According to Microsoft – Size Matters
Are you a Nokia Lumia 610 user? Or maybe you have another lower end Windows phone? There is nothing wrong with that. Until, that is, you want to play Angry Birds on your phone. Microsoft went on the record saying that up to 5% of the apps found in their Windows Phone Marketplace are not available for the lower end phones, specifically the ones with 256MB of RAM or less.
What’s 5%? I mean it’s tiny right? It still leaves 95% of the apps still available, and they got a phone at half the price of the average smart phone. Bring it on, thought bargain shoppers. But now, there might be some that are having second thoughts, because that 5% includes a lot of good and popular apps, such as Angry Birds and Skype.
What Were They Thinking?
Don’t believe me? Go ahead and go try to download one of the apps mentioned in this article onto your Nokia Lumia 610. I can already tell you what it will tell you, which is in the form of a notice on your screen saying “Application not Available,” and that the user needs a phone “with more RAM than the Nokia Lumia 610.” Making it sound like Microsoft and Nokia is saying, sorry but the app you want to download isn’t supported by your phone with only a measly 256MB of RAM.
But before you go on and curse Microsoft’s name, know that the ban was put in place by Nokia. The company based out of Finland put the ban on to ensure that all apps performed to their standard. Why would they do such a thing? Best guess would be that they are trying to avoid conflicts with fragmentation that Android phones have been having since the beginning. So banning the users altogether instead of seeing poor performance is the path Nokia decided to take instead.
5% Fatality Rate Not so Bad, But Who’s On the Fatality List?
Amongst the list of apps not supported is Skype’s arch nemesis and main competitor Tango Video Calls, as well as Skype itself. Angry Birds, the world’s most downloaded and played game, came as the biggest surprise to Lumia phone users who went to download and slingshot some really angry birds and found out that it wasn’t possible; making them pretty angry birds themselves no doubt. Some more big titles, such as PES (Pro Evolution Soccer) 2012, Plant Vs. Zombies, Assassins Creed and NFS: Hot Pursuit are also not available.
But, not to worry, Rovio, the creator of the bird slinging phenomenon, is working on bringing their app to low RAM phones saying that the Rovio team is currently working on Angry Birds Lumia 610 for the optimized version. It is not yet available to the public, but they say they’ve known about this and will let us all know when its ready.
If Rovio is already working on it, then it is safe to assume the other 5% of applications not compatible with the Nokia Lumia, are working on fixing their little RAM issue too? If so, Skype may be on that list, especially since Microsoft has bought out a piece of Skype recently. We can probably expect to see a speedy solution being delivered to Lumia users, at least on the most popular ones.
A Solution On the Horizon
A whole 5 percent may not be a lot, but that small percentage contains many popular applications. Not fixing these problems would be detrimental to Microsoft, because it would provide a lack luster experience for its users and would prevent users from downloading the apps that help sell the OS. Although anything is possible, it is highly unlikely that Microsoft will turn around and kick itself in the teeth by not fixing this little problem.
While this situation is frustrating for the time being for Nokia Lumia users, and other Microsoft users with low RAM, it is likely that the situation will be pretty temporary. So hang tight Lumia, and other low RAM Window’s phone users, there is hope for you yet that you’ll soon be back shooting at those Angry Birds. Then just pretend that those birds are Microsoft executives, and they just took away your favorite game, oh that’s right, they already did that!
