Microsoft has taken the wraps of off the eventual successor of
Windows Phone 7.5, which has now been called Windows Phone 8. Before we
delve into the good news, let us give you the bad news first – none of
the existing Windows Phone devices will be able to go down the upgrade
path for Windows Phone 8. There’s lots of reasons for this, but this is
the simplest explanation we have – the new OS is such a major shift in
features and functionality that it demands a whole new architecture,
which is the same thing with what happened with Windows Mobile and
Windows Phone so long ago.
Microsoft has shifted to the NT kernel (which explains why Windows 8
will be incompatible with previous incarnations of the OS) which
basically means developers will now be able to code apps for both the
desktop and mobile version of Windows 8 – Windows Phone 8 will share a
majority of the structure of Windows 8 (kernel, file system, media
foundation, device drivers, etc.).
Other new features for the new mobile OS will be support for multiple
cores – up to 64, in fact – so you won’t have to be content with the
single core processor limitation on Windows 7.5. Windows Phone 8 will
also have support for 3 display resolutions, which means that
manufacturers now have the option to pair their devices with higher
resolution screens and not worry about their designs and hardware being
hobbled by the limitation on the OS.
The overall look and feel of the Metro UI will also change on the new
OS – basically there will be tweaks on how the tiles look – there will
now be three sizes of tiles – small, medium and large – that’ll help
streamline how efficiently the tiles convey the necessary information to
its users.
Source: Microsoft
