Thurrott Daily: December 3

Good morning. Here are some other things that are happening today.

15/12/03 9:58:06 AM

Support for Windows 10 Mobile ends in 2018

The Microsoft product support lifecycle site has been updated to include information about Windows 10 Mobile. And it gets two years, not ten like the desktop versions of Windows. So mainstream support for Windows 10 Mobile for both consumers and business ends on January 9, 2018.

Microsoft will make updates available for the Operating System, including security updates, for a minimum of 24 months after the lifecycle start date. These updates will be incremental, with each update built on the update that preceded it. Customers need to install each update in order to remain supported. The distribution of these incremental updates may be controlled by the mobile operator or the phone manufacturer from which you purchased your phone, and installation will require that your phone have any prior updates. Update availability will also vary by country, region, and hardware capabilities.

Microsoft trying to “ease the upgrade process” for Windows 10

And seriously, aren’t we all just a bit worried that’s really a euphemism for “jam it onto your PC whether you want it or not”?

Microsoft this week released Windows Updates for Windows 7 and 8.1, respectively, that do the same thing: “Enable support for additional upgrade scenarios, and provide a smoother experience when you have to retry an operating system upgrade because of certain failure conditions.” The updates also improve “the ability of Microsoft to monitor the quality of the upgrade experience.”

What does this mean in real life? Nothing, really. It seems they’ve found a few bugs that are preventing upgrades, and remember, the number one support question Microsoft gets about Windows 10, supposedly, is from people who want to do the upgrade but can’t.

Nokia will finalize sale of HERE tomorrow

Nokia announced this morning that it will close its sale of the HERE location and navigation apps to a consortium of German car makers tomorrow, ahead of schedule.

Nokia … now expects to complete the sale of HERE to a consortium of leading automotive companies, comprising AUDI AG, BMW Group and Daimler AG, ahead of schedule on December 4, 2015. Nokia earlier expected the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2016.

HERE is a leader in navigation, mapping and location experiences. We build high-definition (HD) maps and combine them with cloud technology to enable rich, real time location experiences in a broad range of connected devices – from smartphones and tablets to wearables and vehicles. To learn more about HERE, including our work in the areas of connected and automated driving, visit http://360.here.com

I’m sure this has NOTHING to do with HERE apps disappearing on Windows 10 Mobile.

Steve Jobs movie tanked … because this is not an interesting story

The New York Times (Style section, no less) offers some commentary about the “Steve Jobs” movie flop. You should read it, because this author really gets what’s going on here: Apple fanatics want to rewrite history and will do anything they can to prevent the truth of this man from getting out.

Before the film’s release … a high-tech investor and self-appointed custodian of the technology scene, emailed prominent people in the industry and implored them not to support the film because he thought it portrayed Mr. Jobs in a disrespectful and unflattering light.

So it portrayed him accurately then.

Marc Andreessen, a high-profile venture capitalist known for his voluble Twitter account, followed suit. “The Steve Jobs ‘biopic’ is deliberately fabricated nonsense,” he tweeted.

Or, as one might call it, “a movie.”

And perhaps not surprisingly, those who benefited most from their close relationships to Jobs over the years also dumped on the movie.

the truth is, there will never be a Steve Jobs movie that could ever satisfy the tech media and Apple worshipers.

Exactly.

Here’s the thing. The Steve Jobs story simply isn’t interesting to anyone beyond the Apple goobers who worship this very flawed individual. He was a bad person, but whatever: Making a movie that revolves around three product launches—two of which, the original Mac and the NeXT computer, failed in the market place—is just not very interesting.