Over at the site Reddit, tipster MS_Nerd did an AMA (Ask me anything) where he took questions from fellow Redditors. Specifically, he was talking about Windows Phone news and what's coming down the line.
We should point out that MS_Nerd has a spotty record on these things. First, he claimed that "Tango" would come with a 480x320 resolution which obviously it is not. He also noted that there was a "Tango 2" release that would come at MIX12, where also "Apollo" would be announced. Two things wrong with that one: there's no Tango 2 and MIX12 was canceled, so it'd be odd for the Windows Phone team to make a huge announcement there. Finally there was the "Zune Pass will slowly be merged with Xbox Live Gold" from May 2011, which surely hasn't happened yet either.
Point being, take this with a grain of salt as his accuracy is mixed at best. We'd hardly call him "reliable" as some sites have.
What MS_Nerd did reveal was that supposedly all Windows Phones will be eligible for Windows Phone 8 aka "Apollo" but that the carriers, as usual, will be the biggest roadblock. He also emphasized Nokia's role in hardware development:
"Yes, all current Windows Phones will receive a subset of Apollo. The carriers are the primary obstacle in the US. I hear Microsoft is pushing hard for a Mango-like delivery schedule, as are Nokia & HTC. Some Apollo features will be exclusive to the 3rd-gen devices expected to be released this fall on the MSM8960 platform."
"Nokia's role is in defining chipset support (beyond Qualcomm), designing the camera-to-software interaction model, antenna & battery design, languages & regional services, etc."
In response, we'll just say even Microsoft has dodged this issue lately, leading us to believe that this is not so cut and dry. In fact, Microsoft's Myerson was purposefully guileful on this very topic. Second, we have it from our own internal sources that no, not every phone will get Apollo, in fact it's the opposite: only new hardware will have it on board. Fact is, if this was a simple as MS_Nerd has us believe, we'd imagine Microsoft would just come out and say it.
Conclusion? This is far from set in stone as evidenced by the posting of contradictory rumors by many Windows Phone sites (who seem to revel in these rumors without acknowledging how contradictory they are). While we want to believe that all our phones will get upgraded, there is nothing, absolutely nothing solid here folks. So our advice: sit back and wait for Microsoft to say something on the record or wait for some real proof, otherwise we'll be going back and forth on this topic for quite some time.
Source: Reddit; via PhonaArena, WMPU; WP8 concept image: Jozef Kocúr; Thanks, Vernon S., for the tip
