From InfoWorld: Windows Phone 8.1, expected to launch in the spring, will be backwards compatible to Windows Phone 8.0, contrary to some earlier reports from industry sources, a Microsoft official told Computerworld today.
That means that smartphones running Windows Phone 8.0 will be able to run the updated version, assuming that the user's wireless carrier has distributed the 8.1 update to its customers.
"We will not have the same experience as we had when Windows Phone 7 was upgraded to Windows Phone 8," Greg Sullivan, Windows Phone director of public relations at Microsoft, said in an interview Wednesday at the International CES show here.
Users of Windows Phone 7 devices were upset that they could not upgrade their devices to Windows Phone 8, or WP8, when it was unveiled more than a year ago. Sullivan said that unlike Windows 7, WP8 is a "powerful OS" that can support upgrades. "We won't run out of head space on Windows Phone 8 any time soon," he said.
Microsoft has a policy of supporting updates for 36 months on a device, Sullivan said.
In late October, officials at three software vendors that work with Windows Phone products told Computerworld they were worried that WP8-based smartphones may not be upgradeable to the 8.1 version. They based their concerns partly on price cuts for Windows Phone 8 smartphones made by Nokia, Samsung, and others, and slower than expected sales of such devices.
At the time, Microsoft wouldn't comment on its upgrade plans, though Nokia indicated that its Lumia 1020 and Lumia 520 smartphones would indeed be upgradeable to 8.1.
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