After unveiling Windows Phone 8.1 at its BUILD 2014 conference Microsoft said that the update will be released over the summer. In April the company released Windows Phone 8.1 developer preview, which anyone with a supported WP device can download without any major problems. Still the general public release is awaited by those who don’t wish to go through that trouble. The company has now confirmed that it will start Windows Phone 8.1 support from June 24th.
This means that a public release may very well take place in June, as was recently rumored. Microsoft has already confirmed the end of support date for Windows Phone 8.1, which is July 11th 2017. During this time the company promises to release software updates for WP8.1. That doesn’t mean each update will bring something new, it may even be for incremental bug fixes.
Even if Microsoft releases Windows Phone 8.1 in June it may not reach all users at once. Manufacturers and carriers will have say in the release time frame as well so it may take a couple of weeks after Microsoft makes the release announcement for WP8.1 to hit all supported devices out there.
Microsoft also confirmed an unfortunate bit of news for folks with smartphones running on Windows Phone 7.8. Support for this version ends on September 9th, 2014. This means that no bug fixes or security patches will be released for any devices powered by this software. Anyone still with a WP7.8 device has a few months to find a replacement in order to be fully covered by latest software.
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