Metro app meets Windows 10. A Microsoft win? Maybe after a little improvement

Microsoft has released preview tools for the Windows 10 Universal App Platform (UAP), giving developers their first opportunity to try and build new-style Windows apps. The tools, which you can find here, require the latest tech preview of Visual Studio 2015, as well as the preview of Windows 10 itself, so it is preview on …

[IJC]

Only techies care about phone OS

Public perception on phones is not iOS or Android, it is iPhone or Samsung or LG.

Most users couldn't care less what OS their phone runs as long as they can get the apps they want. The most important feature on a phone is the logo, much like the logo on the front of a car.

If Microsoft truly wants to be successful in phones they should just make iPhone and Android apps run on Windows 10.

[dogged]

Re: Only techies care about phone OS

because that's working so well for Blackberry?

And forget about Android apps. Google won't even supply a WP version of Youtube, let alone allow MS to use their app store.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Only techies care about phone OS

"And forget about Android apps. Google won't even supply a WP version of Youtube, let alone allow MS to use their app store."

Why should that matter? Microsoft could allow third-party developers to put their Android apps on Microsoft's app store. It would then be up to Google to decide whether to risk an anti-trust suit by kicking those devs out of the Google store in revenge. Oh, and Google have spent quite a lot of time in the courts establishing that it is perfectly legal to write your own implementation of someone else's platform, so MS would be in the clear there as well.

Since apps of all flavours are several layers of abstraction/emulation above the bare metal, it is really quite surprising that MS are trying to break into the market *without* going down this route.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: Only techies care about phone OS

> Google won't even supply a WP version of Youtube,

I don't know why you think that Google should write Windows Phone apps.

WP phones and RT can access Youtube quite well - using a browser. What happened is MS wrote a Youtube app for WP that broke the Youtube terms of service, so, like every other user that disobeyed the terms of service, using that app was banned. But they can still access with the browser. MS could change its app to conform to the terms.

It seems that there still is a Youtube app for Windows Phone that is not banned, though it seems to view them in the browser.

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/youtube/dcbb1ac6-a89a-df11-a490-00237de2db9e

> let alone allow MS to use their app store.

MS _is_ using the app store. They have several apps available there such as Office, OneNote, Outlook, OneDrive, Lync, ...

What you probably meant is that Windows Phones can't access the app store (why would they at the moment). They certainly could do if they contracted with Google to install Google services on the phones. WP users _can_ access Play Store (and Google Earth and maps etc) using a browser.

So your assertions are simply wrong.

[dogged]

Re: Only techies care about phone OS

> I don't know why you think that Google should write Windows Phone apps.

I don't. However, when they don't write them and MS write them instead and then Google disbarr the MS app from their APIs, something is going on. Did MS's app "break the terms of service"? Yes, because it did not include Youtube ads because Google refused to allow MS access to their ad API.

Not that you ever admit it, but this did actually happen with the Youtube app. Twice.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: Only techies care about phone OS

> I don't. However, when they don't write them

MS has full control over their app store for WP. While Microsoft has apps on Google's Play Store (which you claimed wouldn't happen) it is less likely the MS would allow Google to put apps on WP app store. MS has already banned any other browser.

> and MS write them instead and then Google disbarr the MS app from their APIs, something is going on. Did MS's app "break the terms of service"? Yes, because it did not include Youtube ads because Google refused to allow MS access to their ad API.

Yes, what is going on is that MS want to piggy back on YouTube without ads - without the ads that pay for the service. WP users can still access using a browser (the only one allowed) and can even get a YouTube app that drives that.

> Not that you ever admit it, but this did actually happen with the Youtube app. Twice.

I don't know why you think that I have to 'admit' it. It is what _I_ said. The MS app was not barred because it was Microsoft (which was your claim) but because it broke the terms of service.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this joke abou

random truncati

still funny or hav

we moved on?

[dogged]

upvote for nostalgia.

(truncation stopped with WP7).

