Microsoft 'fesses up to Windows Phone 8 reboot bug Windows Phone 8 users frustrated by their handsets' tendency to randomly reboot will soon be offered relief, after Redmond 'fessed up to the existence of a problem and promised a patch. Microsoft let it be known to The Wall Street Journal that it is “continuing to investigate some reports of phones rebooting and have …
At least they are man enough to own up to a problem unlike some others.
I can't recall the number of times I have read "Cuppertino we're unavailable for comment"
Fanboi's will go on about iOS Maps now, but be realistic, that is the first time Apple have ever admitted to poor design or a mistake.
"Fanboi's will go on about iOS Maps now, but be realistic, that is the first time Apple have ever admitted to poor design or a mistake."
I seem to recall some sackcloth and ashes over that horrible round "hockey puck" mouse, followed quickly on by a redesign that put a divot on the mouse button. I had one of those dreadful things. Simply awful.
They also knocked something like $5,000 off the price of the Twentieth Anniversary Mac and gave folks who had been dumb enough to pay full price for them a "free" PowerBook, which might not be admitting to a mistake in so many words but sure sounds like it to me.
Did Apple ever publicly fess up to how bad Mobile Me was? We all know that it was terrible, and we all know that Jobs ranted on endlessly at the hapless Apple droids who'd built it, but I'm not sure they ever apologised for taking the peoples' hard earned cash and wasting it for them...
One big thing that Microsoft have over Google. They can fix this bug and issue a patch to everyone's handset, and the whole thing can be over and done with easily enough. Google are still in the position of having to get the non-Nexus manufacturers and all the network operators to process their updates which can take ages (if they ever happen at all). At least their poxy calendar bug has happened in a relatively fresh version of Android to so all their partners are probably moderately motivated to issue the fix.
MS looked at the mess Android gets itself into with updates and decided that that would commercially limiting. Quite right to. WinPhone has a built update mechanism that works just like the one in desktop Windows, so MS can at least push out updates to everyone all at once.
Whatever one thinks of Android and WinPhone, MS have the ability to push continuous improvements out to all users. Whereas Android users are often left in the lurch by their network operators and handset manufacturers.
If they get it right MS can get their all customers thinking 'Yeah, that WinPhone8 got better and better with every update, perhaps I'll buy another one'. Whereas Android users are still likely to be left wondering whether any of the faults will ever get fixed.
That is causing some worry at Google who are seemingly trying to find some way of rectifying this situation. It's OK if you've a Nexus something-or-other, otherwise it's poor whole-ownership experience at the moment.
"WinPhone has a built update mechanism that works just like the one in desktop Windows, so MS can at least push out updates to everyone all at once."
No, they can't. Nokia had this in Symbian for years (as the common phrase goes), and it didn't help timely delivery of updates. Any update of a carrier-branded device requires the carrier to approve the software first.
This is the Android problem too, but on Android there's an additional delay before approval where the manufacturer has to re-customise and re-qualify the new Android release. Google's novel interpretation of "open source" makes this process very difficult, as everyone except the current most-favoured-manufacturer is kept completely in the dark until the OS is released. A true open-source OS would allow manufacturers to keep custom versions in sync with the "vanilla" development, so they would be able to release at the same time.
"That is causing some worry at Google who are seemingly trying to find some way of rectifying this situation."
I'd like to think so, but I doubt they will. What is more likely is that they will simply try and stop the situation recurring in future, meaning that the fragmentation issue continues until the vast legacy of Gingerbread handsets are eventually discarded. To my mind that's not "rectifying the situation".
There's plenty of things Google could already have done. Two measures in particular: require selected larger makers to go back and issue updates for big selling Gingerbread phones of the past year or two eg the Samsung Galaxy Ace, and others like it, reducing the fragmentation problem. Meanwhile they needed to have a quiet word with the networks to tell them that they can brand away to their hearts content, but not in any manner that delays phone updates (fixing the slow updates).
Having said that, how unhappy are those Gingerbread users? Most of them bought a phone, and unlike the commentards round here, neither know nor care what version of Android it uses.
Never gonna happen.
The carriers are too interested in you buying another brick, as that is how the carrier view the phones. Just another revenue opportunity for them.
After all, if it isn't broke, why fix it.
Perhaps the author and most commentards will be to young to remember the dark ages of running Windows on one's personal computing devices. In those primitive times, it was normal recommended practice for one to switch their devices off and on again periodically - in order to keep them functioning. The procedure was known in technical circles as "to power cycle".
It appear that the Microsoft corporation has incorporated some form of automatic power cycle (APC?) into their latest offering. Talk about progress! This has to be Windows Phone 8's "killer feature"
That's odd as I've seen people on Apple forums recommend regular restarts of the iPhone.
To put things into context even though Windows Phone 8 just looks like another release it's actually a big change underneath. Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile before it were running on Windows CE which has been the main mobile/embedded platform for over a decade. WP8 has switched to the full Windows kernel and so is a big change.
Personally I've seen no issue with reboots, although from what I have read it could be an issue with the WP7.x compatibility layer as a couple of old apps do seen to be causing problems.
A Microsoft spokesman today admitted their mobile phone department, Nokia, had indeed made a bright yellow version of their unpopular new WP8 handsets which "was affecting a small number of users and is being investigated as we speak". Microsoft are claiming that none of these have been reported in the wild, and a "small batch" was issued to journalists and reviewers on the strict understanding they would only be used for imaging purposes along with reviews, and no member of the public would ever be put in danger by making contact with one.
I'm actually glad to hear that this has been recognised and is being fixed. I noticed my Lumia 920 has been rebooting itself very randomly. Today it was an hour into a meeting when I checked my phone and put it on the desk, a few minutes later it just rebooted. Yesterday it was in the evening when I got home and plugged the phone in.
I reckoned the problem was to do with memory handling around music play. I noticed that the phone glitches if you're playing music and you try to make a call. It then promptly has a bit of a fit until you reboot it.
On behalf of microsoft I'd like to extend our grateful thanks to you, one of our valued beta testers. The feedback you provide saves us a fortune in R&D, and so makes us able to spend more on faking the photos it takes, paying people to stand in line pretending they are customers and of course continuing the valuable marketing work of astroturfing blogs and forums.
"Windows Phone 8 users frustrated by their handsets' tendency to randomly reboot will soon be offered relief, after Redmond 'fessed up to the existence of a problem and promised a patch.
Yea, it's not as if the software companies defective design was to blame, only user frustration ...
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