Two days after Microsoft spokesperson Nuno Silva was quoted as stating that all Windows Phone 7 devices would be updated to Windows Phone 8, which touched off a flurry of speculation on whether or not the update would indeed arrive or force yet another hardware upgrade, Silva has since clarified his statement to emphasize that Windows Phone 7 apps would be compatible with 8/Apollo, but stopped short of confirming whether the update would be sent to Windows Phone 7 devices.
As Windows Phone 7 is currently riding on the success of the Nokia Lumia series, the previous statements and anonymous sourcing that led to the initial confusion came at the worst time for the initiative, as Nokia is cuurently completing its exchange program for the recently launched Lumia 900, which launched with data connectivity and memory management issues, which led AT&T and Nokia to rush out a fix rolled out in two days and forced Nokia to offer an $100 rebate for two weeks, in effect making all new Lumia 900 sales free after new agreement as an apology to customers affected by the issues and to existing customers that felt slighted by the better deal that new AT&T customers got compared to customers that upgraded, who still had to pay out of pocket depending on the storefront from which the phone was purchased as a qualified upgrade.
Silva’s statement, translated from the original Portuguese is found below:
I recently participated in an interview with the Portuguese website Zwame, where I made some comments on the future of Windows Phone that created confusion. Rumors are swirling, so I feel the need to clarify my statements.
The point I was attempting to make was simply that existing Windows Phone applications will run on the next version of Windows Phone. This is the same guidance that Microsoft shared late last year.
I mistakenly confused app compatibility with phone updateability, which caused the rumors we saw yesterday. I did not intend to give the impression I was offering new guidance on any products under development or their upgradeability.
While we have given Windows Phone developers this preliminary guidance on app compatibility to help them with long term project planning, Microsoft does not have any further news to share on future products at this time.
As always, you can tell I am very excited about Windows Phone and I hope you are too! 🙂
