Edible Apple

A week behind on this, but in case you missed it, updates for Windows Phone 7 devices aren’t going as planned.

Ars Technica reported recently:

Microsoft started rolling out the first update to Windows Phone 7. The company was non-specific about the purpose of the update; it’s not the copy-and-paste update that will be shipped next month, but rather an update to somehow improve the update process. Presumably to ensure that the company can keep on top of any issues that arise, the patch’s roll-out has been staggered; none of the handsets I have in hand have shown the update to be available, but many others have installed it already.

Sounds simple. Except it doesn’t actually work. The two Samsung handsets on the market—the Omnia 7 and possibly the Focus (which are, or were, my pick of the Windows Phone 7 crop, thanks to the way their AMOLED screens make the operating system look so delightful)—are both experiencing “difficulties” with installing the update. The updates are failing to install in two ways. For lucky individuals, the process merely hangs on step seven (out of ten); rebooting the phone resurrects it, albeit without the upgrade. For a minority of unlucky users, the process fails at step six, and corrupts the phone’s firmware. What’s worse is that for some of them it appears to be bricking the phone completely, rendering it useless.