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Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#661

Post by maxxxxx »

WorldMaker wrote: post #658
fpig wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They couldn't have done that because these technologies are not exactly for the same things and don't have the same features. Silverlight was mainly for apps embedded in the browser. It was very limited compared to WPF and not meant to replace it. Similarly, Metro was not meant to replace WPF. It was extremely limited in what you can do. You couldn't build serious desktop apps with that. The fact that all those techn…

The family tree seems pretty clear to me, yes, Silverlight was a sideways jag, but it wasn't originally "just" for embedding in the browser, it was a cross-platform WPF subset. (In the family tree both WPF and Silverlight, sometimes codenamed WPF/E for Everywhere, split from different goals of the original Avalon project.) I think you can tell that WinRT/Metro/UWP was/is meant to replace WPF. It used to be extremely…

You still don't have a clear path forward from WPF. I don't understand why they even needed UWP. Why not improve WPF?

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#662

Post by WorldMaker »

themacguffinman wrote: post #578
int_19h wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with UWP is that it requires Win10. This makes it a no-go for vast majority of developers targeting desktop Windows, given that Win7 is still dominant, and will be for a while to come.

Why MS didn't create a UWP emulator or wrapper for Windows 7 is beyond me. No Windows 7 compatibility is the main reason my company isn't bothering with UWP for our desktop software.

It's the same problem that you have, isn't it? You don't want to support two codebases, you just want to build your app once and have it run in two places. It costs time and development budget to maintain two different codebases, and you have to prioritize. Can you really blame Microsoft that they don't want to maintain both a modern codebase and a completely separate fork/back-port of it for a much older branch?

That said, it has been possible to share a lot of code (if not almost all of it) between a WPF and UWP app for a while now with PCLs, or after that targeting .NET Standard. That gets even easier once UWP support for .NET Standard 2.0 ships soonish. There's also been work recently on Xamarin.WPF for Xamarin's cross-platform code sharing, and the XAML Standard 1.0 work trying to converge much of the XAML across all the platforms Xamarin supports and UWP to get rid of a some of the dialectal nuances.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#664

Post by wlesieutre »

dabockster wrote: post #384
wlesieutre wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, if you're optimizing for "number of apps on our store" I bet it worked great! Why spend $100,000 developing something one app when you could get 1000 for the same price?!

> "We have millions more apps than the competition." > leaves out the fact that 99% of them are either web wrappers or low quality games This is why we have confounding factors, kids.

Even with paying out this money for shovelware they never matched up to Apple's app store numbers.

I had a Surface Pro 3 at the time and there were maybe 10 apps worth using on a touchscreen. Eventually gave up and sold it to get a Mac and iPad.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#665

Post by kuschku »

pjmlp wrote: post #659
kuschku wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No you are the one ignoring what I am saying, as apparently you are not doing Android development. Great, you could’ve checked my profile, or googled who I am, but apparently you didn’t. Spoiler: I do. A lot. > 1 - InteliJ Android plugin is not the same as Android Studio, it lags a few versions behind; Which is irrelevant, because Android Studio itself is also splittered into several versions, and many devs simply…

Ok, fare enough. You win. :)

It’s true that there are major differences between 3.0.0-beta6 and IDEA-CE, but 2.3.4 and IDEA-CE are basically the same.

And the open C++ plugin is actually the same that powers CLion (if you have CLion installed, I recommend looking at the plugin list)

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#666

Post by roryisok »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #459
roryisok wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

definitely helped. MS put a lot of effort into building a slick YouTube app and Google changed the T&Cs the week after it launched or something. Basically issued a takedown of the MS app because it didn't conform to the new standard they'd just introduced. I believe it was that third party apps had to allow ads, even though the iOS and Android apps did not.

