Windows Phone 7 Not Backwards Compatible

[exfileme]

Not only will Windows 7 Phone require an entirely new device, it won't run previous Windows Mobile apps.

Windows Phone 7 Not Backwards Compatible : Read more

 

[Shadow703793]

Not only will Windows 7 Phone require an entirely new device, it won't run previous Windows Mobile apps.

Why do I have the feeling that this is not a good idea....

 

[superblahman123]

This doesn't surprise me at all. Business 101: If you want to make a game changer, you may have to change the game. ;-)

 

[alextheblue]

"Sounds like Vista all over again."

You just couldn't help yourself, could you? No backwards compatibility, specific hardware requirements? Doesn't sound like Vista at all. Sounds a lot more like Zune's OS, only better.

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]Shadow703793[/nom]Why do I have the feeling that this is not a good idea....[/citation]What killer must-have apps are on current WinMo phones that people can't live without? Is backwards compatibility with previous versions 5 and 6 worth it, if you end up with something bloated with old crappy code?

 

[rpmrush]

I like it Vista made RAM super cheap and spurred higher spec hardware. Hopefully this will get the phone hardware higher in spec and then they'll release a lighter weight version (just like Windows 7) and it'll run even faster on the faster hardware.

 

[war2k9]

I am so happy that microsoft did away winmo 6.x and earlier. Winmo 6.x and earlier is junk.

 

[Shadow703793]

[citation][nom]AlexTheBlue[/nom]What killer must-have apps are on current WinMo phones that people can't live without? Is backwards compatibility with previous versions 5 and 6 worth it, if you end up with something bloated with old crappy code?[/citation]
Don't know. However businesses already using WinMo 6.x may feel so otherwise.

 

[jackleung]

[citation][nom]AlexTheBlue[/nom]What killer must-have apps are on current WinMo phones that people can't live without? Is backwards compatibility with previous versions 5 and 6 worth it, if you end up with something bloated with old crappy code?[/citation]At least many of my GPS softwares (Igo8, Garmin Mobile XT, iGuidance) are worth it to make me stick w/ WM6.x if WM7 not backward compatible with them. MS's move seems to hurting sales of current 6.x devices and upcoming WM7 series.

 

[cadder]

Does this mean they start over with a base of 0 apps? Doesn't sound like a good deal to me. There are lots of apps still available for older WM phones and even the older PocketPC's. I run some of these on my Samsung WM phone.

I hope MS is releasing a real good SDK real soon, so developers have some time to convert their apps before the phones hit the market. I've tried to write apps for my old WM and PPC devices but never could find a SDK that was worthy of use. The iphone and even the android phones all seem to have pretty good SDK's available.

 

[doc70]

The specs of HTC HD2 are pretty advanced, so I can not imagine that phone not being able to run WM7 . WTF?......
Will I need a laptop for that? Even so, those specs are pretty much better than a 3 year old laptop.

 

[zoemayne]

The need to get a clean break with internet explorer make a browser from scratch maybe also keep IE around also. Probably develop it in the same language firefox is developed in. Cause its no good if it did not come installed default it would be the least used browser no doubt.

 

[nawat]

I just hope that the phone will not be restrictive. Given that one can write a game for free using XNA Game Studio and Visual Studio Express, if he is allowed to distribute the game freely, wouldn't that be interesting?

 

[ashrafpasha]

Win 7 is new.. how many ppl really used to upgrade the OS on their mobile? have any one even bothered to remember how the prev versions of Win M OS used to look like? so lets take it as a welcome change. App dev will continue to port and support their applications on win 6.5 Mobile os as well.

 

[techguy378]

No backwards compatibility? This is the greatest thing that could happen to Windows Mobile. I only hope something like this will happen in Windows 8 for the desktop. If Microsoft can make Windows XP mode as good as Mac OS 9 compatibility mode was on PowerPC Mac's then nobody will need any additional backwards compatibility.

Anyways, back on topic. WM 6.5.x and earlier versions were very unstable. The amount of "illegal operation" messages were equal to the amount of GPF's I got in Windows 3.0. WM 6.5.x and earlier also ran very slow even on the best hardware. On HTC's Fuze phone WM 6.1 Pro took forever to turn on the 3G radio so I could make phone calls. I frequently got a "waiting for modem" message and had to reboot several times to get the phone part working.

 

[nebun]

why go backwards? the future is forward

 

[blackened144]

[citation][nom]doc70[/nom]The specs of HTC HD2 are pretty advanced, so I can not imagine that phone not being able to run WM7 . WTF?[/citation]
Unless there is something that physically stops it from installing, then it may still work.. If anyone can get it to work it would be the guys at xda-developers.com.. Before I got my iPhone 2 years ago, I got everything I needed to hack my last few WinMo phones there..

 

[LePhuronn]

Now all we need is for MS to do this with their OS

 

[jenesuispasbavard]

This will force manufacturers to move up in hardware specs on phones. Ever compared Japan's phones to the rest of the world's?

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]jenesuispasbavard[/nom]This will force manufacturers to move up in hardware specs on phones. Ever compared Japan's phones to the rest of the world's?[/citation]

I agree. Kudos to M$ for this. Up until recently our most powerful smartphones have been stuck on the same damn 528 MHZ and 256 MB of RAM.