Microsoft Just Put Another Nail In The Coffin For Windows Phones (MSFT)

Now it's no secret that the ambitions of Microsoft's smartphones are over, and that its current Windows 10 Mobile operating system hardly has any life support.

So here is another nail in the coffin. On Monday, Microsoft announced in a blog post that no phone with Windows Phone 7.5 or earlier 8 operating systems will no longer receive push notifications. Also, the "Find my phone" function in those operating systems will no longer work.

This will not necessarily affect many users: Windows Phone 7.5 was launched for the first time in 2011 and Windows Phone 8 decreased in 2012. Despite the nomenclature, they were totally different operating systems: Windows Phone 7.5 could not be updated for Windows Phone 8 Neither operating system found a large audience at that time, and it is likely that there are not many phones that use it today, which is part of why Microsoft is currently in this suboptimal smartphone situation in the first place. .

If you are one of the few who use the latest Windows Phone 8.1, which fell in 2014, Microsoft writes that everything will continue to work as usual "at this time". The phrasing here keeps the door open that things could change in the not too distant future.

Meanwhile, Windows 10 Mobile, which was launched in 2015, is still fully compatible with Microsoft. At least, technically: while all its current features continue to work as before, Microsoft announced in October that users can only expect security patches and minor improvements, not new important features or new hardware.

So, yes, here is another milestone in the march to the tomb of Windows on smartphones.

However, hope can still emerge: it is rumored that Microsoft is working on a new folding tablet that could also function as a smartphone. However, if that device reaches the market, it surely will not execute anything that we recognize today as a Windows phone operating system.