14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile aren’t necessarily the best mobile platforms to use these days, but this doesn’t mean that all users have jumped ship to Android and iOS.
Unfortunately, it looks like those who are still using Windows Phone 8.1 can no longer download new app versions from the Microsoft Store, as a bug is plaguing updates, according to one developer.
@poppyto, who is the maker of the Tubecast app for Windows phones, claims the Microsoft Store has been experiencing this issue for the past three weeks, and until now, the software giant hasn’t shown any sign of at least trying to fix it.
“It seems WP8.1 Store is dead, you can't download new app versions since 3 weeks and @MicrosoftStore don't want to or can't fix. I thought it was July 2019, Good Bye WP8.1 users ?” he said in a tweet that was published earlier today.
Going dark next year
While it’s unlikely that Microsoft killed the Microsoft Store for Windows Phone 8.1 users without a prior notice, it’s important to know that the company did announce a deadline as to when this is projected to happen.
On July 1, 2019, the software giant will officially abandon the app store for Windows Phone 8.x devices, so beyond this date, updates would indeed stop being offered to phones.
“July 1st, 2019 – Microsoft will stop distributing app updates to Windows Phone 8.x or earlier devices. You’ll still be able to publish updates to all apps (including those with Windows Phone 8.x or earlier packages). However, these updates will only be made available to Windows 10 devices,” Microsoft said recently, as per MSPU.
It remains to be seen if this is a bug or not, but given that the official Twitter account of the Microsoft Store has already responded to the tweet, there’s a chance it’s all just a problem that would be resolved soon.