News that shouldn't be: Microsoft ending support for Windows Phone 7.8
This is another one of those items that has been popping up a lot in Google lately that really makes me scratch my head and wonder just what e-journalists are smoking when they think that these things are newsworthy.
Microsoft announced (long ago) that it would, and when it would end support for Windows Phone 7.8. And I wrote an article at the time as well. Everyone was jumping on board, some foolishly misunderstanding and thinking it meant MS was abandoning WP altogether. The reality is much more boring than that. MS was simply following the same sort of policies it uses for Windows and a practice which simply doesn't exist amongst their competitors.
Apple and Google absolutely sunset support for prior OS's. They simply make no public commitment on the form that support takes or when it will end. Arguably, none of these companies (including Microsoft) ever do a thing for any of their prior versions, ever.
I had a Lumia 800 lying around for the longest time. Do you know how many updates I got after I updated to 7.8? 0. Do you know how many updates my 1st gen iPad got after once it couldn't update to the latest major version of iOS? 0. Do you know how many times I've heard of a prior version of Android being patched? 0.
So seriously. How is this news at all? To any one? Support for mobile OS's comes in one form and one form only; Staying up to date on the latest version of the OS. The second your device is no longer eligible for such an upgrade is effectively when support ends. Has anyone experienced anything different? Anywhere? To me that isn't technically support at all. There is no such thing as a hotfix. And when bugs are patched, they aren't retroactively patched into prior versions.
When Microsoft closes a vulnerability in Windows 8, there is a fair chance that the patch will make it into Windows 7 and Vista as well. That is a perfect example of a prior version of an OS continuing to be supported after a newer version is released.
By contrast, when a bug/vulnerability is patched in Windows Phone 8.1 it isn't also applied to WP8.0 devices or WP7.8 devices. WP7.8 devices are screwed. WP8.0 "resolve" things by upgrading to WP8.1. The same goes for Android and iOS. Google, as far as I can tell, doesn't provide patches for anything but the current version. Neither does Apple. If you can't get onto the latest version, you simply can't get any fixes.
Which makes this news even less newsworthy than it was to begin with. Support for Windows Phone 7.8 effectively ended the second WP8 was made generally available. And the same goes for iOS and Android.
Sure, support can encompass other things as well. Like providing assistance with the software. But to my knowledge, there were no such services for any of those mobile OS's anyway. And the articles are all focusing on bug fixes and vulnerabilities anyway.
The way they talk about support expiring you'd have thought that Windows Phone 7.8 users were receiving regular "patch Tuesday" updates and people would be suddenly left in a strange and unfamiliar world where Microsoft's warming, bug eliminating embrace has been removed.
The reality. Nothing has changed. Except on paper.
Microsoft announced (long ago) that it would, and when it would end support for Windows Phone 7.8. And I wrote an article at the time as well. Everyone was jumping on board, some foolishly misunderstanding and thinking it meant MS was abandoning WP altogether. The reality is much more boring than that. MS was simply following the same sort of policies it uses for Windows and a practice which simply doesn't exist amongst their competitors.
Apple and Google absolutely sunset support for prior OS's. They simply make no public commitment on the form that support takes or when it will end. Arguably, none of these companies (including Microsoft) ever do a thing for any of their prior versions, ever.
I had a Lumia 800 lying around for the longest time. Do you know how many updates I got after I updated to 7.8? 0. Do you know how many updates my 1st gen iPad got after once it couldn't update to the latest major version of iOS? 0. Do you know how many times I've heard of a prior version of Android being patched? 0.
So seriously. How is this news at all? To any one? Support for mobile OS's comes in one form and one form only; Staying up to date on the latest version of the OS. The second your device is no longer eligible for such an upgrade is effectively when support ends. Has anyone experienced anything different? Anywhere? To me that isn't technically support at all. There is no such thing as a hotfix. And when bugs are patched, they aren't retroactively patched into prior versions.
When Microsoft closes a vulnerability in Windows 8, there is a fair chance that the patch will make it into Windows 7 and Vista as well. That is a perfect example of a prior version of an OS continuing to be supported after a newer version is released.
By contrast, when a bug/vulnerability is patched in Windows Phone 8.1 it isn't also applied to WP8.0 devices or WP7.8 devices. WP7.8 devices are screwed. WP8.0 "resolve" things by upgrading to WP8.1. The same goes for Android and iOS. Google, as far as I can tell, doesn't provide patches for anything but the current version. Neither does Apple. If you can't get onto the latest version, you simply can't get any fixes.
Which makes this news even less newsworthy than it was to begin with. Support for Windows Phone 7.8 effectively ended the second WP8 was made generally available. And the same goes for iOS and Android.
Sure, support can encompass other things as well. Like providing assistance with the software. But to my knowledge, there were no such services for any of those mobile OS's anyway. And the articles are all focusing on bug fixes and vulnerabilities anyway.
The way they talk about support expiring you'd have thought that Windows Phone 7.8 users were receiving regular "patch Tuesday" updates and people would be suddenly left in a strange and unfamiliar world where Microsoft's warming, bug eliminating embrace has been removed.
The reality. Nothing has changed. Except on paper.
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