh man another incredibly dumb article. Windows Phone 8 code has almost nothing in common with WP7, so for all you know WP8 will be much more buggy and unreliable than Windows RT when it ships. Second of all you've never used Windows RT so your assumption that it could be very buggy and unreliable is completely unfounded. Both WP8 and Windows RT are brand new operating systems running on a modified version of the Windows NT kernel, so any assumptions regarding the ultimate reliability of these operating systems is idiotic. Finally I do not believe that the reason Microsoft drew this arbitrary line between phone and tablet has anything to do with capabilities. They did this because the Windows RT OEM license is considerably more expensive than the Windows Phone license.
     
    I think it is an extremely dumb move to not at least make Windows Phone apps in some way compatible with Windows RT machines. iOS and Android developers have the advantage of creating their apps once and having them available for download on all phones and tablets with that OS. Windows Phone 8 on the otherhand is stuck on an island by itself where only Windows phones can actually download its apps. Combine that with the fact that you're limited to only WP8 devices for new apps and you can see why making WP8 apps available on tablet and PC would have been a boon for Windows Phone developers. If all WP apps can scale from 480x800 to 1280x768 then surely they could have figured out a way to scale them appropriately to a Windows RT device.  
  • You make a couple of very valid points, Windows phone 8 is an equally unknown quantity in the same way as Windows RT is. I also agree that a shared marketplace between the phone system and the tablet system has a number of advantages that Microsoft will be missing out on. However, shared marketplaces also lead to poor experiences on whichever device is 'borrowing' from another, as any Android tablet owner will likely tell you. I believe that asking developers to adjust the experience slightly but keep most of the same core code has the potential to be the compromise to avoid having blown up phone UIs on a tablet.
  • Well I hope that it works out for Windows Phone 8. Perhaps the decision to silo apps for phone and tablet will result in better quality apps for both platforms. As a consumer it sucks that I have to buy the same app on phone and tablet twice and can't access purchases across all devices. As a developer it sucks to have to re-code anything, but I suppose it's of benefit to some to be able to sell their app twice to the same customers.
     
    I also feel as though the Windows Phone team is ahead of the Windows 8 team in some respects; and it may be beneficial to keep them independent from the Windows 8 team. The live tiles are more configurable on WP8 and include animations like dual sided flipping tiles. The tiles also obviously have more capabilities as we've seen from the turn-by-turn navigation tile coming to WP8. The VOIP integration and the voice search capabilities also standout as areas where WP8 is leading Windows 8. I sort of like the idea that Windows Phone is the tip of the spear for Microsoft innovation and that it's the platform to go to for what's coming next for Windows and Xbox.
     
    At the end of the day though I can't help but think what a compelling case Microsoft would have for developers if they combined their Xbox, PC, tablet, and phone userbase as a single code-once platform for developers. Maybe this isn't working out well for Google Android on the combined phone/tablet front, but Apple seems to have managed it well with iPad and iPhone. 
  • That is a very well thought out comment, which may I say was far more constructive (and pleasant to read) than the first announcing that the article was dumb. Your point about consumers potentially buying the same app twice is one of the most important issues with the model Microsoft is taking, a lot of people will expect to already own apps if they are picking up a tablet having already owned a phone (or vice versa). Whilst I believe the same divide exists between the Mac store and iOS (where it does not between WinRT and Windows 8), I would like to see Microsoft do something here, like allowing developers to link their apps to a Windows Phone version and perhaps offer a half priced version to people who already purchased the phone version of an app. It should be optional of course though, some developers would feel the additional work should merit a new purchase. To your last point, we are starting to get the impression that Microsoft is planning on bringing the WinRT model to Xbox, it is by no means confirmed but their aquisition of the "Xbox8" domain names does suggest such a thing could happen. However I'd like to see this as having lots of re-usable code but requiring some new development, rather than simply being able to run existing apps on the Xbox. Great input, thank you for getting involved in the discussion.
  • I think what this article (not the one on Pocket Lint) is saying is that the reason you don't want to run Windows RT on a phone, is that the phone is not a PC. (Assuming you accept that Microsoft's thesis that tablets are a species of ultra-portable PC).
     
    Greg Sullivan's comments in the Pocket Lint article make it pretty clear that what Microsoft is up to with Windows Phone 8 (WP8) is repeating the process they took with bringing Silverlight to Windows Phone 7 (WP7). They take the fundamentals of the Metro stack, but not the UI "shell" since that is designed for PCs (it prioritises landscape UI over portrait for example), and then build out WP8's environment on top of the common fundamentals. 
     
