Existing Windows Phone handsets may or may not get Apollo upgrade

Within hours of each other two contradicting stories have hit the web regarding the future of current Windows Phone devices.

It started with a Microsoft ‘evangelist developer' alleging that existing smartphones will be upgraded when Windows Phone 8 Apollo hits this year, unfortunately there are also sources now saying quite the opposite.

WMPoweruser started the ball rolling when it reported that Windows Phone developer Nuno Silva, who has been in direct talks with Microsoft, was interviewed by Portugese mobile site Zwame at an event in Portugal. During said interview, which is on video, Silva quite adamantly states that:

‘What Microsoft said/stated and what I'm allowed to tell you is that all actual devices will get upgrade to the next major version of Windows Phone (we´re talking about Apollo).'

To cement his assertion further, Silva clarified this as all devices 'since the first generation that were bought. The LGs and SAMSUNG's OMNIA 7 which were the first devices with Windows Phone reaching the market.'

Contradicting this is IntoMobile with ‘two independent sources,' both allegedly from inside Nokia, who claim there's no truth to Silva's statement. The Verge also has its own ‘trusted source close to Microsoft,' who reportedly says the same thing and ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley cited her anonymous sources in March with similar claims.

Microsoft has previously set the record straight when rumours suggested Windows Phone 7 apps wouldn't be compatible with future Microsoft platforms, including Windows Phone Apollo and Windows 8 for tablets and PCs.

We're not so sure about all of this, we think Microsoft would be crazy to not push the update to older phones. In relative terms, even the oldest of these current handsets are not particularly old, and when you have a demonstrably negative impact of fragmentation on Android on the one hand, and Apple doing so well with a unified system on the other, it simply makes no sense.

Cross-compatibility of apps could be argued as a workable compromise on this, however, and that has, of course, already been confirmed.

Certainly IntoMobile's push that it must be true because Eldar Murtazin said back in January this year that current phones wouldn't be updated to Apollo, is a bit difficult to buy into, because, he made the same assertions about lack of app compatibility and look how that turned out.

For the time being, Microsoft is keeping quiet about things, aside from reiterating its statement that apps will be compatible.

If this is all true, however, it's bad news for anyone who either just bought, or was about to buy, a Windows Phone 7 device, particularly one of the flashier ones from Nokia.