Boy, the Windows Phone situation is fast becoming, shall we say, a bit foggy. Even though Microsoft has made no secret of its commitment to Windows Phone partners, the companies have been rather quiet on the Nokia acquisition.
It is probably the fact that all three remaining partners (HTC, Samsung and Huawei) have Android and other interests as well, but so far it is unclear whether the Nokia acquisition by Microsoft will affect the future plans of these companies.
Vodafone customers, however, have one thing clear — those who own the HTC 8X will not be getting the anticipated (and awaited) Windows Phone 8 GDR2 update anymore.
As WMPowerUser reveals, the Australian carrier has recently issued an official announcement on its website, which makes it clear that:
“HTC have advised they won’t be releasing this update. Any future updates will be announced as we hear of them.”
Now whether this change of heart from HTC has anything to do with Nokia’s acquisition by Microsoft or due to technical reasons is not currently known. But this is an important update to the platform, which users will ultimately miss out on, it seems.
In fact, this cancelled update was actually approved by the carrier in late July, and Vodafone Australia was said to be waiting for the rollout to begin. As things stand, it will not happen anymore.
We may yet find out the story behind the curtains, but for now the consumers are the ones that are on the losing side. And it will be interesting to see where things stand for Windows Phone 8 GDR3 update that is on track to go live in just a month or so.
All Comments
The Windows Phone 7.8 legacy continues. Owners are hung out to dry by both Microsoft and the hardware vendors. Orphans we are, but I have learned my lesson — there is no new Windows Phone in my future…
That’s a common sentiment among Windows Phone owners.
Thanks for the comment…
@Ammalgam:disqus, with Windows 7.x owners, yes. But this has to do with HTC screwing its customers this time … not MS. I’ll tell you, I’ll never ever buy another HTC product in my life.
But here’s the problem, the HTC Windows phone is the sexiest one of them all…
Oh, what I could say about getting screwed by the sexiest … but I digress. LOL!
Point well taken lol…
I thought about an HTC, but I’ve changed my mind. I have been getting a lot of bad reports about HTC and it’s products as I research my next phone.
Every phones are in similar situation. My android phone is still using version 2.2 and no way Google is going to let me upgrade my phone to 4.3. It’s hardware limitation and I won’t blame Google. Why should you blame MS for not able to upgrade your phone?
In that case it makes sense. But if Google were to say you can’t upgrade from 4.2 to 4.3 would make no sense. I can understand not going from 2.2 or 3.1 to 4.3. I don’t like it, but I understand companies have to make money and some vendors are barely supporting certain models of phone anymore.
Probably upgrade to 4.3 is a bit too much. But I can’t upgrade from 2.2 to 2.3. Will it make you feel better? 🙂
What HTC doesn’t realize though is that they are leaving their potential customers out to dry. I would be very disappointed in this and it would make me want to switch over to Nokia too, or if I went with an Android, Motorola or Samsung.
Yeah but it must be tough to be HTC as well. They have to try and make money and to them this whole thing must seem like a really big mess.
HTC is going out of business. Everyone keeps saying it would take MS forever to catch Google in smartphone. No one is going to catch Samsung on the Android side either, and HTC has been trying since they both starting coming out with Droid phones. This is just plain stupid. I don’t think you can completely blame Microsoft phone on this one, but I do think they need to have a standard, and it needs to be part of their deals with vendors and carriers. Companies make phones. Microsoft makes software. Carriers provide the service, and among the 3 they market and come up with deals to sell the products. Why should consumers be held up by one of those three because they decide that the a phone on a certain carrier or from a certain vendor will either have a feature disabled or can only be updated so far. I get the argument of not letting a phone be upgraded from one software version to the next, but not allowing a minor update or a sub-version makes no sense at all.
Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Maybe this is a pre-cursor to them going ahead and making that WP Blue version of the HTC One and simply focusing on that more than the HTC 8X