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Comment by ttrashh | Hacker News Reader

They had Windows 8. Then Windows 8.1. Now it's Windows 8.1 Update 1. (Another terrible name in a long line of terrible Microsoft product names)

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How is it any different from Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean to Android 4.4 KitKat, or Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail to Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamader to Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, or Mac OS X v10.7 Lion to Mac OS X v10.8 Mountain Lion to Mac OS X v10.9 Mavericks?

They're all the same OS (and the same OS release) with names tacked on to differentiate between minor releases.

Exactly. "Update 1" is, when spoken, shorter than "Service Pack 1" what would be the older convention for this kind of release of Windows. Moreover, the changes are supposedly bigger than what they'd allow in the old-style service packs, so it's fitting not to name it the service pack and still shorter.

Those names are consistent with each other.

In a recent book (Visual C# Step-by-Step) the author keeps making a distinction about Windows 7/8 and Windows 8.1. I suppose it's because it's relevant but I have not really researched what the differences are from 8 to 8.1.

MS probably feels they are significant enough to keep calling it "Windows 8.1" as the product name. At the same time, Update 1 might be insignificant enough that it's not worth calling it "Windows 8.2".

After all, we must conserve resources as limited as release numbers...

While I appreciate the joke, you miss the point. This has more to do with marketing strategy than with release numbers used by developers. But I don't feel like discussing such small matter.

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