[rcb]

Last December I purchased an HTC Titan running 7.5 from a Microsoft Store. A couple months later, HTC released the Titan II, and not long after that, Microsoft announced my new phone was incapable of running WP8. I have never experienced such rapid technological obsolescence with any purchase.

Six months after purchasing my phone, AT&T still hadn't enabled visual voicemail, and numerous WP fixes (including several security patches) were never made available to my device. I'll blame AT&T for that, as well.

I was so disgusted by the experience that I went back to iOS, spending nearly $1300 on two mobile phones over a period of six months.

WP is a fantastic operating system, and for many reasons I do prefer it over iOS. What I did not like was the third and fourth tier app ecosystem, AT&T's interference with service upgrades and patches, and how MS sold me hardware when they knew it essentially would be EOLed with their WP8 announcement.

[microtonal]

and how MS sold me hardware when they knew it essentially would be EOLed with their WP8 announcement.

I thought this too (as a former WP 7.5 owner), but most applications still seem to support WP 7.5, and WP 7.5 phones are still being sold. I get the impression that 7.5/8 will be kept alive for quite a while for low-budget telephones. Which may not be surprising in the end, since WP 7.5 provides a good experience on pretty arcane hardware.

[sliverstorm]

I'd say HTC and AT&T sold you hardware, not MS.

[rcb]

I have the receipt in hand, and at the very top it says "Microsoft Store." I'd say my purchase was in fact from MS.

[calciphus]

Pretty sure the folks at the MS store that sold you the thing didn't know the WP8 announcement would end support for new features for your device. In fact, I'd bet that very few folks at AT&T or HTC knew. If you expect that level of "every device gets every new feature", you probably will be happier on iOS.

[sliverstorm]

Oh, I didn't realize they did that now. Sorry.