The issue is the timing of this. The Nexus One was introduced in Jan 2010, ICS was released in, what, March 2012? Over two years difference. I had a Nexus One at the time, and while I was disappointed, I'd got two years of use (key point here: two years is the typical cellphone contract length) out of my phone. Not so for people who bought a Lumia 900 when it was released in April of this year.

The issue from a PR perpsective is that MS don't seem to be controlling the story here. Will WP8 apps work on 7.8? Sources are totally conflicted. Will 7.8 do multitasking? No-one knows. MS should have been all over this out of the gate- explaining exactly what 7.8 users are getting. Instead everyone is resorting to rumour and assuming the worst.

Letting people assume the worst seems perfectly rational if that worst case is actually true, and 7.8 is just a minor cosmetic upgrade. At least it means there will be some apologists around muddying the waters by claiming that 7.8 will be more significant.

Good point about the difference in timing! Who knows what info Microsoft has that we don't; but for brand-trust reasons, it seems important to update at least the Lumias to WP8, if at all technically possible.

Or at least offer vouchers (with proof, of course --which carrier would have) toward the purchase of a WP8 system so that people don't feel duped.

They should have done the upgrade like Apple. Everyone gets the upgrade, but not everyone gets all of the features of the upgrade (e.g. I got iOS 5, but not Siri).

It sounds like they're doing just this in spirit by backporting some features to Windows 7, but calling it Windows 7.8 instead of Windows 8. Marketing mistake?

No, it is different. The 3GS still can run the apps designed for iOS6 because the OS support the new APIs. It just lacks of some functions compared to the newer devices. However, the WP7 devices can no more run the apps designed for WP8 which means that the WP7 platform has been abandoned.

AFAIK it's a different codebase altogether. One's based on WinCE and the other on Windows8, so it would be misleading to imply that upgrade to 7.5 was based on Win8.

Nexus One came with Android 2.1. It got Android 2.2 and Android 2.3 - 2 pretty major versions of Android.

The Lumia 900 came with WP 7.5. And now it's not getting WP8, just some features from it. How is that the same?

You forgot 7.8 that has a significant set of features.

What are they? I've heard nothing from Microsoft aside from the fact that it's a cosmetic update on the start screen. Big deal.

There might be a little pro-Apple bias in some of the way these things are reported. We now have millions of iPod touch devices that can't be upgraded to newer versions of iOS. This is also true of older iPhones (3 and below, I believe). Nobody is crying foul over that. Yet. As app developers start, out of necessity and force, dropping support for older versions of iOS things might change.

It's important IMO to consider how long an iOS device can use the latest firmware. Once you cross the 2-3 year barrier most people are looking to upgrade anyway so they don't consider it a big deal vs. not being able to upgrade a 6 week old phone.

EX: iOS 6 comes out this fall and is backward compatible all the way to 3GS phones which came out June 19, 2009, but not 3G which came out July 11, 2008 which they stopped supporting with iOS 4.2.1 on November 22, 2010.

I have an off-contract 3GS that's working fine as a bulky iPod touch for my kid. The older 2G and iPod Touch from 2008 (ie, 4 years ago) won't support iOS6.

However, you can buy WP7 phones right now that will not be able to run the latest OS when WP8 comes out. If I were selling these things (or Nokia), I'd be pretty frustrated about that.

Why pre-announce? Osbourne effect FTL.