Naw, you have it all wrong. They reversed engineered the YouTube API's and then suppressed YouTube ads. They deserved what they got for doing something that stupid and not thinking Google wouldn't find out.

have you got a link to the original story? I really thought they were following the T&Cs and then those T&Cs were changed within days

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#667

Post by OldSchoolJohnny »

pjmlp wrote: post #619
pcwalton wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Win32 is in no way less horrible than the Web. Win32 doesn't have any device-independent layout, at all. Forget about handling HiDPI sensibly. RegisterClassEx/CreateWindowEx are incredibly verbose. WndProcs are a mess compared to individual event handlers. The mishmash of COM and inconsistently named C APIs is terrible. COM involves a monstrous amount of boilerplate. COM requires you to deal with apartment threading,…

Yet I would rather take all of that than dealing with Frankenstein CSS/HTML/JavaScript programming, while making sure it is pixel perfect across all browsers and not making use of the OS features and computer hardware that made me buy it in first place, e.g. WebGL 2.0 on DX 12 GPU. Most of the issues you mention are solved in .NET, WPF and UWP. COM is a breeze to use in Delphi, MFC/ATL, .NET, C++/CX. Windows is much…

You're assumptions are outdated

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#668

Post by WorldMaker »

maxxxxx wrote: post #661
WorldMaker wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The family tree seems pretty clear to me, yes, Silverlight was a sideways jag, but it wasn't originally "just" for embedding in the browser, it was a cross-platform WPF subset. (In the family tree both WPF and Silverlight, sometimes codenamed WPF/E for Everywhere, split from different goals of the original Avalon project.) I think you can tell that WinRT/Metro/UWP was/is meant to replace WPF. It used to be extremely…

You still don't have a clear path forward from WPF. I don't understand why they even needed UWP. Why not improve WPF?

I think .NET Standard 2.0 is about the clearest path you could get forward from WPF.

> I don't understand why they even needed UWP. Why not improve WPF?

The short story: 1) To first-class support more platforms/architectures (ARM). 2) To support C/C++ and other COM developers, bringing everyone COM [WinRT] [1] and Managed (.NET) to the same table. (Microsoft still has a lot of teams invested in C/C++; it shouldn't be a surprise that they couldn't just focus on .NET and leave C/C++ devs behind.)

The full story I think is pretty fascinating, but that's the executive summary.

[1] Crazy aside: the tech still sort of known as WinRT is closer to the original goal of .NET as a COM replacement than .NET became. It's also close enough to COM that I'm still surprised no one's admitted to building a UWP Delphi or VB6 app. (Not that I'd admit to doing so if I built such a beast.)

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#669

Post by maxxxxx »

WorldMaker wrote: post #668
maxxxxx wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still don't have a clear path forward from WPF. I don't understand why they even needed UWP. Why not improve WPF?

I think .NET Standard 2.0 is about the clearest path you could get forward from WPF. > I don't understand why they even needed UWP. Why not improve WPF? The short story: 1) To first-class support more platforms/architectures (ARM). 2) To support C/C++ and other COM developers, bringing everyone COM [WinRT] [1] and Managed (.NET) to the same table. (Microsoft still has a lot of teams invested in C/C++; it shouldn't be…

That's a very charitable explanation that I find hard to accept. I think it's more that MS .Net development is organized in way that it's easy to do new stuff but hard to maintain an effort long time. In other areas they are able to make progress without breaking everything all the time. C# has stayed backwards compatible while still moving forward quickly. SQL server doesn't release a new version every 2 years that breaks old stuff.

Somehow they seem to lack leadership.

Re: Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile

#670

Post by vidarh »

emodendroket wrote: post #290
vidarh wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that his perception might explain why those numbers are so awful. It's perfectly possible for the phones to be accessible to those kind of numbers of users and still be totally unavailable in the outlets a huge proportion of potential customers would look for them. E.g. I live in the UK, and I can't remember ever having seen a Windows phone in the stores. I'm sure they're available, because I've seen people…

You seem to be implying they were much more readily available in the United States, which seems like a stretch.

I didn't imply anything about actual availability at all, but about how perceived availability matters.
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