The Windows Phone Update Cycle Is Getting More Impressive By The Day

After the latest update has become available it made me think about how many times I’ve tried to get updates early…even using Canadian proxies to get them before AT&T was finally ready. So what has the update history of WP7 been so far?

Let’s recap:

Update 7.0.7008.0  improved the update process

Update 7.0.7390.0 was NoDo – copy and paste, faster app startups, better search, etc

Update 7.0.7392.0 Fix for fraudulent third-party digital certificates

Update 7.10.7720.68 was Windows Phone 7.5 /Mango with messenger integration, ringtones, linked inboxes, groups, flipping tiles, multitasking, etc etc

Update 7.10.7740.16 fixed an Exchange Server 2003 bug and voicemail notifications in some conditions

Update 7.10.8107.79 fixed the disappearing keyboard issue, Gmail syncing

So what have we learned? OK so despite Microsoft’s time and attention to detail there have been bugs found at times and significant updates to the OS as well. What’s surprising is how frequently they’ve gone to push out updates. It’s not a once a month push, but as you can see they are not sitting on fixes and just pushing out rollup updates. And if you look at the above list you’ll know that the SMS bug fix is not addressed so that’s the next known update and the next major update is Tango.  For those keeping track, as of November 22 the Chevron team was counting over 50 distinct phones because of sub-models and more phones were released since then.

To be clear, not every person received each of the above updates. Some were bundled and some didn’t apply to al phones. There were also specific phone updates on top oft hose listed though. But first generation owners updated at least 4 times by my count.

For me, I ‘m pretty impressed by this looking at it from the larger perspective. We know the Android approach to updates – wild west. And the iPhone approach means you get your update on you’re 3.5” phone and that’s the only model you’ll ever want. Windows Phones have taken an in between approach but by controlling hardware and pushing out the updates themselves from day one they have impressive control over their OS and their phones, regardless of manufacturer and carrier.

Now nothing is perfect and it’s easy to say you want more updates and the carriers are dragging their feet…let the haters hate. This is fancy stuff over here. And once MS really gets into their groove they’ll have the balls to push an OTA update.