Vodafone Australia finishes testing of Lumia updates, Microsoft promises rollout soon

Despite having been announced over a year ago and officially launched in November of 2015, Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mobile OS has not yet rolled out to devices running Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 or later.

We’ve been keeping track on Microsoft’s carrier partners to see if we could get an idea of when the update would roll out for general users and Vodafone Australia is one of the most obvious choices due to their transparency about the update process.

Since last week, they’ve listed their Windows Phone 8.1 devices as having completed testing, “now awaiting roll-out schedule”, which indicates that the OS is done being tested from their end. We believe the same is true of other carriers due to their somewhat premature announcements of Windows 10 Mobile earlier this year.

Microsoft, despite having promised to roll out the update for Windows 10 Mobile devices in December last year, has yet to fulfill its promise to users after putting Windows Phone 8.1 based devices in software limbo since late 2014.

When reached for comment on this matter, a Microsoft statement had this to say

In November 2015, we introduced Windows 10 to phones including brand new features such as Continuum and Universal Windows Apps with the introduction of the Lumia 950 and 950 XL. The Windows 10 Mobile upgrade will begin rolling out early this year to select existing Windows 8 and 8.1 phones.

There’s still no concrete timing for the update, but at least Microsoft still plans to update it “early this year” and the update is still going out to “Windows 8 and 8.1 phones” meaning that they aren’t planning to turn this into a Windows 8. RT or Windows Phone 7 situation.

Hopefully it will be done in time to make a difference for existing users and developers.