Windows Phone 8 Officially Unveiled

64 cores by 0123456 · 2012-06-20 06:04 · Score: 5, Funny

Now I can buy a Windows Phone to warm my hands on in the winter.

Re:64 cores by kthreadd · 2012-06-20 06:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

Or just Flash.
Re:64 cores by s_p_oneil · 2012-06-20 06:50 · Score: 4, Funny

It would get way too hot for that. You could use the excess heat to generate enough electricity to power your laptop. Then you could use your laptop to warm your hands.
Re:64 cores by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-06-20 07:01 · Score: 5, Funny

Da fuck did I just read?
Re:64 cores by nschubach · 2012-06-20 07:03 · Score: 4, Informative

But Flash is single threaded!

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Re:64 cores by Penguinisto · 2012-06-20 07:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

...up to 64 cores, certainly.
On just one core? Sorry - you get to buy a new phone.
I'm wondering how they're going to avoid the Osbourne Effect on all the existing Nokia gear out there now, especially at a time when Nokia really, really, really needs the sales.

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Re:64 cores by Guspaz · 2012-06-20 07:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's worth noting that the Lumia 900 came out five months ago... My response to people who complain about Apple dropping iOS support for old hardware is that Android has even shorter support periods, but this takes the cake. They didn't even make it half a year before announcing they're dropping support for it...
On the one hand I wonder if Microsoft can afford to snub the few customers they have, what with WP7's tiny marketshare, but that got me thinking, maybe they see the tiny marketshare as the reason they can afford to snub the people: they don't have much to lose if they alienate existing customers if they can capture a respectable marketshare with WP8?

Why such a low maximum resolution? by h4rr4r · 2012-06-20 06:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

Why would you limit the max res like that?

Why not design it to scale from the very beginning so you don't have to hack it on later?

Why they could not support smp from the beginning had me wondering as well.

Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-06-20 06:12 · Score: 4, Informative

Why would you limit the max res like that? Why not design it to scale from the very beginning so you don't have to hack it on later?

It's mainly to make things easier for app developers so that they have specific resolutions to target. Much like the iOS ecosystem.
Arguably, this made more sense back when there was just one resolution, less so when there are three...
Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by h4rr4r · 2012-06-20 06:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

I still don't really get this. If I was put in charge of such a thing, I would be looking at making everything 2d SVGs or similar. So long as the ratios stay fairly similar it should not be such a huge deal to support a lot of different display sizes.
Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-06-20 06:19 · Score: 5, Informative

You're probably not a designer - these guys are crazy about things being pixel perfect, which can be hard to achieve with vector graphics. Apple does the same thing here.
For Metro, though, it makes less sense due to its emphasis on simple flat shapes and typography over colorful icons. Yes, personally, I also don't see much point in not using vector graphics for a Metro app and having it scale seamlessly. And the UI framework already has flexible layouts and such, so really there's no excuse to not make it all scale nicely.
Interestingly enough, there is no set of predefined resolutions for Win8 Metro. So there isn't much consistency here. I hope that WP would eventually follow the big brother, of course.
Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by Samantha+Wright · 2012-06-20 06:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

The irony is that Microsoft has traditionally had really good support for vector graphics in the UI (Windows 95 was nearly resolution-independent, except for the icons.) It's only now, in the devices that are making headway into high DPI, that they screw that up!

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Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by h4rr4r · 2012-06-20 06:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

Pixel perfect positioning is brain dead. I regularly laugh at ones who attempt to do such things with webpages. PROTIP: YOUR FONTS MIGHT NOT BE MY FONTS!
WP seems very well designed to not need it. The simple tiles would scale very well to any resolution. I would have thought this forward looking design was for that very purpose.
Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by iamhassi · 2012-06-20 06:22 · Score: 5, Informative

Why would you limit the max res like that?
to make us buy windows phone 9 supporting HD in 2013/14... which probably won't work on current windows phone 8 devices.

Sorry M$, everything was good until " Windows Phone 8 won't be coming to current Windows Phone devices". A 2009 iPhone runs 2012 iOS 5.1.1, and I have to tell you it's been pretty nice not having to throw away my phone every time a new OS comes out and being able to download the "latest and greatest" apps because everything new works on my old phone. After all, it's a phone first, not a PC, I don't like the idea of having to throw out my phone with all my contacts and info and all the cases and chargers and everything I've spent supporting it. I don't mind the constant upgrades on a PC, that's the nature of the beast, but I don't want to go through the same mess with my phone. Oh, and my 2009 iPhone will support 2013 iOS 6. Wow, say what you want about Apple, but sometimes they just get it.

