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Surface RT Devices Won't Get Windows 10
whoever57 writes: In its announcement of Windows 10, Microsoft indicated not all devices would get the updated operating system. Now, Microsoft says its Surface devices running Windows RT won't be receiving full updates, though it does plan to roll some new functionality into them. "Given that Windows RT and RT 8.1 were designed for power economizing devices sporting 32-bit ARM architecture, and never had the same functionality — to many users' frustration — as full-blown Windows 8 and 8.1, it comes as little surprise that the RT versions of the operating system should be left out of the latest update loop. In fact, a week before Microsoft's big Windows 10 reveal on January 21, the company released firmware updates for all three models of its Intel-powered Surface Pro series, but neither of the ARM-based Surface tablets — the Surface 2 or Surface RT — received any new updates this month." The Surface Pro line of tablets, which run a normal version of Windows, will be getting an update to Windows 10.
That isn't strictly true, unless you ignore the fact that x86s are available(what they'd cost if Intel weren't attempting to buy marketshare might be less exciting) at more or less the same power envelope as the punchier ARM SoCs. They still have nothing on the low end of what ARM can do; but that hardly matters for phones and tablets.
Windows/x86 devices are pretty common in similar sizes and prices to Android or iOS on ARM(and, actually, some Android/x86 devices are virtually indistinguishable from a Windows/x86 device from the same vendor until powered up). There is also still the more-or-less-complete-NT; but somewhat different UI and application layer in WP8, which isn't being axed.
I'm not sure why anyone would mourn the worthless abortion that was Windows RT. All the cruft of full Win8(more, in fact, since the 'WIMBoot' feature never made it over there), including a full desktop because they couldn't be bothered to port Office to their own new UI; but with pointless cryptographic lockdown to the wonderful world of a mostly impoverished app store. All with the mediocrity of a Tegra3, and at relatively modest savings over a real computer! What's not to love?
If they actually wanted to have a go at making NT multi-architecture again, that'd be one thing; but taking pretty much all of Windows 8, then gimping it just because you have a hard-on for Apple's app store success? An idea that stupid deserves death.
You are completely full of shit. Somehow, Microsoft supporting multiple hardware platforms magically becomes Microsoft restricting hardware platforms! It's like you live in bizarro-land.
NT was built on MIPS, then later ported to x86 and other platforms. MIPS failed in the marketplace, so Microsoft *did what customers wanted* and stopped supporting MIPS.
Microsoft ported NT to Alpha, because that looked like the next big platform (in workstations and servers). Alpha was ridiculously expensive, both to buy and to run, and Intel advanced their processor tech enough that Intel matched and then beat Alpha performance. So customers only wanted to x86 machines. So what did EVIL MICROSOFT do? They stopped wasting time on Alpha, because the market wanted x86.
When Intel developed Itanium, which was supposed to be the Next Big Thing, Microsoft supported that 100% in Windows. Microsoft fixed all of its 32-bit-vs-64-bit bugs in Windows and in the main server apps (SQL, etc.), and supported and sold these products on Itanium. How is that restricting choice??
When AMD developed AMD64, Microsoft worked with AMD to port Windows to it. Mind you, Microsoft had to be secretive, because publicly they were still committed to Itanium, and Intel really did not want a competitor. AMD64 would never have reached the market unless Microsoft had ported Windows to run on it. You literally have Microsoft to thank for desktop 64-bit computing -- without Microsoft, AMD never would have had the support to push a new x64 chip design, and Intel would not have been forced to change their own designs to match.
"When Microsoft dominated they pushed developers towards non-cross platform development" God, you're insane. Microsoft pushed non-platform development in the sense that they pushed *THEIR OWN PLATFORM*. What the fuck is wrong with that?? I don't see Linus pushing cross-platform development across Mac, Linux, and Windows -- he pushes development on Linux, and nothing else! What the fuck is wrong with that?