I have a Windows Phone (Lumia 710) besides my iPhone, that I bought two weeks ago. The phone itself was released in Europe in November 2011. And now it's outdated/legacy already?
It breaks trust. How would I know that if I buy a WP 8 phone that it will be supported with upgrades a year down the line?
Depends. No such criticism can be said of Android as an OS, but you could certainly make good arguments directed at the ecosystem in general. The interesting thing here isn't that the upgrade isn't compatible, it's that most people would expect Microsoft to support older systems. It's a break in their character. Maybe a good one? We'll see.
So it is delivering an update for those phones too. Additionally there is a promise to support OTA upgrade of all released devices for 18 months. What android phone has that commitment?
To the best of my knowledge, all pure Android phones have that, plus more in some cases (the Nexus line). Additionally, many of the higher-end ones from other manufacturers likely do as well.
Yes, but majority of users don't care about upgrades. Those who do care ... they usually go custom ROM route. Quite a few of my friends have cyanogenmod roms with newer android versions, since the manufacturer (htc, et al) dropped support for the device.
It breaks trust. How would I know that if I buy a WP 8 phone that it will be supported with upgrades a year down the line?