    I think this kind of conversation would be easier if we weren't saddled with the whole WinRT (development stack) vs Windows RT (Windows 8 on ARM) nonsense.
  • What I wanna know is, will windows rt on a surface have printer drivers like regular windows does so I can print wirelessly from it?
  • I guess what I'm asking is will windows rt on a surface have plug and play capabilities and to what degree?
  • Yes. Printers, USB mice/keyboards/etc, thumb drives, etc will all "just work" on Windows RT. Well I'm not certain about all printers but I think most will. That was one of the big things they showed off very early on when they first unveiled Windows on ARM (before even unveiling Windows 8).
  • I think you have said it all. I'VE ordered my Dell 23inch touch screen, I'll get my WP8 the day available then decide on the RT or wait for surface PRO. I'll never have another laptop but I'm all in with the windows ecosystem
  • hi from Greece. The way i see it the line that separates tablets and high-end smartphones gets thinner and more blurry every year. Is a 5.3 inch smartphone (eg galaxy note) a mini-tablet? is a 7 inch tablet with 3G a supersized smartphone?  I expect to see 5+ inch devices running wp8 and 7 inch devices running WindowsRT, less than 2 inches difference and you move to a different OS
  • I really hope we don't see any phones/tablets in the 5-7in range. I personally think 4.3in or so is about as big as you want to get. I've had a HTC TITAN, Samsung Focus, Lumia 900, and using a Galaxy Nexus at the moment and have come to this conclusion quite firmly. I just don't need/want a phone that's this big. Yea, having a large screen is nice but it's just unecessary. The Galaxy Note is just absurd. Tablets should be at least 7" as anything less is just pointless because you might as well just get a phone and a phone has to fit comfortably in your pocket. The usage scenarios between a tablet and phone are quite different and demand different app designs. It's something that Google just doesn't understand and it's why their tablet adoption has been so minimal. Will the Nexus 7 make a dent? Probably not being that it's only available online and I doubt Google will market it anywhere near the level that the iPad has. In addition to the fact that there's just no apps that have been optimized for the tablet experience.
  • "I personally think 4.3in or so is about as big as you want to get."
    I wonder, does your girlfriend agree? Sorry guys, I just had to. :P
  • @Nekzar: lmao :D
  • Mine is adjustable to any sizes. :-P
  • Samsung has sold over 7 millions Galaxy Notes. Nokia has sold a total of 2 million Lumias.
    Absurd or not, I guess there is a market for phone/tablet hybrid devices.
  • I love large screens, use Bluetooth headsets so as long as the phone fits into my pants pocket there is no such thing as too large. I'VE never understood how anyone can decide what's needed or acceptable without the willingness to explain why I should not have the option. The same seems to be an issue with Pureview because supposedly it's not thin enough. My only issues is it's not aWP8 device and it's $800.00
  • I agree 100%.
  • So does this mean people will stop calling it windows 8 phone (hopefully, that sounds so dumb), instead of it's proper name windows phone 8? ;)
  • LOL. I completely agree with Sicarius1234 - look how he has been flamed by the 10 year old ex-blackberry owners and arm-chair experts. This place promotes idiotic fools and typical forum trolls. Microsoft have fucked this platform and ALL current users - yet current owners are to blind to see it or rather admit it. Long live the iPhone.
  • I think the real problem we're finding is that WP7 was targetted at people who didn't yet have a smartphone, or couldn't handle current smartphones. These are the people who are "happy with what they have and can't see why we should expect an upgrade for free, I mean gee, I don't get a free car when the new model comes out." This is pretty obvious now with the way Microsoft and their partners have handled the upcoming upgrade, and the overwhelming apologist comments defending their actions.
     
    Then the few of us who were drawn in by the nice UI and promise of "xxx feature is coming" and "this should tie in with Windows 8 and Xbox in the future" were totally screwed over.
     
    To those who think Microsoft have treated you well, do you really think they only just decided that WP8 would not be an upgrade path for WP7 devices? Do you really think they haven't been working on a whole new ground up OS for over a year, while selling us devices they knew would be killed off?
  • you needa take a chill pill bro lol
  • Sad, but ^ this ^
  • Acualy the iPhone is a shrinked Mac with a phone UI. Also Apple does not people using filesytems but for powerusers they let them do what ever they want via jailbreak. 
  • Microsoft don't let you use the filesystem on Windows Phone without hacks either, what's your point?
  • So if instability is a potential issue, and the main argument for not enabling WRT to run phones, then why should I get a WRT device? I'll just be a guinea pig. I'll hold off until it's stable enough. By that time WP and WRT will be merged, and the main mobile OS from Msft.
  • Yes my point it we should be treating Windows RT as a brand new OS with uncertainty, at this point we all know how being an early adopter can turn out. I'll be going for one regardless because I like being an early adopter, gives you chance to get to know all the ins and outs, flaws and perfections
  • as far as performance is concerned, microsoft should not have much of a problem. Microsoft has experience in both hardware and software. Google still doesn't have it right: Jelly Bean is still behind the iPhone and Windows phone matches Jelly Bean in smooth despite running on Single Core CPU.
  • Um, take from a Lumia 900 convert to a Galaxy Nexus - the Galaxy Nexus is SMOOTHER than WP7 on my Lumia - even more so with Jelly Bean.  Especially in third party apps.  I've been running Jelly Bean for a while, and everything is so very smooth.  Facebook, or many third party apps - they are brilliantly smooth.  On my Lumia - they were as choppy as hell.  WP7 is smooth - smoother than any gingerbread phone, but not better than Google's latest effort.
  • Here's why this is, again, crap thinking on Microsoft's part.  I'm a windows phone user, and an RT user. I should have to buy the same applies twice? It stinks of a money grab. People are signing on to the new Windows gear partly as a leap of faith. Don't gouge them for that.
    If they want to stick to their original argument,  fine. But when I buy an app, package it with the metro (or whatever the hell theiir calling it) equivalent.  The apps are already WAY over priced in the store. Don't ask me for a second pay out.