Starting tomorrow, February 20, Microsoft will discontinue notification services for Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8.0 (via The Verge). In addition to no longer receiving notifications, these handsets will also stop receiving Live Tile updates and no longer be localizable with Microsoft’s online “Find my phone” feature.
“Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8.0 have reached their end of support dates, and thus services for these versions of Windows will be discontinued over time,” the company explained. In other words, these old Windows phones will become dumber this week, which is a bit of a shame considering that old Android phones and iPhones released around 2011 and 2012 still work fine as basic smartphones.
According to AdDuplex’s data from October 2017, the combined usage share of Windows 7.x and Windows Phone 8 represented 5.3% of the global Windows Phone user base, which is very small compared to the 73.8% usage share of Windows Phone 8.1. “Notification services will continue to function for Windows Phone 8.1 at this time, and newer phones running Windows 10 Mobile are still fully supported,” Microsoft explained.
Do you still have old Windows Phone 7.x or 8.0 handsets in your drawers, and do you know people who still use them to this day? Sound off in the comments below.