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Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by h4rr4r · 2012-06-20 06:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

The SVGs only need to be turned into rasters at install time, storage is cheap. The display resolution is not going to change after that.
Try less trolling and more thinking.
Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by h4rr4r · 2012-06-20 06:26 · Score: 4, Informative

To make it even faster you can generate the ones for common display sizes at build time. The device can even delete the files that do not match resolutions it supports during install to save local storage space.
Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by rtfa-troll · 2012-06-20 06:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

Why does M$ do any of the dumb shit they do?
Because Balmer is fat and sweaty and touches himself at night. That's why.
Partly; yes; it's because their managment are idiots. But there's a deeper reason, and it's the reason why IBM took so long to release a decent PC in the first place and ended up having to buy in a system from MS. The are afraid of cannibalizing their main market. They want to "differentiate" from market to market. That means that the x86 tablet gets a stylus whilst the ARM tablets don't get access to tradiitional apps. That means that you will get a "Windows XX - Pro" edition which costs $2000 but is the only way to get some of the "power user" features.
When Apple came out with one phone which did everything for everybody, suddenly you could just add a rubber cover and use your business phone (which needed a calendar) for sport (where you need non-scratch glass). That destroyed a whole market which was used to providing separate phones for each different group of people. Microsoft wants to reinstate that kind of division. I expect the same success as IBM had in blocking the development of personal computers.

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Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-06-20 06:45 · Score: 4, Informative

1280 x 768 isn't common.
We're talking phones here, not desktops or netbooks. 1280x768 is pretty common for phones now (Galaxy Nexus etc).
Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by Dan+East · 2012-06-20 07:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

Further, pixel perfect positioning is less important with higher DPI. On a low res device, like 240x320, it made a big difference because you could see individual pixels so easily. Nowadays if things are fudged by a pixel or few then it's not visually apparent.
This reminds me of when everything was so lo-res it took a great deal of talent to create a 16x16 icon with a 16 color palette to portray some meaning. Every single pixel mattered, and you couldn't just take a large image and scale it down - you had to manipulate pixels individually, sometimes in non-obvious ways, to get the intended visual result. Now with 128x128 and higher resolution icons you can create them vector and just render them to whatever resolution is needed, or scale a massive image down to size, and it looks perfectly fine.

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Re:Why such a low maximum resolution? by MrHanky · 2012-06-20 07:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

64 cores is supported because it uses the NT kernel. Once you pass 300 PPI, however, there isn't all that much value in adding more pixels for a screen that's at best used to show photos and film. Perhaps if you use your phone for CAD or medical imaging or something, but you don't and you won't, ever. It's just not something anyone should care about.

Won't work on current phones? by cpu6502 · 2012-06-20 06:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

QUOTE: "Microsoft tirelessly pushed the idea that its saving grace, the Nokia Lumia 900, was the next big thing in smartphones. However, the fact that the Lumia 900..... won't be able to update will undoubtedly leave some owners of these devices feeling hung out..... Without the software update, potential customers will basically have no reason to snag a Lumia 900, a Titan II, or any other Windows Phone device for that matter, until Windows Phone 8 is available."

This move reminds me of when Apple stopped supporting PPC devices. The article says WinPh8 won't support single-core devices. I wonder why? That would be equivalent to them releasing Windows 7 and saying, "Won't support Pentium 4 or other single-cores."

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Re:Won't work on current phones? by Joce640k · 2012-06-20 06:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

Microsoft's interests don't include keeping Nokia shares high.
Quite the opposite in fact, if they really are planning to buy them.

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Re:Won't work on current phones? by Cinder6 · 2012-06-20 07:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

The difference between Apple dropping PPC support and Microsoft dropping Lumia 900 support is that Apple made the announcement 3 years in advance.

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Re:Won't work on current phones? by cpu6502 · 2012-06-20 07:59 · Score: 5, Informative

>>>It worked very well for desktop Windows - Microsoft writes the minimum requirements in order to force hardware manufacturers/OEMs to actually make powerful devices,
And this is what we call "spin". Also known as "false". With every WinOS released (except 7) Microsoft wrote the requirements to make it EASY for manufacturers to qualify with older hardware. Like when they claimed XP could run on 64 meg (but it ran like a snail). Or that Vista could run on 512 meg, but instead made my brother's new P4 PC randomly freeze for 2-3 minutes (while vista thrashed the HD swapfile). Microsoft has always *under* specced their OSes to try and boost sales for older computers that barely run the poorly-coded memory hog.
Vice-versa Apple sells hardware, so they tend to over spec their OS requirements, in order to make older machines obsolete and force an upgrade if you want the new OS (or the latest Safari or latest iTunes). Example: When I tried to upgrade to 10.4 and discovered my 400 MHz Mac was blocked by Apple ("does not meet minimum specs"). I found an online hack to override Apple's block (an illegal act under DMCA) and discovered 10.4 worked just fine on my machine. Apple was just trying to force me and others to buy new machines.

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What a lame announcement... by Foxman98 · 2012-06-20 06:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

It seems they consistantly miss the mark in what consumers want to buy. OK great, 64-cores? who cares? What features does it offer the consumers who are supposed to purchase these to make their day to day lives more productive? Easier? More connected with friends / family?

None of my friends could tell you what WVGA or WXGA is, nor do they probably care.

I live in Boston and see hundreds of of people daily using a variety of phones. I have NEVER seen a Windows phone. not once. Why? Because it makes NO sense to buy one over Android/Iphone.

Microsoft needs to figure out quickly how to incorporate features, functions and uses that NO OTHER company has thought of. Until then, they will remain completely irrelevant and if I were a stock holder in their company, leave me questioning whether all that R&D money is being spent wisely.

