As Nokia have chosen to not release the sales figures for either the n9 or lumias, this argument is null and void.

Not too sure about the n900s numbers though.

The situation is a wee bit different - those are missing from MeeGo (well, Unity3D was ported for MeeGo Harmattan, remember that Samurai game?) and Maemo not due to the inability for those platforms to support such, but due to way too small user base for Adobe/Unity/others to bother with. On WP 7.5/7.8/whatever-they-want-to-call-it no matter of the user base those cannot be supported on a system level - least Adobe wants to build a LLVM compiler that will spew .NET bytecode (and even then, it's questionable if the full feature set can be supported / used without specific run through VS to 'enrich' it with MS certificates and what-have-you) or Unity to implement it fully in XNA (which they cannot, that's why you can't really use Unity for Xbox games as well, unless you are AAA developer where Microsoft allows you native, direct access).

Both Adobe and Unity, and countless of others (including my own company) that provide some toolkits/libraries for cross-platform development will now be able to painlessly bring their solutions to the WP8 without running through loops n' bounds and restricting feature sets to fit in the tight requirements of WP7.x. That means that developers who utilize those 3rd party libraries/toolkits/whatever won't be able to target the WP7.x users so, while the WP8.x users will be getting those new apps and features, WP7.x users won't.

And that's the main problem that, I think, Cue was explaining. That's called fragmentation, a word used way too many times by MS shills to describe the perils of Android - isn't it ironic when it turns out and bites them in the arse? Since WP already has quite a number of .NET-based, WP7.x compatible apps, the next surge of apps for the WP platform will be coming from game developers that are eager to port their games easily and effortlessly (before, even if your game was XNA-based, the XNA for WP differed too much to be practical for back-porting to WP any moderately complex game) and application publishers who either utilize toolkits like Adobe AIR, Unity3D and the like; or write their apps in C/C++ so they can easily target all other platforms. Both of those won't be available for the WP7.x users so they'll be missing quite a lot - they are also too small of a user base, as well as Maemo/MeeGo, for companies to cater to their needs by writing apps from scratch just for them - they'll just ignore that market and that's it.

Think of it like this - BBC, when they launch their iPlayer for the WP, will most probably just use their shared code base to create close-to-native app for the WP8.x, and they'll apologize to the users of WP7.x by saying that it's way too complex/expensive to cover their needs as well. So, WP7.x users just got royally screwed, and the funniest bit is that Microsoft (and the apologists) are explaining that WP7.x won't be supporting native code because it's related to hardware (yes, they said that a ton of times!, as if app layer has to do anything with the hardware). Oh, well, as long as people are drinking the Microsoft Kool-Aid... Come fall, a different song will be sang by those way too enamored with WP and their precioussssses to see the harsh reality...

HTC closes operations here (Brazil)

HTC was the Brazilian market offering devices with Windows Phone, but today announced the cessation of operations due to "no acceptance" of the operating system and weak sales.

because they are legacy/dead platforms too. * quickly runs away*

No but honestly they are to most commercial entities. One silver lining they have though; at least they are open in comparison to WP7 and I don't mean open source, I know there are binary blobs, I mean at least you can freely develop apps and side load apps so community made apps will still flourish and distribute better.

It was still iOS 5 though it missed some things, if you think that is not going to happen with first gen WP8 phones in future then you have too much faith. WP7.8 is not it's the most severe type of fragmentation.

Android did this already, it was called the "Android Update Alliance"

From here:
http://www.carrypad.com/2011/05/12/g...ts-about-time/

And they did but it doesn't mean it would be a simultaneous release without delay. Doesn't mean your WP8 updates would not be delayed. It's the exact same promise of Android.

What you are referring to is a simultaneous update rollout. MS promised a simultaneous update rollout with WP7, it never kept it either. The carriers blamed MS and MS blamed carriers in the end. It was also partly why OTA updates did not exist on WP7. MS have made no such promise for WP8 now.

Potatoes, potatoes. I am no WP7/8 sympathizer, but all of these OS makers do the same thing, and everyone gets upset, there is no pleasing anyone. I was not talking about simulataneous update rollout, I was talking just simple firmware/software updates, which are 'guarenteed', yes, grain of salt, as with all companies...and I'm sure there will be blame around to carriers and OEMs when/if the updates are not on time, like Samsung and Motorola with their constantly delayed updates for Android.

What people do not understand is that Windows 7 is built off of Windows CE, which CAN NOT be changed over to Windows 8 platform due to incompatibilities on the embedded level itself...this is why 7.8 will just have some aspects of 8, just like iOS 5 for 3gs, etc...MSFT wanted same embeddment on all devices...this will be difficult though due to RTS, Pro, etc already showing some fragmentation that MSFT denies will occur, which we shall see.

I will stick to the N9 until it dies on me, and my n900 is always here as well to flash and mod some more. But, Windows 8, if they can get it correct cross platform wise (phone, tablet, computer, etc.) this will be a first for compatibility then, where iOS and OSX are different support systems. Only time will tell.

As far as I know that last part is not true. iOS5 is still the same OS at its core on the 3GS. That is not the case with WP7.8 and WP8. The comparison of iOS on the 3GS and the 4S is more like a comparison of WP7 tango on a 256MB ram WP and a 512MB ram WP. The 256 MB ram phone is missing some of the OS features (like fast application switching) but it is still the same OS. WP8 is not.

Older phones could have been made compatible with WP8 but MS did not go back and provide that because they did not consider it worth their time, to offer that kind of older device support would be harder for them, in some ways I don't blame them but at the same time I can see why those who bought a Lumia 900 recently are understandably upset.

Do your research buddy:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/...ows-core/12975

There is a reason 7.8 cannot be 8.

Edit: Also, according to some engineering buddies at Apple, iOS5 for 3gs was NOT the same as iOS5 for 4/4s...they had to serverly tweak it down due to nonmulticore support, almost different entirely...hardware support was not there...

What do you mean? that actually confirms it.

There is a core change but nothing stops the new windows kernel/core from supporting older hardware other than invested time developing it.

Not if CE is involved, the switch to NT prevents this on the MS platform. Engineering 101.

The switch to the NT core will replace CE. So the fact that a phone is currently running CE is irrelevant, that's the point. It's like suggesting that I need to buy a new PC to install a new OS like Ubuntu 12 (Linux kernel) because my current one has Windows 7 (Windows NT4) installed. Why? it can replace it.

The only possible reason that would be true is if the new Linux kernel and driver developers did not bother to support my older hardware as they deemed it as not worth it.

I've also just come to the realisation that I have wasted way too much time on this thread.