[Richard Plinston]

> a single project that runs on all supported platforms, which will include Windows 10 PCs, tablets, phones, Xbox One and Windows 10 IoT (Internet of Things).

Is the 'Windows 10' transitive ? It seems that these apps will not run on Windows 8 phones, nor on Windows RT (which won't get Windows 10 update). While some Windows Phone 8 phones may be able to update to Windows 10 (phone) it has been said that not all will do so. This means that, yet again, [some] Windows Phones will be left behind as new apps will not run on their devices*.

* WM6.x could not run WP7 apps, WP7 could not run WP8 apps.

[nematoad]

Looks like MS is going for the lowest common denominator.

It should be interesting to see how that works out. It's like trying to fit a quart into a pint pot. A good trick if you can pull it off.

If the new BBC News website is anything to go by there will be lots of white space, flat ugly icons, tiny fonts and a lot of confusion. Though of course anyone using Windows 8.X is used to that by now.

I don't have a smart 'phone, a tablet or any desire to go into the cloud so all this effort is doing is irritate me. But then I am, like J Clarkson a "Dinosaur" so it's not really aimed at the likes of me.

[dogged]

> The idea of identical code working on all platforms has been tried so often and just doesn't work. Pick the example of your choice, HTML and the web? Java? CP/M? Unix?

But this is about three (or four, counting the XBone) platforms that MS have absolute control over.

That hasn't been done before.

[Richard Plinston]

> The idea of identical code working on all platforms has been tried so often and just doesn't work. Pick the example of your choice, HTML and the web? Java? CP/M? Unix?

I have written COBOL systems that ran unchanged on CP/M (MP/M actually it was multiuser), DOS/Windows, Unix, Linux, and OS/2.

I have written Python/Glade/SQLite applications that ran unchanged on Windows, Linux and Nokia 800/850 (tablet/phone) several years ago.

> But this is about three (or four, counting the XBone) platforms that MS have absolute control over.

Which is nowhere near _all_ platforms. I suspect that many will be dissuaded from using this _because_ "MS have absolute control".

> That hasn't been done before.

... to your knowledge.

[Anonymous Coward]

sure I've seen most of this before

Seeing a lot of 'new' features that remind me of building Android apps a few years ago. Seems they're converging on the same solutions but using the trick IBM invented - giving them new names. Familiar right down to puzzling over exactly how relative layouts will actually layout and hand editing xml because it's easier than using the graphical editors.

Android is not well known for being good at creating desktop apps though so maybe they should look elsewhere for inspiration!

[vordan]

Reinventing hot water from the boiler

But this "Universal" platform already exists. It's called HTML5.

What Microsoft is doing is still rooted into the old way of making apps - installing them on each device, with a fat runtime engine, of which probably 80% is not being used at all..

They are praying that processors and battery capacity will catch on, since it is almost certain that a Universal App will work well od a desktop/laptop, and maybe 30 min. on a phone.

I remember Microsoft promising roughly the same thing with its .Net platform, and soon after the launch it became obvious that it can work only on full-power PCs. That's one of the reasons why MS never used it as a portable OS - sticking to WinCE instead..

I suspect that the #if compilation will come into use very often...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Reinventing hot water from the boiler

Surely a browser is also a fat runtime engine. Particularly if it's running flash.

[vordan]

Re: Reinventing hot water from the boiler

Flash has 99 problems, but being fat is not one of them.

[Irongut]

Why El Reg? Why?

Why do articles by Tim Anderson always include images with small text in them that can't be clicked on to get a readable version?

Take the first image in this article 'The Windows Core platform' - this is clearly an MS slide from some presentation and the text is tiny. I could strain my eyes trying to read it. I could go buy a magnifying glass and use that to make the text bigger. Or you could learn how to hyperlink an image to a larger version. Other articles on El Reg can manage it so why not ones written by Tim Anderson?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why El Reg? Why?

I had no problem reading the tiny text when I zoomed in on the pictures within my browser. At least he used hi-res images so they weren't fuzzy when zoomed in.