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Re:What a lame announcement... by Haxagon · 2012-06-20 06:19 · Score: 5, Informative

The conference was for developers, mostly. They said they weren't gonna unveil the end-user featureset that they have until closer to launch, probably to avoid what happened last time: all of the Mango features they unveiled were promptly implemented by Apple.
Re:What a lame announcement... by jimicus · 2012-06-20 07:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the iPhone is selling as quick as they can build them and Nokia's Windows phones... aren't. Apple introduce a feature and immediately figure out a way to tell the world how that feature is useful; Microsoft introduce a feature so they can tick a box.

How to kill a nonexistant marketshare.... by JImbob0i0 · 2012-06-20 06:13 · Score: 5, Interesting

FTA:

... Microsoft announced the successor to its popular Windows Phone 7 platform ... Windows Phone 8 is expected this Fall.

And FTS plus the other article there:

... Microsoft revealed that existing Windows Phone 7.5 users will receive an upgrade to Windows Phone 7.8, and not Windows Phone 8 ...

So windows phone 7 is not selling... solution! Reveal windows phone 8 due in a few months which won't run on any phone bought now.... so better not buy now!

I'm sure this is *really* going to help them sell those phones and gain some marketshare to improve on the nonexistant one they have now... but good news though! The hundreds of thousands of excellent windows phone 7.5 apps will work on windows phone 8 ....

Native code by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-06-20 06:14 · Score: 4, Informative

The most interesting point by far is arguably native code support, something that was sorely missing from WP7, and made porting apps from iOS and Android incredibly difficult (since you couldn't just share model code in C/C++ between the platforms). Not to mention the perf issues it created for games.

Re:What's the advantage of so many OSs for Phones? by Microlith · 2012-06-20 06:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

Diversity, you know. Choice. Something that's been missing from the market since Microsoft killed off virtually all of their competitors and established their monopoly.

Why can't the world of Smart Phones agree on one compatibility standard, and then everything runs fine on every device?

Well, that's what HTML5 is for, supposedly. Doesn't mean you're going to get any performance out of it though, which limits its use case. Theoretically that's the problem Java was supposed to solve, but it doesn't really seem to have panned out.

64 cores... by Junta · 2012-06-20 06:21 · Score: 5, Funny

64 cores should be enough for anyone!

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Re:What's the advantage of so many OSs for Phones? by busyqth · 2012-06-20 06:21 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm wondering what the advantage of so many different - and incompatible - OSs on Phones is. iOS, Android, Blackberry, now Windows Phone, et cetera. Each with different APP stores, different SDKs and Apps... What's the point of it all? What does it matter where a Smart Phone with hardware specs XX runs Android, iOS or Windows Phone. ---------- The whole things seems like a waste of software developers' finite resources to me...

Hey! I think you're right, and you've just given me a great idea.

As a society, we can have some sort of planning organization that decides what the specs will be, then to avoid duplication of effort in manufacturing, the planning board can arrange for the production too. With advanced scientific, statistical analysis, it shouldn't be any problem to figure out exactly how many devices need to be produced, so that we don't waste raw materials by making too many.

In fact, it seems to me like we could take this sort of centralized planning approach with pretty much any industrial product. It's really just a matter of applying scientific principles to industry for the good of society. It would eliminate waste and duplication of effort and make sure that all necessary industrial products are designed and manufactured with optimal efficiency.

Re:I'm excited by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 06:21 · Score: 4, Funny

yay i love non upgradeable phones from dying companies too! im sooo excited. i hope to get paid this week from the troll fund.

Re:it's called hype/fud by Foxman98 · 2012-06-20 06:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

There really isn't even any FUD in this lol - They haven't announced anything that's even remotely interesting.

Oh and it's not compatible with any current phones. brilliant.

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Re:microSD cards by Microlith · 2012-06-20 06:29 · Score: 5, Informative

No, they leveraged the "Secure" part of "Secure Digital" cards and had issues with some cards that weren't fully compliant since no one else really implemented the secure half. They need it for DRM, after all, and have probably come up with a workaround for it.

Re:Summary is a lie. by oiron · 2012-06-20 06:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

Which is fine, except for the marketing.

Apple, on the other hand, says "Oh of course the 3GS runs iOS 6. Some features may not work though...". The version number is meaningless...

What this does is to cannibalize WP7 sales in favour of a not-yet-even-remotely-released WP8!

Re:microSD cards by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 07:41 · Score: 5, Informative

What does "better support for microSD cards" mean? Were they having problems with reliable reads/writes?

Not quite - they were having problems using them in a way that's sensible:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831

In short, once you put an SD card into a WP7 phone you can't take it out (or the phone won't boot) and you can't read it on any other devices. Each card model also needed to be "certified" before use.

Popular? by joek1010 · 2012-06-20 08:35 · Score: 5, Funny

Microsoft announced the successor to its popular Windows Phone 7 platform

Wait, what?

Slashdot Mirror

Windows Phone 8 Officially Unveiled

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