Microsoft releases “Where’s My Phone Update?” chart: we want to cry

Picture 8487Microsoft today, in what must be considered either an attempt at clarification or a perverse form of torture for Windows Phone owners, published a set of charts purporting to show the “status” of the NoDo updates by phone model (for the US), or carrier (for the rest of the world).

Using nonsense words like “testing”, “scheduling”, and “delivering updates”, with no real world time or date connections to the various update stages, the charts are of almost no value, except to show that even though Microsoft announced that updates were coming, they appear to be nowhere near delivery for all but a few phones and carriers.

We think our friend Travis said it best this afternoon in a tweet (and this was even before the charts came out):

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/harlemS/status/50633496368123905″]

The US chart shows that only the Dell Venue Pro and the HTC HD7 (from TMobile) are in the “scheduling” stage, with no phones ready to deliver updates, and with no timeline whatsoever for when the most popular US Windows Phones, the Samsung Focus and the LG Quantum will be ready to move from “testing” to “scheduling”.  Even when they do, the wait will still go on:

Stage 2: Scheduling
Operator testing is complete, and Microsoft is scheduling the update for delivery. This phase typically lasts 10 days or less.

Here’s the US Chart:

windows-phone-chart

Windows Phone owners around the world aren’t faring much better, although only phones from Australian carriers, Telefonica from Spain, and Deutsh Telecom from Germany are still “testing”, the rest are “scheduling”.

Why Microsoft seems to be insisting on making this as painful of a process as possible is beyond us.  These updates, reportedly ready since late December or January at the latest, still haven’t been tested by the carriers, some 3 months later?  As early adopters, we not only want updates to our phones, but want to see the platform succeed.  It’s hard not to feel a sense of impending doom for Windows Phone if Microsoft and the carriers can’t even get this, the most simple of updates, out the door.