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More Windows Phone Update Problems
angry tapir writes "Yet another problem has cropped up preventing some Windows Phone 7 users from getting two software updates, adding a new chapter to the update saga that started in February."
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"If you have time to rigorously test only one component of your software platform, make sure it's the update functionality."
Words to live by.
It's quite obvious that Microsoft is astro-turfing heavily. They like to get a couple of these in early on every story. They're getting a little bit better, but phrases like "What is great about WP7 is its support for developers." are easily identifiable as marketing drone speech.
Most likely they have a bunch of evangelists and/or subcontractors whose only job is to monitor and comment on tech sites; the debacle when Vista marketing got run over by the realitytrain made it quite obvious how expensive it could be to lose control over the narrative.
And with windows phone being a warmed over windows mobile they certainly have their job cut out for them...
Jebsus man the shill factor on that comment went over 9000. You posted a press release style 3 paragraph comment the same time as the article (8:21). You set a preemptive attack on the hardware manufacturers. A strawman against Apple. Then out of nowhere a plug for developers on a developers forum again with the preemptive against 'haters'.
Is obvious shill obvious? Comment below!
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
I have a Focus with AT&T. Update came through fine for me last week, and overall I am quite pleased with it.
One of the little publicized problems related to the Focus was its issues with music playback. You could start a playlist, turn the phone "off" (sleep mode), and some random number of songs into the list, there would be stuttering and sometimes crashing on a track change. This was a very annoying problem for someone who had come from a Zune HD and was hoping to migrate all my music over to my new phone and enjoy a seamless experience.
Well, that problem has been fixed, completely. I thought the problem was some hardware issue brought on by Samsung's use of cheap memory, or some such permanent issue, but apparently the engineers at Samsung and Microsoft (and perhaps AT&T) got together and fixed this major issue. So I am extending major kudos to MS and Samsung for taking this problem seriously and fixing it.
Also, the rest of the update is good too: Copy & Paste works great, the Marketplace is improved, and the unit just feels more responsive. While I was once a despairing user of WP7 and the Samsung Focus, I can now fully recommend this product to anyone who wants a powerful yet easy-to-use smartphone.
it means that all those WP7 developers might have the latest, coolest, Silverlight based .NET development tools, but once something doesn't work the way the pointy-clicky development environment says it will, they're pretty much clueless.
It means that they can't get an update to work on a handful of phone models running 1 version of the software. (think what would have happened if they had the hundreds of models that Android has been released on).
It means that dumbing down development only leads to very poor engineering practices. Most of the time you don't notice, but when you need that old-style expertise, you really miss it.
Yes, I get the point, but in my experience this is one of the worst things about the Microsoft stack, by far. I've got no problem sharing infrastructure at the CLR level, but once you go beyond that to try to make applications written for one paradigm fit anywhere the CLR is, you end up with an unholy mess. The "integration" doesn't make things easier, it just forces you into one colossal fuckup instead of a more sensible approach of platform-specific front-ends over a portable base.
Microsoft's approach to web frameworks is an ideal example of this. They tried to make developing a website like developing a desktop application; and web forms, postbacks, and all of that gigantic mountain of failure was the result. ASP.NET development is about as far away from the architectural principles of the web as you can get without dumping the technology altogether and using plugins instead. They tried to abstract away HTTP when it's one of the most fundamental parts of the web, they did a shitty, incomplete job because the architecture of the web and traditional desktop applications are entirely different, and they ended up with a failure that they are now attempting to replace altogether.
So when somebody comes along and says that they are making a game that can be "web-based" because Silverlight's integration lets them do that easily, my immediate reaction is that it's not "an interesting move", it's a continuation of the same terrible fucked up attitude that Microsoft don't show any real signs of shaking. Hence the question - is this actually a web-based game - i.e. does Silverlight's "integration" really deliver, or is it the same old fuckup they always come out with?
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha